title: Urbino

text: On 8 September 1860 the Piedmontese troops entered Urbino from Port Saint Lucia, forcing the surrender of the last resistance of the papal army under the portico of the childhood house of Raphael. But it was not until 29 September, with the capture of Ancona, that the total conquest of the Marche region was completed by the Piedmont army.


title: Urbino

text: Between 4 and 5 November, the plebiscite was held for the annexation of the Marche to the Kingdom of Sardinia, which ended with 133,783 votes in favor, 260 votes against and 1,212 invalid ballots. In the province of Urbino (excluding the territory of Pesaro) the count was 21,111 for and 365 against with 29 invalid ballots. Subsequently, on 10 November, the Marche was included in the Statuto Albertino, and then, on 17 December, it was made official with the issuance of a royal decree.


title: Urbino

text: The new government began the confiscation of various ecclesiastical goods, including good part of the convent of San Francisco (where a part of a botanical garden, designed by Vincenzo Ghinelli, was located), the monastery of Santa Chiara, that of San Girolamo, and many others.


title: Urbino

text: The century began as had the previous one. This period of quiet lasted for almost the entire first half of the twentieth century, with no particular significant events. In this period, the Scuola del Libro (Istituto per la Decorazione e l'Illustrazione del Libro) was founded and expressed considerable talent both nationally and internationally. In addition to the artistic development from the Scuola del Libro, Urbino also began to grow as a university town, with the elevation to university faculty of nineteenth-century School of Pharmacy and the birth of the department of Education (approximately 1934). Due to these changes in the University, an increase in the student population led to housing shortages that highlighted the state of total unpreparedness of the city, so much that for the first time many students were housed in the homes of private citizens. The problem was partly solved with the establishment of the male boarding school "Raphael" at the beginning of the century, and the female boarding school "Laura Battiferri" in approximately 1926.


title: Urbino

text: This period was dominated by great events of national and international history, which inevitably were expressed in Urbino. The period of the fascist dictatorship left its mark on the city, especially from an architectural point of view, with a fascist elementary school "Giovanni Pascoli" (1932) built on the ancient Garden of Saint Lucia (part of the duke's private gardens), the restoration of the palace-Mauruzi Gherardi, then the seat of the court, as well as the Student House, to compensate for the shortage of accommodation as a result of the large increase in university population and housing for the maimed and disabled civilians.


title: Urbino

text: In 1938, the city was designated as the headquarters for the fledgling Soprintendenza alle Gallerie e alle Opere d'Arte delle Marche, roughly translated as the Organization of Galleries and Works of Art of the Marche.


title: Urbino

text: With the outbreak of World War II the city suffered no bombing, thanks to the large red cross painted on the roof of the Ducal Palace and an agreement between the Germans and the Allies. Only towards the end of the war did the retreating German troops try to destroy all the ramparts of the walls, but luckily the mines were tampered with by the workers the Germans had hired from Urbino. During the retreat, the German army isolated the city with the destruction of rail and road links. In addition, the Germans planned to blow up a tunnel, then under construction, between Urbino and the parish of Schieti that was being used by the Nazis to store weapons. Because of its location at the foot of the historic center, the population feared that an explosion would lead to the destruction of the village above, but this did not happen. During the Second World War, the then Superintendent of the Galleries and Works of Art in Urbino in the Marche Pasquale Rotondi secretly placed around 10,000 priceless works (including those of Giorgione, Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Titian, Mantegna, Raphael and many more, from all the major museums in Italy) that were being stolen by the Nazis into the Rock of Sassocorvaro. His actions gained worldwide recognition and to this day the Rock of Sassocorvaro is known as the “Ark of Art”.


title: Urbino

text: Urbino was liberated from the Nazi occupation on 28 August 1944, thanks to the British V Corps, Polish troops, and the heroic actions of partisan groups in the area. Some of the members of these partisan groups were captured by the Nazis and executed on the current Punto Panoramica, where memorials are now placed celebrating their sacrifice.


title: Urbino

text: The second half of the twentieth century was characterized in Urbino by the cooperation with the major public institutions (the University and the City) by the architect Giancarlo De Carlo. This relationship began in 1956 when Carlo Bo, former rector of the University, commissioned from De Carlo the internal renovation project of Montefeltro- Bonaventure building, headquarters of the University. Immediately after that, the Genoese architect was commissioned by the City to prepare the General Plan (1958–64) aimed at the recovery of the historical center, which had been in poor condition and was in danger of losing several neighborhoods including the Palazzo Ducale to the land subsidence below. This problem was solved thanks to state funding derived from two special laws enacted for the city (in 1968 and in 1982 ).


title: Urbino

text: Subsequently, De Carlo realized several projects for the university including the college's dormitories, near the Capuchin church outside the city center, an interesting example of how architecture can merge with the surrounding landscape. He also completed projects like the construction of the department of Magisterium (1968–76), the restructuring of the department of Law ( 1966–68 ) and the Battiferri building (1986–99) for the department of Economics. They are three significant examples of the inclusion of a contemporary architecture in an ancient surrounding, and are still studied today.


title: Urbino

text: The seventies were marked by a collaboration with the Municipality for a project called Operation Mercatale (1969–72), which included the construction of a multi-story underground car park under Torricini's famous Ducal Palace and the restoration of the helical ramp under the theater by Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1971–75), in collaboration with the City. They also developed the project of renovation of the Sanzio theater (1977–82) and the renovation project, much discussed, of the ancient Ducal Stables. In addition, thanks to the close relationship with De Carlo, the city has hosted twice (1976–81, and 1992–93) the laboratories of the ILAUD, founded and directed by the Genoese architect.


title: Urbino

text: One of the last of De Carlo actions was the preparation, between 1989 and 1994, of the New General Plan.


