Isotopes and Their Uses Free Essays

Isotopes Any of two or more forms of a chemical element, having the same number of protons in the nucleus, but having different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes. Some isotopes are unstable, especially those with a lot of neutrons compared to the number of protons in the nucleus. These isotopes tend to eject some particles, in the form of radiation, until a stable nucleus is produced; this is called the radioactive decay. We will write a custom essay sample on Isotopes and Their Uses or any similar topic only for you Order Now Four isotopes as well as their uses are mentioned subsequently. Americium: Americium is a silvery metal, which corrodes slowly in air and is soluble in acid. It has the isotopes: Am-243, Am-242 and Am-241, with a half-life of 432 years, which was the first isotope to be isolated. The isotope Am-241  decays by  emitting alpha particles and intense gamma radiation to become neptunium-237. Americium (in combination with beryllium) is also used as a neutron source in non-destructive testing of machinery and equipment, and as a thickness gauge in the glass industry. However, its most common application is as an ionization source in smoke detectors, and most of the several kilograms of americium made each year are used in this way. One gram of americium oxide provides enough active material for more than  three million  household smoke detectors. Krypton: Krypton 85 (Kr-85) is a radioisotope of krypton. It is a radioactive gas found in the atmosphere and produced by nuclear explosions, nuclear power plants, volcanoes and earthquakes. Krypton-85 is odorless, colorless and tasteless and emits low-level radiation levels of both gamma and beta rays. Krypton-85 is usually produced in gas mixtures with argon or xenon to improve the ionization in light bulbs by reducing their starting voltage. It also is used in plasma displays, spark gaps and for leak detection. Strontium: Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope, with a half-life of 28. 8 years. Sr-90 finds extensive use in medicine and industry, as a radioactive source for superficial radiotherapy of some cancers. Controlled amounts of this isotope can be used in treatment of bone cancer. As the radioactive decay of strontium-90 generates significant amount of heat, it is used as a heat ource in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, this is a device where heat released by the decay of a radioactive material is converted into electricity. It is also used as a radioactive tracer in medicine and agriculture. Thorium: Thorium-230 is a radioactive isotope of thorium, which can be used to date corals and determine ocean current flux. Ionium was a name given early in the study of radioa ctive elements to the Th-230 isotope produced in the decay chain of U-238 before it was realized that ionium and thorium are chemically identical. The symbol Io was used for this supposed element. How to cite Isotopes and Their Uses, Papers

Job Description

Question: Write a report under distinct headings explaining the steps in the recruitment process for a specific job and providing relevant material at each stage (a job advert, a c.v. etc as stated below). Answer: Source of the Job Network rail has opened up a vacancy for the post of Customer service Assistant/Mobility assistance reception. The location of the job is London. The job is in the network operation department. Its a full time job and requires expert skills. Job Description The job requires assisting in the smooth day to day running of the busy train station. The selected person would be a friendly and informed representative of the Network rail and British railway. The person would be answerable to the customers for the accurate and timely information of all the rail services. The duty would be to ensure that the trains depart the citys station on time and with full safety. The responsibility to check the users are using the station safely or not. The person should know how to face challenging situations like when the customers become frustrated due to late trains. The person has to enthusiastic and responsible. The other requirements are speaking in English, experience to work in Customer service environment, confident, willing to work in shift patterns, uncertain hours, and in bank holidays too. CV John Albert 178 Maple St. Mobile: 0400 8990 909 Ja12@gmail.com Customer Service Rep with 3 years experience in call center Objective I am a polished and professional candidate with an excellent communication skills. I am seeking a position in the customer service department. I am a dedicated, patient, disciplined, and a friendly person who wants to use his skills and education to work with you in a techno-economic way. I assure you I have thrive to turn the situations and make it acceptable by everyone. I have a three years experience of providing customer support in a well-known call center environment. My job goal is to implement a strategic relationship by listening attentively, solving problems creatively, and use the diplomacy method to attain a win-win situation. Experience Worked as a Customer Service Representative in Samsung UK from January 2013 to December 2015. My role was to handle customer inquires, complaints, giving them information, and solving payment issues. Key Accomplishments: Managed a high-volume workload in a stressful and demanding environment. Resolved 430 queries in 3 days time with my consistency. Able to thrive win-win situation in a stressful environment and was lead go-to person. I have trained new employees the basics of customer service. Helped company attain a 100% customer service rate by providing extra time and efforts. Education Qualified high school exams in year 2011. Assessment Criteria The person should be an active and patient listener with excellent communication skills. The person should be polite, gentle, friendly, and non-aggressive person. He/should have the capability to handle many customers at a time with a smile and in an irritating and stressful environment. The person should have the capability to achieve a win-win situation by acting in a diplomatic and understanding way. The person should be present at all times and must be able to work in pressurized environment. Criteria Measures High- The person is confident while speaking and develops a win-win and impressive environment in a short time by providing compelling evidences of the way he/she works. The person addresses how he was successful in different stressful situations in his/her previous work environment. Medium The person in confident but still does not have high communication skills to back answer any kind of stressful situation or a tricky question. He/she does not have done much impressive work in the previous work environment. He/she was an average employee who performs the assigned duty and goes of home. No extra efforts were seen. Low The person sounds not much interested in getting a job. The person in not able to talk properly and fluently. The person does not show any evidence that he/she can work in a stressful environment. Sounds rude and impatient. Methods of assessment criteria Asking for the evidences and rewards he/she has gain in previous work environment. Proposing a stressful situation in front of the candidate and asking how he/she will tackle it. Like for example telling the train is late by 3 hours and still no information has been gathered for its arrival due to some technical problem. In such cases how he/she will handle the crowd. Assessing the persons patience and friendly level by talking in a rude, irritable and aggressive manner. Checking the etiquettes and manners used by him/her during the interview.

