Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

incantation

(Encyclopedia)incantation, set formula, spoken or sung, for the purpose of working magic. An incantation is normally an invocation to beneficent supernatural spirits for aid, protection, or inspiration. It may also...

Cavallini, Pietro

(Encyclopedia)Cavallini, Pietro pyĕˈtrō käväl-lēˈnē [key], c.1250–c.1330, Italian painter and mosaicist. Working in a classical style, he had an important influence on the art of Cimabue and Giotto. His s...

Liu Chih-chi

(Encyclopedia)Liu Chih-chi lyo͞o jûr-jē [key], 661–721, Chinese T'ang dynasty historian. Drawing on experience gained while working on histories of the preceding dynasties, he wrote the first important Chinese...

Kolbe, Georg

(Encyclopedia)Kolbe, Georg gāˈôrkh kôlˈbə [key], 1877–1947, German sculptor. Kolbe studied painting and after meeting Rodin turned to sculpture, working in Berlin from 1903 until his death. He is best known...

Rinehart, William Henry

(Encyclopedia)Rinehart, William Henry, 1825–74, American sculptor, b. near Union Bridge, Md. A Baltimore stonecutter, he became one of the best of the early American sculptors, working in the classic vein. He liv...

Delaherche, Félix Auguste

(Encyclopedia)Delaherche, Félix Auguste fālēksˈ ōgüstˈ dəläârshˈ [key], 1857–1940, French potter. He is considered the greatest ceramist since Bernard Palissy. Working alone in the village of La Chapel...

Honcharuk, Oleksiy Valeriyovych

(Encyclopedia)Honcharuk, Oleksiy Valeriyovych, 1984–, Ukrainian political leader. A lawyer who specialized in aspects of real-estate investment and development from 2005, he became in 2015 head of a nongovernment...

Ekholm, Gordon Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Ekholm, Gordon Frederick ĕkˈhōlm [key], 1909–87, American archaeologist, b. St. Paul, Minn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1941. Working with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City after 1937, ...

Wilkinson, Ellen

(Encyclopedia)Wilkinson, Ellen, 1891?–1947, English politician. Of a working-class family, she graduated from the Univ. of Manchester and became a union organizer. A Labour member of Parliament (1924–31, 1935�...

Woodville, Richard Caton

(Encyclopedia)Woodville, Richard Caton, 1825–55, American genre painter, b. Baltimore. He turned from medical studies to painting and in 1845 studied in Düsseldorf. He spent most of his brief working life in Eur...