title: Urbino

text: The clay earth of Urbino, which still supports industrial brickworks, supplied a cluster of earthenware manufactories ("botteghe") making the tin-glazed pottery known as "maiolica". Simple local wares were being made in the 15th century at Urbino, but after 1520 the Della Rovere dukes, Francesco Maria I della Rovere and his successor Guidobaldo II, encouraged the industry, which exported wares throughout Italy, first in a manner called "istoriato" using engravings after Mannerist painters, then in a style of light arabesques and "grottesche" after the manner of Raphael's "stanze" at the Vatican. Other centers of 16th century wares in the Duchy of Urbino were at Gubbio and Castel Durante. The great name in Urbino majolica was that of Nicolo Pillipario's son Guido Fontana.


title: Sithara (singer)

text: Sithara Krishnakumar (born 1 July 1986) is an Indian playback singer, composer, lyricist, classical dancer and an occasional actor. She predominantly works in Malayalam cinema in addition to Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. Sithara is a well known singer who is trained in Hindustani and Carnatic classical music traditions and is also a recognised ghazal singer. She is the recipient of several awards which includes three Kerala State Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer.


title: Sithara (singer)

text: She travels extensively and has performed in concerts and stage shows across the world. Folk and fusion being her other areas of interest. She has collaborated with various popular musical bands in Kerala as well as collaborated in many stage shows which includes international shows as well. In 2014, she formed a musical band Eastraga which focuses on a mix of female oriented songs backed by a team of renowned musicians. She is also part of the 6-member band named Sithara's Project Malabaricus, an independent venture which features contemporarised folk and classical songs.


title: Sithara (singer)

text: Sithara was born in Malappuram to K. M. Krishnakumar, an academician and Saly Krishnakumar. Born into a family inclined to classical arts, Sithara was introduced to the world of music as a child and started singing at the age of four. She attended St. Paul's Higher secondary School Thenhipalam, GMHSS Calicut University Campus School and NNM Higher secondary School Chelembra . She did her graduation in English Literature from Farook College, Feroke and secured her master's degree from Calicut University Campus, Kerala. She married Dr. Sajish M, a cardiologist, on 31 August 2007 and the couple has a daughter Saawan Rithu born on 9 June 2013. The family resides at Aluva, Kochi Kerala.


title: Sithara (singer)

text: She started off her art life as a dancer and eventually became a playback singer. She was trained in Carnatic Music by Sri Ramanattukara Satheesan Master and Palai CK Ramachandran. Sithara also received extensive education in Hindustani Classical music from Ustad Fiyaz Khan. She is also a classical dancer trained by Kalamandalam Vinodini. For her multifaceted talents, she was accoladed with the Kalathilakam title in Calicut University Arts Festival for two consecutive years(2005 and 2006). She holds master's degrees in Hindustani Khyal Music and Vocal Music from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata.


title: Sithara (singer)

text: Sithara started off her playback singing career in the year 2007 with the song Pammi Pammi in Vinayan's Malayalam film Athishayan. Formerly, she was the winner of several musical talent shows like Asianet Saptha Swarangal (2004), Kairali TV Gandharva Sangeetham (Seniors) and Jeevan TV Voice 2004. She also won Jeevan TV's 20 million Apple Megastars in 2008. She has gained a good reputation as a devoted Ghazal singer and a passionate stage performer of other vocal genres. She has worked with noted composers like Ouseppachan, M. Jayachandran, G. V. Prakash Kumar, Prashant Pillai, Gopi Sundar, Bijibal, Shaan Rahman and rendered her voice to over 300 film songs including Malayalam and other Indian languages. Her works are of various genres.


title: Sithara (singer)

text: In 2017, she turned composer with the single Ente Akasham, Written by herself. The video which officially got released at a program held by Kerala State Women's Development Corporation to commemorate International Women's Day, picturized the life of night-time female workers.


title: Sithara (singer)

text: She turned film music composer with the film "Udalaazham" along with Mithun Jayaraj. The film is produced under the banner "Doctor’s Dilemma" – a doctor's collective which includes her husband Dr. Sajish. M. She made a cameo appearance in the Malayalam film Ganagandharvan directed by Ramesh Pisharody.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The Greco-Buddhist art or Gandhara art of the north Indian subcontinent is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between Ancient Greek art and Buddhism. It had mainly evolved in the ancient region of Gandhara.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The series of interactions leading to Gandhara art occurred over time, beginning with Alexander the Great's brief incursion into the area, followed by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka converting the region to Buddhism. Buddhism became the prominent religion in the Indo-Greek Kingdoms. However, Greco-Buddhist art truly flowered and spread under the Kushan Empire, when the first surviving devotional images of the Buddha were created during the 1st-3rd centuries CE. Gandhara art reached its zenith from the 3rd-5th century CE, when most surviving motifs and artworks were produced.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Gandhara art is characterized by Buddhist subject matter, sometimes adapting Greco-Roman elements, rendered in a style and forms that are heavily influenced by Greco-Roman art. It has the strong idealistic realism and sensuous description of Hellenistic art, and it is believed to have produced the first representations of Gautama Buddha in human form, ending the early period of aniconism in Buddhism.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The representation of the human form in large sculpture had a considerable influence, both to the south in the rest of India, and to the east, where the spread of Buddhism carried its influence as far as Japan.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: There has been disagreement among art historians as to whether Gandharan art owes more to the culture established immediately after Alexander's campaigns, or to a synthesis several centuries later between travelling Greco-Roman artists from the eastern Roman Empire in regions where Greek settlers were still important. Most of the considerable quantity of Gandharan art that can be dated comes from after about 50 AD, although some clearly was created earlier. For this reason, some scholars prefer to call this Romano-Indian art, or talk of an "Indo-Classical style".