Nozick on Distributive Justice Essay Example

Nozick on Distributive Justice Essay Justice Paper 2 -Ankur Shah Nozick says that liberty upsets patterns. Critically assess this claim. Be sure to: I. Explain what the quoted phrase means (what Nozick means by â€Å"liberty† and by â€Å"patterns†); II. Discuss how Rawls would respond to Nozick’s thesis; III. Explain whether Nozick is right that liberty upsets patterns; IV. If Nozick is right, then discuss whether such upsetting of patterns provides a sound reason for rejecting patterns, or for regulating liberty. â€Å"Liberty upsets patterns† In his book â€Å"Anarchy, state and utopia†, Nozick provides a moral defense for Libertarianism, which is traditionally defined as â€Å"the advocacy of individual  liberty, especially freedom of thought and action†. The core idea behind Nozick’s Libertarianism is the concept of â€Å"self-ownership,† which means that each individual belongs totally and entirely to himself and not to anyone else (Cohen Lecture6). Based on this concept, Nozick sets the premise for Possessive Libertarianism, in which any reduction of liberty is a violation of basic rights and that interference reduces a person’s liberty if and only if the interference is unjustified† (Cohen Lecture6). To justify his claims Nozick purports that a minimalistic state is the only form of governance that is dedicated to protecting basic rights. Furthermore, he argues against equality or any form of distributive justice because any pattern designed for distribution of goods conflicts directly with the protection of liberty, specifically the rights of self-ownership. In this paper I present Nozick’s definition of â€Å"liberty† and â€Å"pattern† and prove that based on Nozick’s conventions for these terms, liberty and pattern are incompatible. Furthermore, I explore possible counterarguments from Rawls and provide my justification for why liberty takes precedence over maintaining the pattern. What Nozick means by â€Å"liberty† and by â€Å"patterns† In order to evaluate Nozick’s claim that â€Å"liberty upsets pattern†, it is critical to understand how Nozick’s defines â€Å"liberty† and â€Å"pattern†. Nozick’s meaning of â€Å"liberty† arises from the concept of â€Å"self-ownership. In this context, an individual is entitled to their lives, their labor and by extension the fruits of their labor (Feser). So, no entity or individual can justifiably take away the end product of one’s own labor. Furthermore, the concept of self-ownership extends an individual’s capacity to do as they please with their wealth. Every individual is entitled to make their own choices, be they positive or negative, and pursue their own life plans, so long as they do not interfere with the rights of another individual. We will write a custom essay sample on Nozick on Distributive Justice specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Nozick on Distributive Justice specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Nozick on Distributive Justice specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer This concept of Liberty is demonstrated in Nozick’s Chamberlain example, where people who came to watch have the power to invest their wealth to see Chamberlain play. In essence, liberty is one person’s right to do as they see fit with their property without interference from another. The term â€Å"pattern† arises from Nozick’s evaluation of the various systems for distribution of wealth in a society. Nozick defines a principle of distribution to be patterned if â€Å"it specifies that a distribution is to vary along with some natural dimension, weighted sum of natural dimensions, or lexicographic ordering of natural dimensions† (Nozick 156). So, if we imagine a system where wealth is distributed according to a moral compass, where more is given to the virtuous and less to the vicious. Another would be a system where wealth is divided based on the effort one puts into one’s work or one that is based on the highest level of degree or one based on the number of contributions they make to society or one where individuals with higher IQ hold more wealth (Arnold). If a system for redistribution existed to ensure any of the previous scenario’s hold true, then such a society would be â€Å"patterned† based on Nozick’s definition. Simply put, if there exists a system that enforces wealth distribution based on a set rules, then the society is patterned. How does liberty upset patterns? To illustrate the meaning behind â€Å"liberty upsets patterns,† I will closely examine the Chamberlain’s example. This example demonstrates that free exchange, which rises from the idea of self-ownership, will upset the patterned distribution. Basically, if people have the right to dispose their legitimately earned wealth as they see fit. The following outlines the Chamberlain’s logic as presented by Nozick (Pg 160-161) 1. There exists a patterned distribution D1, which is a favorite patter of non-entitlement conception of justice 2. Wilt Chamberlain, a skilled basketball player who attracts home crowds, signs a contract where 0. 25 is put apart for every home game for him 3. Since people are excited to see him play, they freely contribute 0. 25 towards Wilt Chamberlain. 4. Thus, if let’s say a million people come to watch, Chamberlain ends up with 250,000, which is more than everyone else. 5. Since the distribution D1 no longer holds, there exist a new distribution where everyone has 0. 5 less than original and Wilt Chamberlain has 250,000 more than original 6. Since, all exchanges were done with willing participants there was no injustice done in order for the new distribution to come into place, and therefore D2 is a just distribution. Now, in order to revert to D1, the wealth acquired by Chamberlain would have to be taken away and redistributed to its original form. In doing so, Chamberlainà ¢â‚¬â„¢s rights to his wealth would be violated. Similar conditions emerge if one considers someone doing overtime, or performing services in exchange for wealth outside the initial D1 distribution. Since D1 distribution cannot be maintained as long as people have the right to do what they wish with their wealth, it would become necessary to restrict people from spending wealth based on their choice. This would infringe upon the rights of individuals. It is clear that patterned society would not be able to maintain itself alongside liberty. As citizens are free to use their resources and wealth as they see fit in such a state, people with talent, or skills that are in greater demand, like Wilt Chamberlain’s talent in basketball, will be able to increase their wealth through their talent. An automatic transfer of wealth will occur towards these individuals with skills that are in demand, and thus causing the disturbance in the initial distribution. In order to restore the distribution, the government will have to redistribute the wealth which would violate the basic rights of self-ownership since wealth acquired through valid means, like Will Chamberlain’s money, would be taken away without compensation. Thus, it is impossible to redistribute wealth without infringing on the liberties which means that a liberty would necessarily upset a patterned state. Rawls and Nozick In his book, A Theory of Justice, Rawls argues for a patterned distributive justice with the belief that not knowing one’s own position in society would lead everyone to be concerned for equality. Thus, we should always be concerned about the least fortunate because we might be the least fortunate ones. This argument draws its support from the assumption that people as a whole are under veil of ignorance regarding their place in society. Based on this he presents two principles of justice, the Liberty principle and the Difference principle stated below. (Brown) 1. â€Å"Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others. † (Rawls 51) 2. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both a. to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society (the difference principle) b. ffices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity (Rawls 303) In contrast for Nozick arguments are based on the self-ownership principle, according to which, the people who produce a thing have absolute right over it, as in â€Å"things come into the world already attached to people having entitlements over them† (Nozick 160). They have the right to do as they choose with their property. Based on this, Nozick derives the entitlement theory, which states 1. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding- Theory of Acquisition. . A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding- Theory of Transfer. 