Name an admired historical figure.Explain why.

[Wildor]

The title is self-explanatory.

To keep this controversy-free however, we should limit our choices to pre-1950.

A brief discussion on our different choices could be interesting.

Let me start...




It is always very easy to talk about VINCENT VAN-GOGH in a humorous vein. The man WAS mentally unstable.
However, I can never discuss him and his work seriously without being moved. In my opinion, very few have given so much. For having received so little.

We have no real idea of what it was to be poor in the late nineteenth century. The appalling living conditions, the dreadful diet when indeed there was food to be had, the untreated diseases...
VAN-GOGH was poor. In the last years of his life, very poor. I certainly believe that the life he had contributed in no small measure to his mental instability.
We all know the story... His brother, owning an art gallery and being of the middle-class, would send him a little money every month and was the only person to buy one of his paintings in his lifetime. Cheap. Because he thought he MIGHT be able to find a buyer for it. It was not so ugly as the rest his works...
To live not only so poor and sick, but misunderstood as well, made his life an ordeal I would not wish on my worst enemy.

That's what he received.

When PICASSO and BRAQUE started the cubist movement, giving modern art the impetus it needed to fully develop, they were the talk of the Paris elite art scene. To their eternal credit, when critics and "connaisseurs" were waxing lyrical about a "new approach" and a "revolution in art", both acknowledged that, yes indeed, this WAS a revolution, and that what they were doing would change art forever. But no... they weren't the two who started this.
Both PICASSO and BRAQUE would tell fans and interviewers: " We're only following in the footsteps of VAN-GOGH. His late works taught us."
Considering the impact of the cubists in the decades to follow, evaluate if you will the rippling influence of VAN-GOGH on the modern world. Many serious art academics state unequivocally that all modern art start with him. A contribution of this magnitude is in itself enough to elevate his name the ranks of the greatest artists of all time.

But that is only the beginning of what VINCENT gave.

When you have seen his works, really SEEN them, then you begin to understand...
VAN-GOGH is walking home, late at night, to the little village where he stays, in the south of France. He feels the beauty, the serenity and this "homecoming" feeling, all wrapped around this scene, this place at this very moment... A candlelit little village... A moonless night sky filled with stars...the promise of a warm bed...

That feeling, that MOMENT, he gives it to you.

VAN-GOGH is walking along a road of ripe wheat fields all around on a gorgeous, sunny day. And he can't help himself, he just DIVES in, dives in the golden wheat. And the wind is playing, and the sun is bouncing all around, and the colors overwhelm, AND THIS IS GLORIOUS.... Just glorious! He feels blessed for having known this moment.

And he gives it to you.

And to all those to come after.

Even as I am writing this, I am moved (again!!) by such generosity.

[EvilKitty]

I'm going to have to go with H.P. Lovecraft. With a crazy father and a messed up life, he produced some of the most influential writings that have inspired me today. His creativity and massive depth in his writing have given me hope that no matter what people around me may disagree with, there is always someone out there that will understand. It's simply beautiful and scary. Seductive and killer. So many of his passages will make your brain explode while making you beg for more. RIP Mr. Lovecraft. You're truly a pioneer in my eyes.

[Jasmine Princess]

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was born on 12 May 1820, and named after the city of her birth in Italy. When she was 24 she became a nurse after having the feeling God was calling her to do some work but wasn't sure what that work should be. She would visit the sick people in the local villiages and began to investigate nursing and hospitals. Her parents disaproved of her choices, they thought the profession to be inappropriate for a woman of her class and background, and would not allow her to train as a nurse. But thankfully they relented in 1851.

She traveled to Kaiserwerth in Germany for three months nursing training the year her parents accepted her choice. This enabled her to become superintendent of a hospital for upper class women in Harley Street, in 1853.

In November 1854, she arrived in Scutari in Turkey. With the help of her nurses, she greatly improved the conditions and substantially reduced the mortality rate of people injured in the Crimean War.

She returned to England in 1856 and in 1860 she established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas' Hospital in London. From there once the nurses were trained, they were sent to hospitals all over Britain, where they introduced the ideas they had learnt, and established nursing training on the Nightingale model.
Nightingale's theories, were hugely influential and her concerns for sanitation, military health and hospital planning established practices which are still in existence today. There are even Florence Nightingale Trust Grants
which were established to support Tasmanian nurses in achieving their goals in nursing education and research.

She died on 13 August 1910 in East Wellow, England at the respectable age of 90.


Florence Nightingale is an insperation to me, because one day I hope to become as good as a nurse as she was. I am studing Midwifery and nursing at the moment and hope to help people as much as she did.

[EvilKitty]

-_-

c/p much?

[Sephiroth X]

Qin Shi Huangdi because he's the first emperor of China.

[King Solomon]

If you narrowed it down that would help, because each time has a group of people.

I would say if you mean Renaissance or end of middle ages i would have to say Gutenberg. His revolutionary printing press made things change a lot. It let more people learn how to read, and let people who might not have become famous, famous because they received a better education.

If you were talking about the end of the Renaissance or early American revolution which has a name I can't remember might be sir. Issac Newton. He changed everything with his laws of motion and his thinking and ideas.

If you said modern age, pre 1950 you could say Einstein because even today we are finding that some of his theories that couldn't be proven before are right due to the technology that we have.

I applied you for thinking of this, but keep in mind it is not set in stone who is right and each time has its contributors.

I could name you many people from other times, but i can do that later really, but keep in mind what i have said.

[trogdor1316]

I'm going to have to go with H.P. Lovecraft. With a crazy father and a messed up life, he produced some of the most influential writings that have inspired me today. His creativity and massive depth in his writing have given me hope that no matter what people around me may disagree with, there is always someone out there that will understand. It's simply beautiful and scary. Seductive and killer. So many of his passages will make your brain explode while making you beg for more. RIP Mr. Lovecraft. You're truly a pioneer in my eyes.

I second that motion.

Heheh... Wildor thinks he can prevent controversy by keeping it pre-1950s.... in that case, I admire Jack the Ripper.

[woody513]

Democritus because we were learning about the atom in school today and he's not famous like Plato and Aristotle. He hypothesized the atom but he gets overlooked.

[Jasmine Princess]

-_-

c/p much?

I believe the thread was called "name an admired historical figure. Explain why"
Adding a little information on the person I admire the most was for the people who don't know who she is. I named her, I said why I admired her, so sue me for giving people some extra information and maybe a little extra education. I also believe linking to random places on the web is not allowed on the forums TOS, adding information, hence the italic, is allowed.

So, unless you had something to add rather than a few words, stop spamming useless things people don't need / want to see or has no relevance to the thread.

Have a good day

[trogdor1316]

I believe the thread was called "name an admired historical figure. Explain why"
Adding a little information on the person I admire the most was for the people who don't know who she is. I named her, I said why I admired her, so sue me for giving people some extra information and maybe a little extra education. I also believe linking to random places on the web is not allowed on the forums TOS, adding information, hence the italic, is allowed.

So, unless you had something to add rather than a few words, stop spamming useless things people don't need / want to see or has no relevance to the thread.

Have a good day

It's still kinda creepy.