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The French scholar Alfred Foucher first identified the Western influences on Gandharan art at the end of the 19th century. He was initially a proponent of the continuity between the first Greek settlements and this art, and dated much of the art much earlier than more recent scholars do. However, he later revised his views and datings somewhat. His views as to dates and the crucial period of Western influence came to be widely rejected, but then received considerable support by the discovery of the important deserted city site of Ai-Khanoum (Alexandria on the Oxus), which was excavated in the 1960s and 1970s, where quantities of clearly Greek-influenced art were found, datable to the 3rd and (mostly) 2nd centuries BC.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Greco-Buddhist art originated after a series of cultural exchanges between populations. During the time of Alexander the Great's military campaign in the Indian subcontinent and South Asia, Buddhism was mostly limited to North Eastern India and not common in North Western India, where the Greek satrapies formed. Buddhism was later widespread throughout South and Central Asia by the Maurya Empire. The Mauryan Emperor Ashoka converted his Greek subjects among others to Buddhism as mentioned in his Edicts of Ashoka.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: After the overthrow of the Maurya Empire by the Shunga Empire, which did not extend to the north-western corners of the Mauryan territories, many of the Greek satrapies continued to practice Buddhism and developed the Greco-Buddhist art. This was evident during the reign of the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian kingdom (250–130 BC) and the Indo-Greek kingdom (180–10 BC). Under the Indo-Greeks and especially later under the Kushan Empire, Greco-Buddhist art flourished in the area of Gandhara and even spread to Central Asia, affecting the art of the Tarim Basin, as well as permeating again into India.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The Yavana (Greek) king Menander I was given the title of "Soter" ("Savior"), presumably for his aid of Buddhists that were being persecuted. According to the Milinda Panha, Menander was a devout Buddhist and achieved the title of an "arhat", and was buried in a stupa according to the Buddhist fashion. Following the death of Menander, the Indo-Greek Kingdoms disintegrated and their realm was conquered by invading Indo-Scythians or other regional entities. The Indo-Scythians were in turn subjugated by the Kushan Empire as the Western Satraps and the Kushan Empire would consolidate power throughout most of Central Asia and North India. The Kushan Emperor Kanishka, was also a devout Buddhist and Buddhism and its art flourished during the Kushan Era. Furthermore, he was responsible for spreading Mahayana Buddhism and Buddhist art throughout the Silk Road.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Buddhist art first became evident and widespread under the Maurya Empire during the reign of Ashoka the Great. Mauryan art heavily influenced early Buddhist art and its iconography. This is evident in the art found throughout the Maurya Empire such as capitals including the Pillars of Ashoka, and stupas such as the Sanchi and Bharhut stupas, which were constructed and first decorated during the Maurya Era. Early Buddhist art, including Mauryan art, depicted various structures and symbols pertaining to dharmic religions which are still used today. Symbols such as the Dharmachakra, lotus, and the Bodhi tree have become common iconography representing Buddhism. Additionally, these Buddhist artforms included various mythological beings such as yakshas including Kubera and yakshini such as Chanda, as well as celestial Devas (Suras) and Asuras. Furthermore, Mauryan art especially those found on reliefs throughout stupas, depict the life of the Buddha including his birth, royal processions, the Great Departure, enlightenment, and acension from this world.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Interestingly, although these sculptures depict other humans and various divinities in anthropomorphic forms, the Buddha is purposefully not shown in a human representation. Instead, the Buddha is depicted with various symbols. This includes a riderless horse depicting his departure from his kingdom as shown on the Bharhut stupa. A Bodhi tree to depict the Shakyamuni Buddha achieving enlightenment. As well as the Buddha footprints to convey his legacy after moving on from this world. There is much debate on why the Buddha was not depicted as a human unlike other sculptures found throughout Buddhist art. It is considered that the orthodox Buddhists choose not to represent the Shakyamuni Buddha out of respect, as giving him a human form would bound him to this Earth as a living being which contradicts him obtaining his goal of enlightenment and achieving moksha.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The clearest examples of Hellenistic art are found in the coins of the Greco-Bactrian kings of the period, such as Demetrius I of Bactria. Many coins of the Greco-Bactrian kings have been unearthed, including the largest silver and gold coins ever minted in the Hellenistic world, ranking among the best in artistic and technical sophistication: they "show a degree of individuality never matched by the often more bland descriptions of their royal contemporaries further West". ("Greece and the Hellenistic world").


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: These Hellenistic kingdoms established cities on the Greek model, such as in Ai-Khanoum in Bactria, displaying purely Hellenistic architectural features, Hellenistic statuary, and remains of Aristotelician papyrus prints and coin hoards.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: These Greek elements penetrated India quite early as shown by the Hellenistic Pataliputra capital (3rd century BC) during the Maurya Era, but the influence became especially strong, particularly in northwestern India following the invasion of the Greco-Bactrians in 180 BC, with the establishment of the Indo-Greek kingdom in India. Architectural styles used Hellenistic decorative motifs such as fruit garland and scrolls. Stone palettes for aromatic oils representing purely Hellenistic themes such as a Nereid riding a Ketos sea monster are found.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The Greeks in Asia are well known archaeologically for their stone palettes, also called "toilet trays", round trays commonly found in the areas of Bactria and Gandhara, which usually represent Greek mythological scenes. The earliest of them are attributed to the Indo-Greek period in the 2nd and 1st century BCE (a few were retrieved from the Indo-Greek stratum No.5 at Sirkap). Production continued until the time of the Indo-Parthians, but they practically disappeared after the 1st century.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: As soon as the Greeks invaded Northwestern South Asia to form the Indo-Greek kingdom, a fusion of Hellenistic and Buddhist elements started to appear, encouraged by the benevolence of the Greek kings towards Buddhism. This artistic trend then developed for several centuries and seemed to flourish further during the Kushan Empire from the 1st century AD.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: According to some authors, Hellenistic sculptors had some connection with the creation of Buddhist art at Sanchi and Bharhut. The structure as a whole as well as various elements point to Hellenistic and other foreign influence, such as the fluted bell, addorsed capital of the Persepolitan order, and the abundant use of the Hellenistic flame palmette or honeysuckle motif.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Around 115 BC, the embassy of Heliodorus from king Antialkidas to the court of the Sungas king Bhagabhadra in Vidisha is recorded. In the Sunga capital, Heliodorus constructed the Heliodorus pillar in a dedication to Vāsudeva. This would indicate that relations between the Indo-Greeks and the Sungas had improved by that time, that people traveled between the two realms, and also that the Indo-Greeks readily followed Indian religions.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Also around the same time, circa 115 BC, it is known that architectural decorations such as decorative reliefs started to be introduced at nearby Sanchi, 6 km away from Vidisha, by craftsmen from the area of Gandhara, a central Indo-Greek region. Typically, the earliest medallions at Sanchi Stupa No.2 are dated to 115 BC, while the more extensive pillar carvings are dated to 80 BC. These early decorative reliefs were apparently the work of craftsmen from the northwest (around the area of Gandhara), since they left mason's marks in Kharoshthi, as opposed to the local Brahmi script. This seems to imply that these foreign workers were responsible for some of the earliest motifs and figures that can be found on the railings of the stupa.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Craftsmen from the Gandhara area, a central region of the Indo-Greek realm, are known to have been involved in the construction of the gateways at Bharhut, which are dated to 100-75 BC: this is because mason's marks in Kharosthi have been found on several elements of the Bharhut remains, indicating that some of the builders at least came from the north, particularly from Gandhara where the Kharoshti script was in use.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Cunningham explained that between the architraves of the gateway, but none on the railings which all had Indian markings, summarizing that the gateways, which are artistically more refined, must have been made by artists from the North, whereas the railings were made by local artists. The Bharhut gateway is dated to 100-75 BC (most probably 75 BC based on artistic analysis).