3. No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications of 1 and 2- Theory of Rectification. (Nozick 151) Thus Nozick would oppose Rawls’ view that it is just to redistribute wealth as long as it benefits the least fortunate is society because the owners would not be reaping all the benefits of their labor, if some of it was taken away for the less fortunate group (Cohen Lecture 6). Rawls argument against Nozick would rest on the grounds that ownership comes about due to external influences based on social position, and can result in total lack of property among a certain group of people. Thus, without any property, they would be unable to maintain themselves and thus taxation of the wealthy to support the unfortunate is justified. Furthermore, Rawls would argue that in Nozick’s case, rights seem to have sprung forth without having principles of justice in place, and thus are invalid since Rawls views society as a system of cooperation between individuals for mutual advantage (Lacewing). Thus in Rawls’ view, people will only have rights to a part of the share based on the principles of justice in place. Does liberty really upset pattern? It is my belief that Nozick’s claim that â€Å"liberty upsets pattern† is valid. To support this claim, I rely on the fact that as long as people have the liberty to spend their resources to their whims, it is impossible to maintain the systemized pattern that will ensure distribution based on the current system. To demonstrate this claim, we consider a system where wealth is distributed equally among all its individuals. We also maintain that every individual is granted liberty, which ensures that there is no external interference that keeps people from doing as they wish with their wealth. Now, in such a society we suppose that two individuals living close together combine their wealth and build a facility to race their remote controlled (RC) cars right next to their houses, because they are RC fanatics and would get enjoyment out of this center. Attracted by the facility, many people get into the RC hobby and want to use the facility that was built. Since, the first two individuals spend their own wealth building this facility, they decide to charge other people for the use of their facility. Attracted by the growing numbers, more and more individuals get into the hobby, and start using the facility to demonstrate and race their RC cars. Now, since these individuals have the right to do as they wish with their wealth and are willing to pay for the use of the facility, they individuals who built the facility start running a net profit offsetting the cost of building and maintaining the facility. Because of this the wealth distribution shifts towards the builders of the facility. With enough profits, they decide to opt for another facility. However, since the wealth distribution is no longer equal, the system must interfere in order to redistribute the wealth to equal terms. This interference reduces the rights of the builders, since they are no longer able to build a second facility, which was through their own wealth. Thus, a very simple case demonstrates that maintaining a pattern will require constant interference, and reduction of liberty. To further illustrate the fact that pattern and liberty are incompatible, we can consider any two individuals living in this society. It is natural to assume that these individuals will have different taste, and different view on what to do with their resources or available wealth. If we consider any system, that distributes wealth based on certain systemized values and then add liberty to the equation, the system will no longer hold valid. Introducing liberty basically alters the system by adding a free element, which is outside the established pattern. Thus the pattern will collapse unless checks are placed on liberty. A direct analogy can be made to the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, where it is impossible to control a system without interfering with the system. If the pattern were equal distribution, it would be unsettled by something as simple as the choice of the first individual to save his wealth while the second individual spends his wealth on some form of entertainment. Other liberties like gambling, choices in luxury items to own, varying hobbies, and varying needs will all lead to an imbalance in the distribution. Furthermore, individuals will have the ability to sell their talents to those who would be willing to pay. These are all sources that necessarily exist with liberty and will just as surely upset any established pattern. The sole fact that people have the liberty to transfer wealth would mean that transfer of wealth will occur autonomously. This will cause the pattern to collapse upon itself unless an external force is applied to restore the balance. In order to restore and maintain the distribution, the governing entity will have to redistribute the wealth according to the pattern or take away people’s rights to spend as they wish. Both of these choices infringe upon the self-ownership rights of an individual, and thus are invalid. As long as people are free to use their resources as they wish, it is impossible to expect that a certain pattern be maintained. Thus, liberty invariably upsets any established pattern. Regulate Liberty or reject pattern? Since the above examples demonstrated that it is impossible to maintain liberty without â€Å"upsetting† the pattern, the natural course of argument is to question whether regulating liberty or rejecting pattern is the right choice. It is my belief that protecting individual liberties takes precedence over establishing a pattern, as long as every individual is provided with sustainable necessities of life. Basically, there are grounds to establish patterns to ensure a sustainable and progressive society, as long as the interference is minimal. First, I shall argue that an established pattern is detrimental to society as a whole. Let’s consider a patterned principle where wealth is distributed according to the effort that a person puts into his work. In paper such a system sounds fair and just, where the effort one puts in is rewarded by an equal amount of wealth. In this system, we consider two individuals working on the same task. Now, let us consider that because of factors like intelligence, skill, and other external influences the first individual finishes the task in an hour while the second takes 10 hours to finish the task. In such a system, the second individual is rewarded more because it took him more effort to accomplish the task that the first individual. As such the more productive member of the society, the first individual, is punished for his superior ability. It is clear that such a system would stifle progress, since people like individual A would lack the incentive to utilize their full capacity. So, it can be clearly seen that the requirement of maintaining the pattern will be detrimental to the progress of society. Let’s go even further and ignore this flaw by assuming that every individual is matched with the task that utilizes his skill in a manner that ensures equal amounts of effort. So, everyone is putting in equal effort towards their task. For such a system, a pattern of wealth distributed by effort seems to have no flaws. However, since people are free to do with their wealth as they please, some may decide to transfer their wealth to another individual because he provides entertainment that does not exist elsewhere, or another individual who comes up with a product that everyone desires. This transfer of wealth does not require one to perform a task of equal effort, but simply one that has higher demand than the other. The inherent flaw lies in the fact that certain skills are more valued than others even if they require less effort. This can be seen in an example where an individual creates a product of high value, very useful to society, through very little effort. Would this individual not be entitled to the transferred wealth, even if he put such little effort in it? Now suppose, we take away the transferred wealth to maintain the pattern, very soon there will be no incentive to innovate since there are no rewards for success. In this manner, society would become stagnant. An argument for regulation of liberty arises from the fact that allowing people to redistribute their wealth as they please, would lead to the emergence of an elite class whose skills are more in demand. Because of this demand, the distribution of wealth would shift towards the elites. This concentration of wealth and resources would give a group of individuals more power than the rest of society leading to an establishment of a polarized, unequal society with a uneven distribution of wealth. Historical evidence suggests that, without any regulation it is very often that rich become richer and the poor become poorer. In these terms, if the conditions of the poor reach below a certain threshold, (let’s call it sustainability threshold) society suffers because the environment for these individuals is no longer conducive for them being productive members of society. Their contribution will be limited by their need for providing basic necessities for existence. In this manner, the overall productivity of society will be lowered. Thus it is necessary to establish some pattern of redistribution of wealth to ensure that every individual has the basic necessities to sustain themselves, in order to create a most productive society. Final comments In regards to setting the levels for sustainability is something beyond the scope of this essay, and perhaps beyond the scope of society as a whole. My personal belief is that this threshold wavers based on external factors, but maintains an overall upwards trend. Finally, though Philosophers like Rawls and Nozick seem to have justified a system that works, I do not yet see reconciliation between Liberty and Equality within any of these principles. Perhaps the search is as elusive as the unifying theory of physics, but mostly insignificant in the daily workings of life. Word count: 3117 Works Cited Arnold, Scott. Nozick. n. d. 2010 June . Brown, Lachlan. The Sydney Morning Herald. 9 October 2003. June 2010 . Feser, Edward. Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. 4 May 2005. June 2010 . Lacewing, Michael. Rawls and Nozick of Justice. n. d. June 2010 . Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Belknap, 1971.

