Buckminster Fuller - American designer

Buckminster Fuller and the Geodesic dome.

available at: Jurgen Maten/12 August 2006/Geodesic dome
/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller/15/12/2013

Buckminster Fuller an American born in July 12, 1895 was a systems theorist, architect, engineer, author, designer, inventor and futurist.

A series of conflicts in his life led to many inventions on paper and development into 3D structures and the invention of the 4D design.
The first conflict was his being born into an aristocratic family and being one in a line of graduates from Harvard University, he failed to graduate from Harvard University.

The second major conflict came about after he was c by his leaving the navy in 1922 and co-founding Stochade Building Company, which produced lightweight building materials, the knowledge gained during these years proved invaluable to his later experiments with design and archeology.  In 1927 disaster struck to this company with consiquence that Fuller lost job, came bankrupt, living in public low-incoming housing in Chicago Illinois.

The third conflict was when his young daughter Alexandra died from complications from Polio and Spinal meningitis.  This felt him feeling responsible for her death, and led him to heavy drinking and contemplating suicide.

He recovered from these psycological conflicts by taking a decision to devote his life to others, embarking on experiments to discover and challenge himself.  He was a peniless unknown individual who wanted to see what he could be able to do effectively for humanity, mostly in the field of construction.

The first work as a result of these was inventing of a 4D design by building 4D tower - lightweight, prefabricated, multistorey apartments to be delivered anywhere by airship.  It could generate it's own light, heat and independent sewage disposal system - self sustainable concept (Futuristic at that time) this 4D concept was thought in future concept and not a 3D design where it only thought about immediate personal gain.  This reality is being experienced nowadays, where construction concepts cannot be just about design, but have to consider the needs of others and the environment.

available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller[Accessed 2 January 2013]

Caravaggio - The ciaroschuro artist

Caravaggio, in his work, had a continual conflict between what was termed 'vulgar realism'and the expectations of the person or body who comissioned the work.

An example of this is the painting of St Matthew.

Caravaggio's first painting of St Matthew was rejected.  In this first painting he presented the saint as a bald peasant, with dirty legs and attended by a lightly clad, over familiar boy angel.
The church did not accept this and he redid-it.

The first painting was realism as Caravaggio knew it, since it was not the first time he found himself in a situation of poverty.

Caravaggio realism for which he became renounced showed up as early as his apprenticeship with Giuseppe Cesare, where his paintings showed physical particularity.

Caravaggio never resolved this conflict, since his art, more often than not reflected his life, and so his paintings show violent struggles, grotesque decapitations, torture and death, and only when the original paintings were rejected did he consent to repaint in a more idealistic style, "the stylised formality and grandeur"of Roman Mannerism.


available at: http://www.caravaggio-foundation.org/[Accessed 22nd December 2012]