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The structure as a whole as well as various elements point to Hellenistic and other foreign influence, such as the fluted bell, addorsed capital of the Persepolitan order, and the abundant use of the Hellenistic flame palmette or honeysuckle motif.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Later, Greco-Buddhist art depicts the life of the Buddha in a visual manner, probably by incorporating the real-life models and concepts which were available to the artists of the period.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The Bodhisattvas are depicted as bare-chested and jewelled Indian princes, and the Buddhas as Greek kings wearing the light toga-like himation. The buildings in which they are depicted incorporate Greek style, with the ubiquitous Indo-Corinthian capitals and Greek decorative scrolls. Surrounding deities form a pantheon of Greek (Atlas, Herakles) and Indian gods (Indra).


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expressiveness to be given to the sculpture. Sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara - India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Stylistically, Greco-Buddhist art started by being extremely fine and realistic, as apparent on the standing Buddhas, with "a realistic treatment of the folds and on some even a hint of modelled volume that characterizes the best Greek work" (Boardman). It then lost this sophisticated realism, becoming progressively more symbolic and decorative over the centuries.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The presence of stupas at the Greek city of Sirkap, which was built by Demetrius around 180 BC, already indicates a strong syncretism between Hellenism and the Buddhist faith, together with other religions such as Hinduism and Zoroastrianism. The style is Greek, adorned with Corinthian columns in excellent Hellenistic execution.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Later in Hadda, the Greek divinity Atlas is represented holding Buddhist monuments with decorated Greek columns. The motif was adopted extensively throughout the Indian sub-continent, Atlas being substituted for the Indian Yaksa in the monuments of the Shunga Empire around the 2nd century BC.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD, the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha were developed. These were absent from earlier strata of Buddhist art, which preferred to represent the Buddha with symbols such as the stupa, the Bodhi tree, the empty seat, the wheel, or the footprints. But the innovative anthropomorphic Buddha image immediately reached a very high level of sculptural sophistication, naturally inspired by the sculptural styles of Hellenistic Greece.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Many of the stylistic elements in the representations of the Buddha point to Greek influence: the Greek himation (a light toga-like wavy robe covering both shoulders: Buddhist characters are always represented with a dhoti loincloth before this innovation), the halo, the contrapposto stance of the upright figures, the stylized Mediterranean curly hair and top-knot apparently derived from the style of the Belvedere Apollo (330 BC), and the measured quality of the faces, all rendered with strong artistic realism (See: Greek art). Some of the standing Buddhas (as the one pictured) were sculpted using the specific Greek technique of making the hands and sometimes the feet in marble to increase the realistic effect, and the rest of the body in another material.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Foucher especially considered Hellenistic free-standing Buddhas as "the most beautiful, and probably the most ancient of the Buddhas", assigning them to the 1st century BC, and making them the starting point of the anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha ("The Buddhist art of Gandhara", Marshall, p101).


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: There is some debate regarding the exact date for the development of the anthropomorphic representation of the Buddha, and this has a bearing on whether the innovation came directly from the Indo-Greeks, or was a later development by the Indo-Scythians, the Indo-Parthians or the Kushans under Hellenistic artistic influence. Most of the early images of the Buddha (especially those of the standing Buddha) are anepigraphic, which makes it difficult date definitely. The earliest known image of the Buddha with approximate dating is the Bimaran casket, which was found buried with coins of the Indo-Scythian king Azes II (or possibly Azes I), indicating a 30–10 BC date, although this date is not undisputed.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Such dating, as well as the general Hellenistic style and pose of the Buddha on the Bimaran casket (himation dress, contrapposto pose, general depiction) makes it a possible Indo-Greek work, used in dedications by Indo-Scythians soon after the end of Indo-Greek rule in Gandhara. Since it already displays quite a sophisticated iconography (Brahma and Śakra as attendants, Bodhisattvas) in an advanced style, it would suggest much earlier representations of the Buddha were already current by that time, going back to the rule of the Indo-Greeks (Alfred A. Foucher and others). The next datable findings come later, such as the Kanishka casket (c. AD 120) and Kanishka's Buddhist coins. These works indicate that the anthropomorphic representation of the Buddha was already extant in the 1st century AD.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Chinese texts and mural paintings in the Tarim Basin city of Dunhuang describe ambassador Zhang Qian traveling to Central Asia, as far as Bactria around 130 BC. The same murals describe Emperor Wu (156–87 BC) worshipping Buddhist statues, explaining them as ""golden men brought in 120 BC by a great Han general in his campaigns against the nomads."" Although there is no other mention of Emperor Wu worshipping the Buddha in Chinese historical literature, the murals suggest that statues of the Buddha were already in existence during the 2nd century BC, connecting them directly to the time of the Indo-Greeks.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The "Book of Later Han" describes the enquiry about Buddhism made around AD 67 by the emperor Emperor Ming (AD 58–75). He sent an envoy to the Yuezhi in northwestern India, who brought back paintings and statues of the Buddha, confirming their existence before that date:


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: In Gandharan art, the Buddha is often shown under the protection of the Greek god Herakles, standing with his club (and later a diamond rod) resting over his arm. This unusual representation of Herakles is the same as the one on the back of Demetrius' coins, and it is exclusively associated to him (and his son Euthydemus II), seen only on the back of his coins.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Soon, the figure of the Buddha was incorporated within architectural designs, such as Corinthian pillars and friezes. Scenes of the life of the Buddha are typically depicted in a Greek architectural environment, with protagonist wearing Greek clothes.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Deities from the Greek mythological pantheon also tend to be incorporated in Buddhist representations, displaying a strong syncretism. In particular, Herakles (of the type of the Demetrius coins, with club resting on the arm) has been used abundantly as the representation of Vajrapani, the protector of the Buddha. Other Greek deities abundantly used in Greco-Buddhist art are representation of Atlas, and the Greek wind god Boreas. Atlas in particular tends to be involved as a sustaining elements in Buddhist architectural elements. Boreas became the Japanese wind god Fujin through the Greco-Buddhist Wardo/Oado and Chinese Feng Bo/Feng Po ("Uncle Wind"; among various other names). The mother deity Hariti was inspired by Tyche.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Particularly under the Kushans, there are also numerous representations of richly adorned, princely Bodhisattvas all in a very realistic Greco-Buddhist style. The Bodhisattvas, characteristic of the Mahayana form of Buddhism, are represented under the traits of Kushan princes, completed with their canonical accessories.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Winged cupids are another popular motif in Greco-Buddhist art. They usually fly in pair, holding a wreath, the Greek symbol of victory and kingship, over the Buddha.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: These figures, also known as "apsarases" were extensively adopted in Buddhist art, especially throughout East Asia, in forms derivative to the Greco-Buddhist representation. The progressive evolution of the style can be seen in the art of Qizil and Dunhuang. It is unclear however if the concept of the flying cupids was brought to India from the West, of if it had an independent Indian origin, although Boardman considers it a Classical contribution: "Another Classical motif we found in India is the pair of hovering winged figures, generally called apsaras." (Boardman)


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Scenes of cupids holding rich garlands, sometimes adorned with fruits, is another very popular Gandharan motif, directly inspired from Greek art. It is sometimes argued that the only concession to Indian art appears in the anklets worn by the cupids. These scenes had a very broad influence, as far as Amaravati on the eastern coast of India, where the cupids are replaced by yakṣas.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Some Greco-Buddhist friezes represent groups of donors or devotees, giving interesting insights into the cultural identity of those who participated in the Buddhist cult.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Some groups, often described as the "Buner reliefs," usually dated to the 1st century AD, depict Greeks in perfect Hellenistic style, either in posture, rendering, or clothing (wearing the Greek chiton and himation). It is sometimes even difficult to perceive an actual religious message behind the scenes. (The devotee scene on the right might, with doubt, depict of the presentation of Prince Siddharta to his bride. It may also just be a festive scene.)


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: About a century later, friezes also depict Kushan devotees, usually with the Buddha as the central figure.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Various fantastic animal deities of Hellenic origin were used as decorative elements in Buddhist temples, often triangular friezes in staircases or in front of Buddhist altars. The origin of these motifs can be found in Greece in the 5th century BC, and later in the designs of Greco-Bactrian perfume trays as those discovered in Sirkap. Among the most popular fantastic animals are tritons, ichthyo-centaurs and ketos sea-monsters. Similar fantastic animals are found in ancient Egyptian reliefs, and might therefore have been passed on to Bactria and India independently.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: As fantastic animals of the sea, they were, in early Buddhism, supposed to safely bring the souls of dead people to Paradise beyond the waters. These motifs were later adopted in Indian art, where they influenced the depiction of the Indian monster makara, Varuna's mount.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The later part of Greco-Buddhist art in northwestern India is usually associated with the Kushan Empire. The Kushans were nomadic people who started migrating from the Tarim Basin in Central Asia from around 170 BC and ended up founding an empire in northwestern India from the 2nd century BC. After conquering the lands once inhabited by Greco-Bactrians and Indo-Greeks, the Kushan Empire adopted Greco-Buddhist art.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara essentially ends with the 5th-7th centuries. A late evolution is the appearance of a halo and mandorla surrounding the Buddha figure. The last stages correspond roughly to the destruction of the Alchon Huns, when the art of Gandhara, becomes essentially extinct. When Xuanzang visited northwestern India in AD, he reported that Buddhism had drastically declined, and that most of the monasteries were deserted and left in ruins.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Examples of the influence of Hellenistic or Greco-Buddhist art on the art of the Shunga Empire (183-73 BC) are usually faint. The main religion, at least at the beginning, seems to have been Brahmanic Hinduism, although some late Buddhist realizations in Madhya Pradesh as also known, such as some architectural expansions that were done at the stupas of Sanchi and Bharhut, originally started under King Ashoka.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The representations of the Buddha in Mathura, in central northern India, are generally dated slightly later than those of Gandhara, although not without debate, and are also much less numerous. Up to that point, Indian Buddhist art had essentially been aniconic, avoiding representation of the Buddha, except for his symbols, such as the wheel or the Bodhi tree, although some archaic Mathuran sculptural representation of Yaksas (earth divinities) have been dated to the 1st century BC. Even these Yaksas indicate some Hellenistic influence, possibly dating back to the occupation of Mathura by the Indo-Greeks during the 2nd century BC.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: In terms of artistic predispositions for the first representations of the Buddha, Greek art provided a very natural and centuries-old background for an anthropomorphic representation of a divinity, while on the contrary "there was nothing in earlier Indian statuary to suggest such a treatment of form or dress, and the Hindu pantheon provided no adequate model for an aristocratic and wholly human deity" (Boardman).


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The Mathura sculptures incorporate many Hellenistic elements, such as the general idealistic realism, and key design elements such as the curly hair, and folded garment. Specific Mathuran adaptations tend to reflect warmer climatic conditions, as they consist in a higher fluidity of the clothing, which progressively tend to cover only one shoulder instead of both. Also, facial types also tend to become more Indianized. Banerjee in "Hellenism in ancient India" describes "the mixed character of the Mathura School in which we find on the one hand, a direct continuation of the old Indian art of Bharhut and Sanchi and on the other hand, the classical influence derived from Gandhara".