Sample Business Recommendation Letter From an Employer

Sample Business Recommendation Letter From an Employer Students who are applying to a business, management, or entrepreneur program will need to have at least one recommendation letter that demonstrates your leadership ability. This sample recommendation letter is the perfect example of what a business school wants to see from both undergraduate and graduate program applicants.It has been reprinted (with permission) from EssayEdge.com. Named ​one of the best essay services on the Internet by The Washington Post, EssayEdge has helped more applicants write successful personal statements than any other company in the world.Though EssayEdge did not write or edit this sample recommendation letter, it is a good example of how a recommendation should be formatted. See more sample recommendation letters. Sample Letter of Recommendation Dear Sir: Esti worked for me as my assistant for one year. I recommend her without qualification for your entrepreneur program. While working in commercial production, I often relied on Esti to put together creative presentations, for which she described and outlined the artistic approach to the project, researching illustrations and photographic reference materials. Her creativity, resourcefulness, and ability to see a project through really made these presentations distinctive and successful. When we went into production on the feature film Hotcha, Esti was able to observe every step of the process, sitting in on meetings and working with people in all areas of the production from the moment the production was set in motion through the release of the film ten months later. During this time, she was an effective communicator, often serving as my liaison to scattered members of the crew. She also coordinated projects involving numerous people, and her ability to work collaboratively while guiding the project quickly and effectively was outstanding. For example, when we suddenly needed to reconceive several action sequences that had already been storyboarded, Esti quickly found a new storyboard artist on location and worked with him, the stunt coordinator and the cinematographer through several drafts to make sure the new sequences worked, and then communicated with crew members from all departments, making sure everyone was up-to-date on the changes that were relevant to them. She even jumped in to draw a few last-minute storyboard changes herself. Estis sensitivity, diligence, energy, and sense of humor made working with her a joy. I highly recommend her as a welcome addition to the program. Sincerely,Jeff Jones

Moving a business to Nigeria. Political and Legal, Demographics, Essay

Moving a business to Nigeria. Political and Legal, Demographics, Culture And Human Development Index - Essay Example The following paper discusses the many challenges of shifting business to Nigeria and recommends solutions to the soaring labor costs and increasing competition. Information regarding Nigeria’s demographic, economic, cultural, political and developmental situation has been analyzed leading to the decision that the company should continue to produce and sell in the US and not do any kind of business in Nigeria. Demographics of Nigeria Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. In July 2012, Nigeria was estimated to record a population of 170,123,740 people (Akinpelu 7). This translates to a population density of 184. 52 compared to 33. 114 people per square kilometer in USA (Hamilton and Webster 51). This indicates that Nigeria's resources, especially land, are quite strained. Such a high population density indicates poor planning and possibility of a nation not being able to sustain itself. Although the high population may indicate availability of cheap labor, lack of suf ficient funds from the government towards education leads to lack of quality human resource. This is not good for business and thus, it would not be advisable to move a business from New York to Nigeria on the basis of high population densities. In fact, USA has a population higher than that of Nigeria making it a larger market amidst growing competition in the business of manufacturing motorized scooters. There are 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria divided almost equally between Christianity and Islam. Religious differences have seen a history of intense religious clashes between Muslims and Christians causing poor business environments. On 20th June 2012, Red Cross estimated that 80 had been killed in Kaduna due to a Muslim-Christian conflict. To curb language barriers, English is used as the official language. The literacy level in Nigeria is estimated to be 78% compared to 99% for USA (Hamilton and Webster 73). This gives USA an upper hand while using these figures to compare quality of workforce between the two countries. Culture Being an African country, Nigeria has deep roots in its culture. With over 50 languages being spoken by the 250 ethnic groups, Nigeria’s culture is quite diversified and thus complex to generalize. This may not be good for business since it is complex to familiarize a business with the many cultures in Nigeria. Nigeria’s is however rapidly changing into a modernized country as a result of the rise of its movie industry known as Nollywood in the global market (Akinpelu 24). This shows that Nigerians are hardworking and creative relative to many countries in Africa but certainly not the USA which has the biggest and most developed movie industry in the world. USA’s culture is modernized and more uniform compared to that of Nigeria (Hamilton and Webster 93). USA’s culture is more liberal as compared to Nigeria hence making it easier to accommodate change as a strategy in business. Culture is an important facto r while considering modes of marketing in order to reach and convince a larger audience. Human Development Index Human development index is important in determining how developed a country is. This index captures information about life expectancy, education, literacy, quality of life and standards of living. With the inclusion of all the above determinants of human development index, we can comfortably classify countries as underdeveloped, developing or developed. Nigeria’s HDI was estimated to be 0.459 and thus classified as having low human development. USA’s HDI is classified as very high ranking 3rd globally with a figure of 0.910 (Hamilton and Webster 49). This makes US a better region to nature one’s business compared to Nige

Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 76

Journal - Essay Example I took part in the creation of an effective campaign process that entailed the creation of posters and placing them strategically. â€Å"Leadership plays a huge role in improving organizational policies and protocols.† (Stevens & Cooper, 2009). Besides the intense teamwork, I spared time to proof read my project in readiness for submission. The week presented various value addition opportunities as I met preceptor with who I shared vital information on various discourses in the nursing profession (Budd, 2002). I attended yet another leadership meeting where I interacted with various departmental leaders. Furthermore, I continued working on the awareness raising exercise and saved time to polish my DNP project. I spent time working on the awareness creation project. Working with a teammate, we visited hospitals and clinics creating awareness and encouraging hand washing among other hygiene behavior (Baldwin, 1977). I learnt numerous interpersonal skills besides the ethics necessary in maintaining successful and efficient teams. Additionally, I saved time to work on my

Egon Schiele: Influences on and Impact in Art

