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Houdon, Jean-Antoine

(Encyclopedia)Houdon, Jean-Antoine zhäN-äNtwänˈ o͞odôNˈ [key], 1741–1828, French neoclassical sculptor. He studied with Michel Ange Slodtz, Lemoyne, and Pigalle, took the Prix de Rome at the age of 20, and...

Cresson, Edith

(Encyclopedia)Cresson, Edith ādētˈ krĕsōNˈ [key], 1934–, French politician, b. Edith Campion. After studying at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, she became a consultant in private industry. Activ...

Amboise, conspiracy of

(Encyclopedia)Amboise, conspiracy of, 1560, plot of the Huguenots (French Protestants) and the house of Bourbon to usurp the power of the Guise family, which virtually ruled France during the reign of the young Fra...

Bacon, Francis, English painter

(Encyclopedia)Bacon, Francis, 1910–92, English painter, b. Dublin. A self-taught artist, Bacon rejected abstraction in painting to explore a repertoire of strange, fractured, and often bizarre figurative images, ...

Hennepin, Louis

(Encyclopedia)Hennepin, Louis hĕnˈəpĭn [key], 1640–1701?, French cleric and explorer in North America. A Franciscan Recollect friar, Hennepin came to Canada in 1675, meeting on the journey La Salle, who made ...

Gemayel

(Encyclopedia)Gemayel zhĕmīˈəl [key], Maronite Christian family active in Lebanese politics; leaders of the Phalange party (1937–82), and later the Phalange militia. Pierre Gemayel, 1905–84, founded the rig...

Pousseur, Henri

(Encyclopedia)Pousseur, Henri äNrēˈ po͞osörˈ [key], 1929–2009, Belgian composer, b. Malmédy. Considered the leader of the Belgian avant-garde, he studied composition with André Souris and Pierre Boulez an...

infrared radiation

(Encyclopedia)infrared radiation, electromagnetic radiation having a wavelength in the range from c.75 × 10−6 cm to c.100,000 × 10−6 cm (0.000075–0.1 cm). Infrared rays thus occupy that part of the electrom...

pendulum

(Encyclopedia)pendulum, a mass, called a bob, suspended from a fixed point so that it can swing in an arc determined by its momentum and the force of gravity. The length of a pendulum is the distance from the point...

criticism

(Encyclopedia)criticism, the interpretation and evaluation of literature and the arts. It exists in a variety of literary forms: dialogues (Plato, John Dryden), verse (Horace, Alexander Pope), letters (John Keats),...