User:Peter morrell/roy strong

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Sir Roy Strong (born August 23 1935) is an English art and cultural historian, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer.

Marriage[edit]

Roy Strong married Julia Trevelyan Oman in 1971, and he was knighted in 1982.[1] The arts world was astonished when "Strong abandoned the bachelor life and "eloped" with Julia Trevelyan Oman, marrying her at Wilmcote church, near Stratford-upon-Avon, on September 10 1971 with a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Julia Trevelyan Oman was 41 and her husband 35...they enjoyed a belated honeymoon in Tuscany."[2]

Victoria and Albert Museum[edit]

In 1973, aged 39, he became the youngest director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London. In his tenure, until 1987, he presided over its exhibitions The Destruction of the Country House (1974), Change and Decay: the future of our churches (1977), and The Garden: a Celebration of a Thousand Years of British Gardening (1979), all of which have been credited with boosting their conservationist agendas. In 1980, "he was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of Hamburg in recognition of his contribution to the arts in the UK."[3]

At the V&A, Strong became "Britain's first - and, so far, only - celebrity museum director and his flamboyant ways earned him equal amounts of enemies and friends. He wore floppy hats and flares and was photographed by Cecil Beaton. He cultivated publicity and ran popular exhibitions on Biedermeier and Faberge; sooner or later, he would have to go, despite the fact that he genuinely believed that the primary function of these great institutions was to lift people to paradise."[4]

Herefordshire[edit]

Sir Roy lives in the village of Much Birch, which lies 8 miles south of Hereford on the A49 trunk road. In Much Birch, with his late wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman, who died in 2003, he designed one of England's largest post-war formal gardens, The Laskett. He now works full-time as a writer and broadcaster.

He has lived in Herefordshire since 1973-4 and he and his wife conceived the Laskett garden in autumn 1974.

Laskett[edit]

At The Laskett in Herefordshire, "they have created an amazing garden together, in which he works every weekend...The Strongs have been married for 30 years and coming to the show for 28 of them. "This year, it's all about nature triumphing over art! Oh, I love the people who come to Chelsea, I love gardeners. Such humanity, such generosity of spirit - I can't say the same for academe and the museum worlds. They're all unbalanced obsessives," he shrieks, as we bowl along the walkways between the exhibitions."[5]

Miscellany[edit]

In 1999, Strong published The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts, a widely acclaimed 700-page study of the arts of the British Isles through two millennia. In 2005, he published Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy.

After leaving the V&A, Strong published a set of diaries that became infamous for its often critical assessments of figures in the art and political worlds. It has been rumoured that he has retained a set for posthumous publication. "His bitchy, hilarious diaries caused a storm when they were published in 1997 and although he has no plans at present to publish another set, he is keeping a private diary again."[6]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Alan Strachan, Obituary: Julia Trevelyan Oman, The Independent, 13 October, 2003
  2. ^ Julia Trevelyan Oman (Obituary), The Daily Telegraph, 12 October 2003
  3. ^ Sir Roy Strong
  4. ^ Jan Moir, I gave everything. Is that silly? (Interview with Roy Strong at the Chelsea Flower Show), Telegraph, 24 May 2002
  5. ^ Jan Moir, I gave everything. Is that silly? (Interview with Roy Strong at the Chelsea Flower Show), Telegraph, 24 May 2002
  6. ^ Jan Moir, I gave everything. Is that silly? (Interview with Roy Strong at the Chelsea Flower Show), Telegraph, 24 May 2002

see also[edit]

National Portrait Gallery,

Victoria & Albert Museum,

Directors of the Victoria & Albert Museum

Publications[edit]

  • The Renaissance Garden in England, Roy Strong (1984)
  • The Roy Strong Diaries 1967–1987, Roy Strong (1997), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-81841-4
  • The Story of Britain: A People's History, Roy Strong (1998)
  • The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry, Roy Strong (1999)
  • The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts, Roy Strong (1999)
  • Gardens Through the Ages, Roy Strong (2000)
  • Feast: A History of Grand Eating, Roy Strong (2003)
  • Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, Roy Strong (2003)
  • The Arts in Britain: A History, Roy Strong (2004)
  • Beaton Portraits, Roy Strong and Terence Pepper (2004)
  • Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy, Roy Strong (2005)
  • Passions Past and Present, Roy Strong (2005)
  • The Diary of John Evelyn, John Evelyn and Roy Strong (2006)
  • A Little History of the English Country Church, Roy Strong (2007)

External links[edit]

Quantification (science)

The term quantification has several meanings, both general and specific. Primarily it covers all those human acts which quantify observations, information and experiences by converting them into data in the form of numbers, usually through counting and measuring.

Some indication of the undisputed general importance of quantification in the natural sciences can be gleaned from the following comments: these are mere facts, but they are quantitative facts and the basis of science.[1]

It seems to be held as a universal truth that the foundation of quantification is measurement.[2] There is little doubt that quantification provided a basis for the objectivity of science.[3] In ancient times, musicians and artists...rejected quantification, but merchants, by definition, quantified their affairs, in order to survive, made them visible on parchment and paper.[4] Any reasonable comparison between Aristotle and Galileo shows clearly that there can be no unique lawfulness discovered without detailed quantification.[5] Even today, universities use imperfect instruments called 'exams' to indirectly quantify something they call knowledge.[6]

Quantification thus forms the basis for mathematics and for natural science. Quantities can be numbers of objects or things derived from counting or be in the form of numerical units derived from measuring the dimensions of objects such as height, length, mass or speed of motion (velocity).

Data in numerical form can then be manipulated by calculation such as addition, subtraction, division and multiplication leading to ever more complex (and more abstract) calculation methods as seen in mathematics. In this way quantification forms the obvious basis not only of mathematics but also of natural science where accurate measurement and calculations lead directly to theories and predictions about likely events in the natural world.

References[edit]

  1. ^ J. M., & Farrand, L. (1896). Physical and mental measurements of the students of Columbia University, The Psychological Review, 3(6), 618-648, p.648 quoted in James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944) Psychologist, Publisher, and Editor
  2. ^ S S Wilks, Some Aspects of Quantification in Science, Isis, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Jun., 1961), pp. 135-142, p.135
  3. ^ Hong, History of Science: Building Circuits of Trust, Science, 10 September 2004: 1569-1570
  4. ^ Alfred W. Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.201
  5. ^ Robert Langs, Psychoanalysis as an Aristotelian Science—Pathways to Copernicus and a Modern-Day Approach, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 23, 1987, pp.555-576
  6. ^ Aaaron Lynch, Misleading Mix of Religion and Science

Bibliography[edit]

  • Alfred W Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600, Cambridge University Press, 1996, ISBN 0521554276
  • Gérard Jorland, George Weisz, Annick Opinel, Body Counts: Medical Quantification in Historical and Sociological Perspective, Fondation Marcel Mérieux, McGill Queen's University Press, 2005, ISBN 077352925X
  • Harry Woolf, Quantification: A History of the Meaning of Measurement in the Natural and Social Sciences, Social Science Research Council (U.S.), Irvington Publications, 1961, ISBN 0891979131

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

Categories[edit]

Category:Measurement Category:Mathematics Category:Numbers

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