Egon Schiele: Influences on and Impact in Art Was Egon Schiele ahead of his time or just in touch with it? A master of expressionism or practising pornographer and paedophile? What was the driving force behind his most memorable images; those being his nudes and self portraits? Looking at economic, social, personal influences, was he milking the times and environment for self gain or was he a hormone raging self absorbed youngster finding himself? Introduction Expressionism is described in typically polemic terms in the preface for the 1912 exhibition in Cologne, featuring new artists of this genre. In it, it says: â€Å"the exhibition is intended to offer a general view of the newest movement in painting, which has succeeded atmospheric naturalism and the impressionist rendering of motion, and which strives to offer a simplification and intensification in the mode of expression, after new rhythms and new uses of colour and a decorative or monumental configuration – a general view of that movement which has been described as expressionism.† Schiele certainly fulfilled the loose terminologies expressed above, as a great deal of the subject matter he explored, primarily his nudes and his self-portraits, were concerned with the constant need to redefine and explore different ways of expressing these themes; a simplification and intensification in the mode of expression. At times, Schiele reduces the broad sentiments of Impressionism to a single streak; he cuts out all that is unnecessary, reducing his backgrounds to a simple wash of colour, and thus focuses on his primary interest, that of the human subject. Schiele was also extremely concerned with the notion of self in his work; he is frequently cited in critical work as a narcissist and, with over 100 self portraits to his name, each of which appear to be concerned with showing himself in various, often contradictory ways, this would appear to be true. But, beyond simple glorification of the self, Schiele seems to be doing something else in his self-portraiture. By picturing himself in such a varied and at times contradictory way, Schiele in turn questions his own authenticity, and attempts to align himself with that great canon of artist in society, as a contemporary Promethean or Christ-like figure. â€Å"Allegory, unmasking, the presentation of a personable image, and close scrutiny of body language as influenced by the psyche, all met most palpably where Schieles eye looked most searchingly – in his self-portraits, his odyssey through the vast lands of the self. His reflections on and of himself filled a great hall of mirrors where he performed a pantomime of the self unparalleled in twentieth century art.† Indeed, the ambiguity of Schiele as regards himself is a dense and complex subject, which regards both â€Å"truth†, and a more subjective appraisal of art in Viennese society during the time in which Schiele was painting. Schiele was also concerned with breaking down and fundamentally opposing the traditions of Viennese culture and art which, at the time, were largely very conservative in opinion. In his art, Schiele would strike out at the culture that celebrated Biedermeier art and the slavish reproduction of classical works that he was taught at Viennas Academie der Bildunden Kunste (Viennas Academy of Fine Art), which he was admitted to on the grounds of his exceptional talent as a draughtsman. Most prominently, he would break these rules, and was thus ahead of his times with his extremely controversial oeuvre, which broke from these schools almost completely, both stylistically and in terms of the subject matter that they conveyed. But it is extremely difficult, if not impossible when considering any artist to extricate him / her from the times in which he / she was born. An artist is inevitably bound to the world around him / her, and thus, it is important to consider the economic, social and cultural trends that were prevalent at the time. Schiele was part of the expressionist movement – which immediately set itself up against the heralded principals of art in Vienna, by setting up its own artist-led business entities, using the work and the life of Klimt as an example. I will expand upon the layered history that led up to Viennese expressionism, and hope to extrapolate the extent to which Schiele was paving the way for a new generation of artists. Schieles art was especially controversial in its subject matter. In his early work especially, unflinching portraits were painted that not only showed Schiele in uncompromising positions, but also subjects such as proletariat children, who were invariably portrayed naked, and painted with a grotesque and sickly eroticism that draws you unerringly into these taboo areas. Whether Schiele was deliberately trying to shock and provoke the modesties of the Viennese public, or whether he was trying to uncover a more universal, spiritual or sexual truth is subject to debate. Overall, in this essay, I will discuss how the history of Vienna impacted upon the work of Schiele, looking at the cultural, social and economic impact of Schiele. I will also look at how Schiele uses the self-portrait, especially how he chooses to either promote, or at least define the prevalent role of expressionist artist in his work. Then I will look at how the abundance of these controversial self-portraits, along with innumerable photographs of Schiele posing, in turn makes Schieles identity in his work more ambiguous. Then I will look at the more pornographic side of Schiele, and question how Schiele, deeply embedded in the cultural and moral codes of the time, reacted entirely against them and established his own, art of â€Å"ugliness†. History Of Viennese Expressionism Fredrick Raphael, in his preface to Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler, suggests something about the Viennese psyche; he says that: â€Å"In 1866, Bismarcks Prussia destroyed Austro-Hungarys bravely incompetent army at Sadowa. The effect of that defeat on the Viennese psyche cannot be exactly assessed. Austria had already suffered preliminary humiliation by the French, under Louis-Napoleon, but Sadowa confirmed that she would never again be a major player in the worlds game. Yet conscious acceptance of Austrias vanished supremacy was repressed by the brilliance and brio of its social and artistic life. Who can be surprised that Adlers discovery of the inferiority complex, and of compensating assertiveness, was made in a society traumatized by dazzling decline? It was as if the city which spawned Arthur Schinitzler and Sigmund Freud feared to awake from its tuneful dreams to prosaic reality.† Indeed, the times in which Egon Schiele was making his mark on the Viennese establishment was a time where the Viennese art community were at their most conservative, or most susceptible to lapsing into these â€Å"tuneful dreams†. Schieles self-imposed mission, it seemed, was to violently shake these people into a state of consciousness. But that isnt to say that Schiele existed entirely in a vacuum, living entirely by his own rules. Comini stresses that: â€Å"The content of Schieles Expressionism then was a heightened sense of pathos and impending doom, and an acute awareness of the self. Schieles Expressionist form drew from the great European reservoir of Symbolist evocativeness.† So, from a veritable melange of varying influences, Schiele managed to get his form, which combined that of exceptional draughtsman, with an inescapable desire for portraying the artistry of â€Å"ugliness†, something of which Schiele was something of a pioneer. In 1897, Schiele joined the painting class of Christian Griepenkerl; who was a deeply conservative artist devoted to neoclassicism, or the slavish devotion and replication of classic works of art. This involved long hours copying the works of the Old Masters at Viennas Academy of Fine Art. Schiele was enrolled for his superior draughtsmanship, but he was eventually alienated from it because he didnt see the relevance or the importance in neoclassicism. Thus, he became something of a troublemaker to the establishment, and was eventually forced out. This was echoed 100 years hence by the Romantics; an art group who pursued a loose programme intended to reinvest art with emotional impact. The Romantics, however, proved too unpalatable to the Viennese citizenry, who instead preferred the work of Biedermeier artists. Kallir says: â€Å"On the whole, Germans proved more receptive to Romanticism than Austrians who shied away from such intense expressions of feeling and took refuge in the mundane cheer of the Biedermeier.