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The influence of Greek art can be felt beyond Mathura, as far as Amaravati on the East coast of India, as shown by the usage of Greek scrolls in combination with Indian deities. Other motifs such as Greek chariots pulled by four horses can also be found in the same area.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Incidentally, Hindu art started to develop from the 1st to the 2nd century AD and found its first inspiration in the Buddhist art of Mathura. It progressively incorporated a profusion of original Hindu stylistic and symbolic elements however, in contrast with the general balance and simplicity of Buddhist art.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The art of Mathura features frequent sexual imagery. Female images with bare breasts, nude below the waist, displaying labia and female genitalia are common. These images are more sexually explicit than those of earlier or later periods.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: It has been suggested that the art of Devnimori in Gujarat, dated to the 4th century AD, represented a Western Indian artistic tradition, based on the influence of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, that was anterior to the rise of Gupta Empire art, and that it may have influenced it, and have influenced the art of the Ajanta Caves, Sarnath and other places from the 5th century onward. Devnimori may also have received some influence from Mathura art. At Ajanta, some connections with the art of Gandhara can be noted, and there is evidence of a shared artistic idiom.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The site of Devnimori included numerous terracotta Buddhist sculptures (but no stone sculptures), which are among the earliest sculptures that can be found in Gujarat. The style is clearly influenced by the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The Indo-Scythian Western Satraps (1st century AD-405 AD may have played a role in the transmission of the art of Gandhara to the western Deccan region, as may also have the southern expansion of the Alchon Huns in the 6th-7th century.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The art of Mathura acquired progressively more Indian elements and reached a very high sophistication during the Gupta Empire, between the 4th and the 6th century AD. The art of the Gupta is considered as the final pinnacle of Indian art, although the Gupta dynasty were Hindu, and Buddhism was now in decline in India.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Hellenistic elements are still clearly visible in the purity of the statuary and the folds of the clothing, but are improved upon with a very delicate rendering of the draping and a sort of radiance reinforced by the usage of pink sandstone.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Artistic details tend to be less realistic, as seen in the symbolic shell-like curls used to render the hairstyle of the Buddha.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Greco-Buddhist artistic influences naturally followed Buddhism in its expansion to Central and East Asia from the 1st century BC.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Bactria was under direct Greek control for more than two centuries from the conquests of Alexander the Great in 332 BC to the end of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom around 125 BC. The art of Bactria was almost perfectly Hellenistic as shown by the archaeological remains of Greco-Bactrian cities such as Alexandria on the Oxus (Ai-Khanoum), or the numismatic art of the Greco-Bactrian kings, often considered as the best of the Hellenistic world, and including the largest silver and gold coins ever minted by the Greeks.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: When Buddhism expanded in Central Asia from the 1st century AD, Bactria saw the results of the Greco-Buddhist syncretism arrive on its territory from India, and a new blend of sculptural representation remained until the Islamic invasions.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The most striking of these realizations are the Buddhas of Bamyan. They tend to vary between the 5th and the 9th century AD. Their style is strongly inspired by Hellenistic culture.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: In another area of Bactria called Fondukistan, some Greco-Buddhist art survived until the 7th century in Buddhist monasteries, displaying a strong Hellenistic influence combined with Indian decorativeness and mannerism, and some influence by the Sasanid Persians.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Most of the remaining art of Bactria was destroyed from the 5th century onward: the Buddhists were often blamed for idolatry and tended to be persecuted by the iconoclastic Muslims. Destructions continued during the Afghanistan War, and especially by the Taliban regime in 2001. The most famous case is that of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan. Ironically, most of the remaining art from Afghanistan still extant was removed from the country during the Colonial period. In particular, a rich collection exists at the Musee Guimet in France.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The art of the Tarim Basin, also called Serindian art, is the art that developed from the 2nd through the 11th century in Serindia or Xinjiang, the western region of China that forms part of Central Asia. It derives from the art of the Gandhara and clearly combines Indian traditions with Greek and Roman influences. Buddhist missionaries travelling on the Silk Road introduced this art, along with Buddhism itself, into Serindia, where it mixed with Chinese and Persian influences.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The arts of China, Korea and Japan adopted Greco-Buddhist influences, but also added many local elements as well. What remains identifiable from Greco-Buddhist art are realism in sculpture, clothing with elaborate folds, curly hairstyles, and winged figures holding wreaths.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Greco-Buddhist influences are found in Chinese Buddhist art, with local and temporal variations depending on the dynasties that adopted Buddhism. Money tree artifacts from the Han dynasty often contain small depictions of the Buddha similar to Gandhara styles, such as the high "ushnisha", vertical hair bun, moustache, and symmetrical depictions of the robe and folds of the arms.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Some Northern Wei and Northern Qi statues are reminiscent of Gandharan style standing Buddhas, although in a more symbolic style. Some Eastern Wei statues display Buddhas with elaborate Greek-style robe folds, and surmounted by flying figures holding a wreath.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: In Japan, Buddhist art developed as the country converted to Buddhism in AD 548. After the adoption of Buddhism, items of the Asuka Period display a classical style, with Hellenistic dress and realism characteristic of Greco-Buddhist art. Other art incorporated Chinese and Korean influences, so that Japanese Buddhism became varied in its expression. Elements of Greco-Buddhist art remain to this day, such as depictions of the Buddha with Greek style clothing folds.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: Greek influence is also found in depictions of the wind god Fūjin, which shows similarities with the god Boreas. Both hold a "wind bag" above their head in a similar pose. The abundance of hair is also found in Japan, as well as exaggerated facial features. Guardian figures known as Nio are based on the image of Herakles, who was used in Greco-Buddhist art to represent Vajrapani, the protector of the Buddha.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The Indian civilization proved very influential on the cultures of Southeast Asia. Most countries adopted Indian writing and culture, together with Hinduism and Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism.


