Solar power station in Victoria
A big new Solar power station in Victoria is planned.
A company called Solar Systems has announced a large 154 MW photovoltaic (PV) solar power station for north-western Victoria. The A$420 million project will provide enough electricity for more than 45,000 homes. It will create jobs and will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Full completion is expected in 2013, with the first stage to be finished by 2010.
Four smaller solar power stations have already been built in central Australia.
Waldpolenz Solar Park
Waldpolenz Solar Park, is a photovoltaic (PV) power plant, to the east of Leipzig in Germany. The power plant is a 40-megawatt solar power system using new technology. It is in the Muldentalkreis district in the state of Saxony in eastern Germany. The investment cost for the Waldpolenz solar park amounts to some Euro 130 million.
Masaccio
Tommaso Guidi, better known as Masaccio, (1401 - 1428), was a famous painter of the Italian Renaissance. He worked in Florence. "Masaccio" was a nickname that meant "Fat Untidy Tom". He lived a very short life and only a few of his paintings exist, but they were so different to the style of other artists around him that they helped other painters to see things in a new way.
Masaccio was born on 21 December, 1401, in the town of San Giovanni Valdarno, in the valley of the Arno River, near Florence. He was the son of a "notary", a person who writes legal documents. His older brother became a painter and moved to Florence to the workshop of a painter called Bicci di Lorenzo. It is not known for certain, but it is thought that Masaccio may have trained at the same workshop. Masaccio's brother was nicknamed "Lo Scheggia" which means "The Splinter", so it is thought that he was a skinny as Masaccio was fat.
In 1422, when he was 21, Masaccio was already known as a painter, because he joined the "Company of Saint Luke", which was a guild that helped artists and set down the rules for their employment.
The earliest known painting by Masaccio is the "San Giovenale Triptych", dating from 1422. A "triptych" is a painting in three parts, most often used as an altarpiece. This altarpiece has in the middle panel the Virgin Mary and Christ Child on a throne. The wings, or side panels, each show two saints. Kneeling in front of the Virgin Mary are two little angels. One of the things that makes this painting different from most other paintings of the same time is that the angels are shown from the back. Their position is an invitation for the viewer to kneel down and worship the Virgin and Child as well. Masaccio used this way of making the viewer feel part of the scene in many of his paintings.
The plump solemn Baby Jesus with his fingers in his mouth, the three-dimensional look of the figures and the lack of rich decoration make this picture look very different from most other altarpieces of this time, which were painted in a style called International Gothic.
In April 1422 an event took place in Florence that was to be important in Masaccio's life. A new church was opened, and there was a grand procession and feast to celebrate. The church was Santa Maria del Carmine and Masaccio went along with his good friends, the sculptor Donatello, the architect Brunelleschi and the painter Masolino.
After the feast day, it seems that Masaccio went to Rome, probably with his friends. Brunelleschi and Donatello like to spend a lot of time poking around among the ruins of Ancient Rome. It is believed that on this trip Masaccio also spent a lot of time poking around in the ruins. What he saw were the sculptures of a previous age- more lifelike and realistic than anything that he had ever seen before. Many of the sculptures showed pocessions of figures, but each figure was different from the next, so that they all looked like real "individual" people.
When Masaccio returned to Florence he was given a job, a "commission" to paint a fresco of the procession that had taken place for the opening of the new church. Masaccio was inspired by what he had seen in Rome.
The writer Vasari, who must have seen the picture before it was destroyed in the late 1500s, wrote that the people were in rows that were five or six deep, but painted in such a way that they were all different, fat ones and thin ones, tall ones and short ones, some in long cloaks, some in big hats, and every single one was a portrait of a real person who lived in Florence at the time. And of course, Masaccio put his friends Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masolino into the picture. Luckily, several artists made drawings at some time in the 1500s, so part of the design has been recorded, even though the painting itself has gone.
In the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is an altarpiece that shows the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne. The Madonna and Child are seated on a throne, as is usual. Saint Anne, who was the mother of the Virgin Mary, is shown standing behind Mary with one hand on her daughter's shoulder and the other hand above the head of the Baby Jesus in a sign of blessing. The painting may have been done for a convent of nuns who honoured Saint Anne.
It is believed that this painting is a "collaboration"; that two artists worked on it together. It is believed by Art Historians that Masaccio painted Mary and Jesus and the angel near the top right. It is believed that Saint Anne and the other four angels were painted by Masolino.
Masolino was 17 years older than Masaccio. His name was Tommaso da Panicale, so when the two began to work together, they were known as Masaccio and Masolino, which means "Little Tom". Those are the names by which they are remembered as painters.
"The Brancacci Chapel" is a large chapel at the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine where Masaccio had previously worked painting the procession. It was sponsored by the Brancacci family who paid for its decoration. There are no written records to show why or how it happened, but it seems that Masaccio and Masolino were given the job together. At first everything went very well and then things went very badly. It looked as if the job would never be finished. In fact, it is lucky that the paintings in the chapel survived at all.
The job seems to have started in 1423 or 1424 but this is not certain. The plan of the paintings was to show firstly how Sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve. A painting by Masolino shows their disobedience in taking fruit from the forbidden tree. A painting opposite it by Masaccio shows Adam and Eve in disgrace, being chased out of the Garden of Eden. The rest of the paintings show "The Life of Saint Peter". This is because Saint Peter was the founder of the Catholic Church and the paintings were meant to show that the best way to know about God's love is through the Church.
It seems that Masaccio and Masolino happily planned a scheme of frescoes that went together is a pleasing way, even though they are in two styles. It is not hard to tell which scenes Masolino painted and which were done by Masaccio. Masolino's are prettier and more elegant. Masaccio's scenes show figures that are strong and have drapes like the statues that he saw in Rome. The thing that was most different in his painting to other artists of the same time was that the figures looked very solid and three-dimensional. He was influenced by the paintings of Giotto who had worked in Florence at the "Church of Santa Croce" nearly a hundred years earlier, but whose style of painting had given way to the International Gothic style.