† She goes on to say: â€Å"Biedermeier [†¦] was geared more to the applied than to the fine arts, though in all its myriad incarnations it promoted the personal comforts of the middle class Burger. Biedermeier painting revolved around idealized renditions of everyday life, scenes of domestic bliss, genre pictures portraying ruddy-cheeked peasants, and picturesque views of the native countryside.† Being born into this highly stringent, conservative environment must have shaped Schieles defiance somewhat, as Schiele not only seems to break with what was established in Vienna as profitable art, but he almost seems to occupy exactly the opposite role. Even in works by Klimt, who was deemed controversial at the time, there are still elements of decorative palatability that makes his work visually and aesthetically appealing. Schiele seems to be deliberately working against this formula; which was brave considering that art, at the time, depended on patronage and buyers to actually sustain a profit. Schiele didnt seem concerned in the slightest that his work wouldnt get a buyer. In fact, the market is abandoned almost completely. In Schieles early work, art becomes â€Å"ugly†; his figures are pallid and atrophied; the composition of the pieces are unconventional and thus attack the sensibilities of the audience. Upon his break from Viennas Academy, and much akin to Klimt, whom he admired and painted on a number of occasions, Schiele set up his own group, entitled simply, â€Å"The New Art Group.† This was similar to Klimts route, as he set up the Viennese Secession, of which Schiele would play a part, which came from and used the tried and tested formula of the Genossenschaft betdender Kunster Wiens (Vienna Society of Visual Artists), a project financed by Emperor Franz Josef as a means of promoting art in the city. However, this system was not without its drawbacks. â€Å"Its progressive potential was [†¦] undermined by a policy of majority rule, which generally granted victory to the conservative faction. Within this context, the societys role as dealer was particularly disturbing to the younger, more forward-thinking minority, from whom exclusion from major exhibitions could have adverse financial consequences.† Similarly, the capitalist nature of art, coupled with the conservatism of the market made for a very difficult time for the progressive artist, and perhaps was a reason behind why Schiele opposed the artistic community with such fervency and vitriol, and often resorted to shock tactics and self-publicity to get himself heard. Klimts Secession operated on similar principles to the Vienna society: â€Å"†¦the Secession [†¦] was principally a marketing agent for its members work.† Thus, again it proved difficult for the younger, more radical artists to break through, despite Klimts support. Later, funds from patronage dwindled, so it was necessary for artists to seek out new markets. â€Å"The withdrawal of official patronage pre-empted the Secessionists to seek new ways of generating the sales and commissions necessary to keep them in business.† Ultimately, this meant that socialist, and personal art became more prominent a theme. The monumental, allegorical themes that Klimt and Schiele tended to attack (although Schieles work was deeply personal, it was also very monumental and took a number of influences from Klimt and symbolist art), no longer had a substantial market. Klimts decorative style, coupled with his established name, could still sell work to his established clients. Schiele, however, had no such luck, and it was only in 1918, the last year of his life, that Schiele managed to break even with his work. Although Schiele did not seem overly concerned with the economic potential of his works; in fact, he even seemed to equate poverty and suffering to the role of an artist in general, and Schiele was probably one of the most uncompromising artists of the twentieth century in terms of pandering to a particular audience; it is nevertheless important to consider economics, social and cultural conditions because, Schiele, by setting himself and his role as an artist in direct opposition to the establishment, also put himself in the long-standing tradition of artist in opposition to mainstream society. Kallir points out that: â€Å"The Secession, the Galerie Muethke, and the Wiener Werkstatte [, the latter two being establishments set up in the wake of the gradual reduction of patronage funds and a need to find and establish new markets for art], in the formative first decade of this century were peculiar products of their times that shared common aspirations and limitations. It was important to all concerned that these entities, although ostensibly committed to marketing art, were artist-run.† So, although economics were a concern in art, they were not necessarily, as dictated previously with the majority run Vienna Society of Visual Artists, primarily about making money and transforming the Viennese art scene into a profitable industry. Economics was an incidental concern, only foisted upon the establishment by chronic necessity: â€Å"The artists evinced a tacitly accepted loathing for art-as-business (Schiele could be particularly eloquent on this point) and a determination to place aesthetic considerations above economic ones.† So, as is fairly obvious from the art that he made, Schiele was against the motive of making money from art. But this reveals an interesting contradiction that plagued expressionist and other, later artists seeking to make a living from art at the same time as challenging the social and economic processes that ultimately fund its creation: â€Å"[I]f the primary goal [of these entities] was to serve the artistic community, these organisations could not entirely ignore their secondary purpose: to sell art.† So, Schiele, like many other artists, was cut between a requirement for money (which was especially apparent now that the former staple of patronage monies had all but dried up), and a requirement to express uncompromisingly his artistic expression. Schiele would not settle for the former, and instead pursued the latter with a vigour and an intensity that, at the time, was quite extraordinary. Schiele and Self-Portraiture. Of all the artists in the 20th century, or indeed any century, Egon Schiele was probably one of the most self-conscious. But, in Schiele, the self is a very problematic subject. Schoeder suggests: â€Å"In his self-portraits, Schiele shows himself as wrathful, with a look of spiritual vacancy, or as if racked by a severe spasm of hysteria; or arrogantly looking down his nose, with head tossed back; or apprehensively or naively peering out of the picture. Which Schiele is the real Schiele?