title: Greco-Buddhist art

text: The influence of Greco-Buddhist art is still visible in most of the representation of the Buddha in Southeast Asia, through their idealism, realism and details of dress, although they tend to intermix with Indian Hindu art, and they progressively acquire more local elements.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: Lego City Undercover is an action-adventure video game developed by TT Fusion and published by Nintendo for the Wii U in 2013. It was later re-released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows via Steam by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in 2017. Based on the City themed toyline by Lego, the narrative follows cop Chase McCain as he returns to Lego City and pursues escaped crime boss Rex Fury. Gameplay features McCain both exploring the open world hub of Lego City, and completing self-contained levels featuring puzzles and combat. The original version was single-player only, while the re-release added local two-player multiplayer.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: The first prototypes for "Lego City Undercover" were produced in 2010, with development beginning in 2011 after Nintendo approached parent company TT Games about developing for the Wii U. At the time production began, it was to be the first title featuring voice acting, and it was the first in the TT Games Lego series not to rely on a movie or comic license. The script, written by Graham Goring, made extensive use of parody and reference to both crime shows, and other movies and television series. The Lego City hub was based on multiple real locations.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: The game was originally announced in 2011 as "Lego City Stories" for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The 3DS version was a standalone prequel, "". The game received positive reviews for its story, humour, and evolved gameplay formula. Criticism focused on the lack of co-op options and long loading times. The original Wii U version had sold over one million copies worldwide as of 2019.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: Taking place in the vast Lego City, players control an undercover cop named Chase McCain. Chase goes on the hunt for criminals, with various moves at his disposal, such as swinging across poles and performing wall jumps. He can also gain disguises that give him additional abilities, such as a robber disguise that lets him break locks. Chase can also pilot vehicles, such as cars and helicopters, and use loose bricks to build various objects. Other characters can be playable once unlocked, but they'll still talk with Chase's voice (except in cutscenes where Chase can still be seen). Players can also create custom characters, which are also playable. The Wii U GamePad can be used as a device including a communicator and as a scanner to locate criminals.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: "Lego City Undercover"'s gameplay borrows heavily from the "Grand Theft Auto" series. However the game is role-reversed with the player taking on the role of a police officer enforcing the law, rather than a criminal committing crime, although the player is occasionally required to commit criminal acts on some occasions, like dealing with shady businesses and committing robbery at the museum, in order to infiltrate criminal gangs.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: Police officer Chase McCain (Joseph May) comes back to Lego City, after being sent away two years ago , at the request of Mayor Gleeson. Upon his return, Gleeson reveals the city is in the grips of a crime wave that has caused to have some serious tear and wear in the city reputation, turning tourists away, which she suspects to be the work of Rex Fury - a notorious criminal that Chase helped to arrest, who had recently escaped from prison - and asks Chase to find him and stop him once again. To assist him in his work, Chase is joined by dim-witted rookie Frank Honey, and assisted by police technician Ellie Phillips, though his return is not welcome news for Natalia Kowalski (Jules de Jongh), Chase's girlfriend, who was forced into the witness protection program after he inadvertently revealed her as the witness in Fury's trial, nor Marion Dunby (Kerry Shale), the city's new Chief of Police, who had Chase sent away because of his mistake as well as always having a giant dislike to him.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: After helping to deal with a number of minor cases, Chase manages to gain a few clues that lead him to encountering Rex at Bluebell Mine. Despite finding him, he is defeated before he can arrest him, and upon regaining consciousness, he learns that Natalia's father has gone missing. Chase offers to help her find him but Natalia refuses. Chase then goes to a dojo/plumbing business and gets basic kung fu training from a plumber/martial artist named Barry Smith (Adam Buxton). Afterwards, he is sent to save Frank and a new state-of-the-art police truck (the M.O.V.) from criminal associates' of Rex. Frank drives the police truck and eventually crashes into the station during a ceremony with Gleeson and Dunby. After being pressured by Gleeson to involve Chase in Rex's case, upon Frank informing her that he is being purposely kept out of it, Dunby sends Chase undercover within a limousine company owned by Chan Chuang, head of a crime gang. During his time in the company, he works as a driver for millionaire Forrest Blackwell (Peter Serafinowicz), gains acceptance with Chan's business partner, Vinnie Pappalardo (John Guerrasio), and steals a moon buggy for Chan. When Natalia is captured by Chan, while investigating his connection to her father's disappearance, Chase goes to rescue her, causing her to accept his help in finding her father, but angering Dunby when Chan goes into hiding.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: Dunby temporarily removes him from the case, and has Chase and Frank transferred to Bluebell National Park to work with Sheriff Duke Huckleberry. Sometime later, Dunby reinstates him to the case, whereupon Chase is tasked by Vinnie to taking on work for him, including the job of stealing a robotic T-Rex from the Lego City museum. After helping to rescue Natalia from a group of mysterious men, whereupon they partially reconcile, Chase tails Vinnie to his private buyer and finds it to be Rex himself. When Vinnie learns he won't be paid for his work and is ordered to steal more items for his buyer, he instructs Chase to steal from Blackwell. After breaking into his mansion, Chase returns to Vinne's ice cream parlor, only to find it overrun by Rex's thugs and Vinnie locked in a freezer in retaliation for going against Rex's orders. Chase manages to save Vinnie from Rex's thugs, and after interrogating the thug's leader, takes their place to learn what Rex is planning.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: Managing to infiltrate Rex's hideout, Chase overhears Natalia's father, lunar scientist Henrik Kowalski, being interrogated by Rex and discovers that Blackwell himself organized the crime wave, and had managed to kidnap Natalia to coerce her father to work on his plans. Rescuing Kowalski, Chase calls Ellie with what he learnt, whereupon she informs him that Blackwell recently was in the news with promises he had plans that would change Lego City forever. Proceeding to Blackwell's mansion, he searches it for evidence of Blackwell's crimes and to locate Natalia. Chase soon discovers that Blackwell originally had plans to build an apartment complex and shopping mall in Bluebell, but was stopped by Lego City from building due to a rare and endangered squirrel species in the park. Humiliated and enraged at being denied, Blackwell began a new plan to build a colony on the moon and converted his high-rise, Blackwell Tower, into a rocket, which Chase discovers will burn Lego City when it's launched. Chase quickly has Henrik and several members in the police department build a force field to prevent the rocket's engines from destroying the city.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: Learning that Blackwell kidnapped Natalia with him, Chase chases him via a space shuttle. Upon the moon, Chase finds himself using a construction mech to battle against Rex within the modified T-Rex he helped to steal. Blackwell leaves both men behind, destroying the shuttle. Chase manages to defeat Rex in a final battle, whereupon Blackwell sends both into free fall towards Earth. Vowing for revenge, Blackwell finds himself sent flying away by a cow out of nowhere. Skydiving towards Natalia's prison within the rocket's command module, Chase rescues her by triggering the module's parachute. Once back in the city, Gleeson congratulates him for saving Lego City, while Dunby offers Chase the honor of overseeing Rex's arrest. However, Chase turns it down, claiming Natalia is more important to him now, and they rekindle their relationship and leave to start a new life together.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: If the code from the High speed chase Lego set is used (or if the game is completed in the remastered version) there are two bonus missions located at the police station that depict a police chase from two points of view. One mission allows the player to steal a car from the station and drive it to a criminal hideout. The other is the same scenario, only the player controls the cop who pursues the criminal and eventually arrests him.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: The development team at TT Fusion had been wanting to create a video game based on the Lego City theme for some time, but the available technology and the fact that most staff were working on existing IPs limited their ability to create such a game. Prototyping for what would become "Lego City Undercover" began in 2010, and lasted roughly twelve months. As they did not have a solid idea of what the game would be, the team began with creating a small environment with drivable vehicles and Lego buildings. In 2011, Nintendo approached the company and showed them the Wii U hardware, asking whether they would like to develop a game for it. Having already had good experiences with Nintendo with successful ports of their previous titles and liking the platform's specs, the team agreed to work with Nintendo. Developing a game not tied to a movie license gave the team a degree of freedom previously unavailable, while also presenting difficulties with multiple aspects including the story, gameplay and general mechanics of the game. Due to the high compatibility between the team's concept and its prospective hardware, ports to other consoles were not seriously considered, until a few years after the game was released. They were also able to integrate the GamePad functions into the game, making part of "Undercover"s world. Nintendo generally left the team to develop the game as they pleased, though they received regular updates on the project and would notify them if they saw anything as a problem. One of the early gameplay challenges was the combat, which needed to fit into the story context of the lead character being a policeman. Instead of a simple brawling style, the team designed the battle system to allow for defensive gameplay and not involve an equivalent to lethal take-downs.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: While designing the setting, the team used elements from multiple locations, including New York City, San Francisco and London. As the game was being developed for a Nintendo console, the team included multiple Nintendo-themed Easter eggs for players to find. The team had to create a new game engine as previous ones were not able to cope with the scale of the environments. They also wanted the main character, Chase McCain, to have depth as they knew both children and adults would play the game. "Undercover" features full voice acting, which at the time development started was a first for the series, although due to development time, others featuring voice acting were developed and released ahead of it. For the voice casting, the team used voice casting and recording company Side UK. A large voice casting session was held, and several established comedians were specifically asked to come in as the team wanted good delivery for the funny sections of the script. By the time the script writer, former stand-up comedian Graham Goring, was brought on board, a rough outline of the story had been created. His main role was to fill in the gaps and put in as much humor as possible. Goring was given a lot of freedom when it came to the parodies, although the team were regularly consulted on the suitability of the material and a script editor was assigned to check his work. Drawing on his former profession, Goring included a large amount of one-liners and humor intended for both children and adults. Following the template of "The Simpsons", the game contains a high number of family-friendly parodies, referencing movies such as "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Matrix", and TV series such as "Starsky & Hutch". The game's story took a while to write, as the team wanted to give it depth.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: "Lego City Undercover" was announced during Nintendo's press conference at E3 2011 on 7 June 2011 under the tentative title "Lego City Stories". At Nintendo's press conference at E3 2012 on 5 June 2012, the game was revealed to have had a name change to "Lego City Undercover". It is the first Lego title published by Nintendo. The game's debut trailer was shown during that event, revealing game footage for the first time. During Nintendo's 13 September events, some new trailers detailing the story were shown, along with the announcement that a Chase McCain minifigure would come with the game as a pre-order bonus on North America and Australia while stocks last, and be included in the first copies of the game on Europe. A police high speed chase toy was also released and includes a code for additional in-game content. Nintendo also published the game in Japan on 25 July 2013.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: On 22 November 2016, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that a remaster would be released for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in April 2017, which introduced split-screen cooperative support.