† Schiele seems to instinctively divide himself into differing components, but also, he uses art to singularly pursue his own political views of the role of artist, in many ways using self-portraiture to assert, rather than fragment his own personality. The ambiguity with which Schiele regards himself can be looked at in a number of ways. 1. The Artist-as-Martyr It could be argued that Schiele was simply posing, or playing the varying roles of artist to gratify his ego. This is interesting because Schiele was definitely working toward a specific identity as artist. In 1912, Schiele was arrested for three days for publishing obscene works where they could be displayed to children. An item of his work was subsequently burned in the courtroom. In prison, he creates a number of interesting works of art, that are especially interesting because their titles read like manifestoes. Titles such as Hindering the Artist is a Crime, It Is Murdering Life in the Bud! (1912), For Art and for My Loved Ones I Will Gladly Endure to the End! (1912), and Art Cannot Be Modern: Art Is Primordially Eternal (1912). Certainly, judging from these titles, Schiele definitely has a number of ideas regarding the artist, his specific role, and what separates a true artist from a charlatan. Schiele, in his highly polemical, hyperbolic painting titles, equates the artist with suffering and martyrdom, suggesting that he will â€Å"endure†, and immediately glorifying the artist as a giver of life and eternal well being to the masses. Schroeder goes on to say: â€Å"Behind these works lies the idealization of suffering in the Romantic cull of genius, as updated in the last years of the nineteenth century through the writing of Friedrich Nietzsche and through the posthumous response to Arthur Schopenhauer. [†¦] The turn of the century saw the apogee of the Artist-as-Martyr legend, in which the relationship between suffering and greatness draws so close that the pose of suffering may in itself constitute a claim to the higher grades of artistic initiation.† So, the implication here is that Schiele was indeed acting a specific role of artist, that he was assuming a specific â€Å"pose of suffering† that was in many ways an act of fulfilling his societal role as an artist. Certainly these roles of suffering were explicit in his work. In Self-Portrait Standing (1910), Schiele portrays himself as contorted and thin; his face is twisted into an ugly grimace, and the colours used are mottled, pale and rotten. His arms are deformed and his positioning is unnatural and forced. His eyes are hollow and there is no context to the portrait; the background is a simple cream colouring. To exaggerate his alienation yet further, Schiele highlights his body with a shock of white. This has the effect of drawing the subject even further out of his environmental world, and, along with the forced hand gestures, serves to make us see the subject as an exhibit, rather than as part of a natural world. As Schroeder points out: â€Å"On the white expanse of paper, they do not exist: they are exhibited.† In his principal work, Hermits (1912), he paints himself with Gustav Klimt, whose own break with neoclassicism and ornate style of expressionism was a major influence on Schieles early work. Klimt is seen as asleep, or else resting on the shoulders of Schiele, who stands in front of him in a large black cloak. Mitsch suggests that in Hermits, â€Å"[s]eldom has the human body been visualised so exclusively as a materialization of spiritual forces [†¦].† But the painting is called Hermits, which suggests something about the role of artist that Schiele observed, although the painting certainly displays elements of the spiritual; as Steiner suggests, â€Å"he presents the master and himself in a picture where two male figures in monklike garb and with aureoles about their heads are seen on a monumental plinth.† In Hermits, Schiele and Klimt both look glum; Schiele stares defiantly back through the painting. The vast black cloak serves to homogenize the body of Klimt and Schiele, and thus portrays the role of the artist in general as one of blackness, of a biblical darkness. But, the title is more secular: Steiner goes on to say that: â€Å"We see Hermits (as the painting is called) and not saints, and the tone is no longer mystical and remote but one of delicate equilibrium between the two men – the elder, Klimt, deathlike, and the younger, Schiele, looking grim, doubtless because the artist leads a solitary life, condemned by society to suffer.† So, Schiele, in a very modernist way, is simultaneously divorcing himself from the establishment of the religious school of Neoclassicism, but is also contemporising it. In similar ways that Freud brought scientific rigour, and secular practice into studies of the human psyche, Schiele was in turn taking religion out of mystical, allegorical artwork, and instead putting himself into it. This artistic position, as forerunner to Klimt, in a sense, emerging from the body of Klimt, but staring out defiantly and uniquely, epitomizes Schieles position. Steiner suggests that: â€Å"At the time that he painted Hermits, Schiele was already seeing himself as a kind of priest of art, more the visionary than the academician, seeing and revealing things that remain concealed from normal people.† 2. The Artist-As-Protean The ambiguity with which Schiele forges his own identity can also be seen in a different way. The variance between different forms of self-portrait merely represent different sides of the Schiele character. This would certainly fit into the Freudian notion of self – as a stigmatized, fragmentary and anarchic collection of different preconceived notions. For instance; Freuds basic notions of Id, Ego and Super-Ego serve to fragment the self – psychoanalysis in general serves to this effect, and, in a number of Schiele self-portraits, he uses the quite unusual system of the double portrait to encapsulate this fragmentation. Fischer makes the point that â€Å"[t]he familiar repertoire of Freudian psychology with its ego and super-ego, conscious and unconscious realms, might equally be applied to these dual self-portraits.† A great deal of photography of Egon Schiele (of which a great deal exists) utilizes the effect of double exposure, thus, a doubling of the self. In one untitled photograph of Egon Schiele , he is seen firstly staring into the distance, while another image of himself looks back, observing himself intently. Steiner says that: â€Å"Schiele countered the sensory fragmentation of the self by means of a multiple self which came little by little to form a visual concept which reconstituted his unity with the world in a visionary way.† Indeed, during the time when expressionism was most active, a serious redefinition was underway, on the secular, theoretical grounds of Nietzsche and Freud, and also due to the cataclysmic human and social catastrophe of the Great War. In Hermann Bahrs 1916 book, simply entitled Expressionism, he says: â€Å"Never was there a time so shaken with so much terror, such a fear of death. Never was the world so deathly silent. Never was man so small. Never had he been so alarmed. Never was joy so far away and liberty so dead.† But he rallies against this bleakness, which is encapsulated in other modernist and expressionist works; works such as Eliots Wasteland and the paintings of Munsch and the German school of expressionism: â€Å"Now necessity cries out. Man cries after his soul, and the whole age becomes a single cry of need. Art, too, cries with it, into the depths of darkness; it cries for help; it cries after the spiritual: that is expressionism.† So, by ploughing the ambiguities of the self, this reading would assume that Schiele was, in many respects, crying â€Å"after his soul†, so to speak; searching among the myriad of different identities available to him, a concrete or at least a compatible sense of self that had eluded him, along with an entire generation of artists dispossessed by the Viennese establishment. The various parts of Schieles meticulous, and almost surgical self-analysis falls into a number of distinct camps, but also seems to, in a more generalised sense, work against the pattern of self-portrait or nudity established by other artists. Up until that time, generally speaking, the nude was seen in a grandiose sense: the painted nude women, such as those in Degas, were painted as Goddesses, resplendently beautiful, radiant, often placed in scenarios that depicted frolicking jollity or natural equilibrium; and the men, who were much rarer in contemporary art, were generally seen as heroic, muscular and noble. Schiele breaks entirely with this long-established tradition. Firstly, the school of nude self-portraiture at the time only comprised of a single person; Richard Gerstl, whose painting Self-Portrait, Naked stood on its own at the time as the only painting to be done of the nude artist. Schroeder points out: â€Å"Just how uncommon is was to depict oneself naked is revealed by the fact that before 1910 only one precedent existed in the whole of Austrian art.† Thus, Schiele was already putting himself in the position of pioneer of a particularly exhibitionist genre. But, in unsheathing the artist of the attire that would previously assign to him his identity, Schiele places a whole new dynamic in the art: the dynamic of the self itself. One of Schieles most important works Seated Male Nude (1910), Schiele portrays himself covering up his own face. Indeed, in most of his self-portraits, especially his early ones, his posture is contorted and manufactured; he is posing and the background again is simply a plain, unembellished white. In Seated Male Nude, Schiele is grossly emaciated, his feet have been cut off, and his nipples and eyes glow red, suggesting that there is a deep demonism within him. He is seen as grotesquely, disturbingly ectomorphic; â€Å"the figure looks as though it has been taken down from a gothic crucifix: it is angular, and looks carved: Schiele was seeing himself as Christ without a loin-cloth. The red highlights of his eyes, nipples, navel and genitals make the body look as if it were glowing from within.† But, also, the red â€Å"glowing from within† also exposes another central tenet of Schieles work – namely, that it gives the appearance that he is hollow inside. Schiele preserved his more allegorical, symbolic works for the medium of oil; paintings such as Hermits discussed earlier, and thus, this hollowness cannot be overlooked as having greater metaphorical meaning, and would suggest the reasons behind why Schieles self-portraiture varied to such a large degree; namely, that the inner self which Schiele was desperate to uncover, was absent, or simply defined as a mad, glowing redness. â€Å"[S]pastic and hunch-backed, or with a rachitic deformation of the ribcage: this was the artist as an image of abject misery – a cripple [†¦] the dirty colouring, with its shrill accents, makes the flesh tones ugly and aberrant. In Seated Male Nude, a self-portrait, the artist mutates into an insect. The absence of feet [†¦] [is] an amputation. This is a mangled soul in a mangled body. We see through the body into the soul.† Indeed, the mangled soul is non-existent, the inside is hollow and empty. So, insomuch as this is similarly affected by social and cultural developments at the time, Schiele is moreover offering a more detailed and theoretically astute reading of the self and warring and dissolute factions. Schroeder says that: â€Å"If all of these self-dramatizations reveal the true nucleus of the painters psyche, then he must have been a fragmented personality, unlikely to escape the diagnostic attentions of the genius Sigmund Freud. The question is just how much of his psyche is conveyed by his self-portraits, either those with grimaces or those that express a frozen resignation? What and whom does Egon Schiele really see in his studio mirror? [†¦] It makes all the difference in the world whether he is observing his own body as an act of direct, emotional self-knowledge or whether in his imagination he is slipping into someone elses role and experiencing his own self as that of another person.† So, that Schiele depicts himself as a variety of different people doesnt necessarily mean that he is living up to a certain artistic function; in a sense, glamorizing the role of the artist as a suffering person. Art As Pornography Schiele has been regarded by many critics as a pornographer. Looking at his paintings, which often draw attention to the genitals, to eroticized regions of the human body, as well as the contorted and mechanistic quality to the nude portraits, which appear twisted and exploited. Schiele was eventually put in prison for his indecency, although this was due to his eccentric practice of showing his work to the friends of the children who were painted, often nude. Schroder suggests that â€Å"[i]n Schieles early pictures of children the objective embarrassment of the models lowly social origins is reinforced by the embarrassment of their obscene nakedness.† This would suggest that the portraits themselves are designed to be as exploitative and as pornographic as possible. The children portrayed are certainly seen in an especially lurid light; and their embarrassment is portrayed by their forced poses, the absence of environment, etc. However, it is often difficult, at the time and later, to extrapolate eroticism from pornography, and in Schiele, this is particularly difficult. Schiele himself denied accusations of pornography, and certainly, the nudes have greater substance and meaning in terms of formulating an Expressionist identity of the self. Mitsch suggests that Schiele â€Å"expresses [in his eroticism] human bondage and is to be understood as a burden that is painful to bear. Aimed, from the beginning, at outspokenness and truthfulness, it assumes almost inevitably a daring form.† So, here difficulty with regarding Schieles output is highlighted. The work is about expressing human bondage, but it is also exaggerated and mutilated and â€Å"outspoken†. So Schiele acts as both pornographer and eroticist, and also strikes out more clearly at exposing the truth behind the body. Schiele himself commented on accusations that his work is pornographic made by his Uncle, by replying in a letter, saying that â€Å"the erotic work of art is scared too.† The painting Reclining Girl In A Blue Dress (1910), establishes this difficulty. In it, a girl is portrayed, leaning back and revealing her genitals. Her genitals are high-lighted in white, and draw the eye to the girls genitals using both composition and colour. The brush-strokes are strikingly crude, almost sketchy. Fischer says that â€Å"[i]t is impossible to defend this picture against the charge of pornography. Even so, Schieles radicalism of form places him beyond too simplistic a categorisation.† He goes on to say: â€Å"He was not merely out to satisfy a shallow voyeuristic impulse. Pubescent lust and delight in discovery, the naà ¯ve symbolism of distinguishing sexual features, and boyish stratagems for looking up girls skirts are combined in the twenty-year-old artists way of viewing the world with the invention of ingenious new forms, which took the Schiele of 1910 a step forward, out of the world of teachers and uncles and into the radical world view of the Expressionist avant-garde. In the years ahead, Schiele pursued this distinctive combination obsessively.† So, according to Fischer, even though his work was pornographic, the forms in which this pornography took and the means by which Schiele painted these pornographic images, allowed us to question the nature of the images and thus elevate them to something beyond pornography. Schiele was certainly obsessed with portraying the self: his images, despite being, at times, shamelessly provocative and deliberately controversial to the conservative Viennese public (the pre-conceived role of an artist to challenge the perception of the ordinary people would stress this, and was a certain depiction of the artist that Schiele would live by), would also put stress on the techniques and the principles applied to the painting in order to elevate it beyond mere titillation or voyeurism. In his nudes, Schiele was definitely looking to get closer to his, and societies view of the human condition in the confusing wake of secularism, the transmogrification of belief toward the self (in Freud and Nietzsche, for instance), and the selfs role in society. Naturally his view is not a particularly optimistic one, and he is frequently out to establish the pain in the heart of the self – his cut-off, mutilated and distorted figures serve to expose the more desultory aspects of the self, and thus his images appear less as pornographic, and more as pieces that actually challenge and oppose the traditionally porno