title: Lego City Undercover

text: The Wii U version of the game received a score of 80/100 on review aggregator website Metacritic, indicating “generally favorable reviews”. Reviews were largely positive, praising the humour and design, but generally criticizing lengthy loading times and a lack of co-operative multiplayer, the latter of which is a staple in most "Lego" titles. "Official Nintendo Magazine" awarded the game 90%, making it the magazine's third highest rated Wii U game at the time. IGN gave the game 8 out 10, praising its huge open world while criticising its generic gameplay. Eurogamer gave the game a score of 9 out of 10, saying the game features "a mixture of great writing, twinkling level design and laudable values that keep you coming back". GamesRadar gave the game 4 out of 5 stars, praising the inventive use of occupations and rewarding puzzles but criticising the lack of co-operative multiplayer. GameTrailers gave the game a score of 8.4, calling it "the best game in the series so far." Nintendo Insider awarded the game a score of 85%, writing that it "signals a bold new direction for TT Fusion’s creativity."


title: Lego City Undercover

text: According to NPD figures, the game sold more than 100,000 units in the United States in its debut month, debuting outside the top 10 and tying with "Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate". In the UK, the game debuted at number 12 in the all-formats chart, however, it debuted at number 8 in the individual-format chart and at number 1 in the Wii U chart. In Japan, the game sold more than 18,000 copies during its first week, entering all the charts at number 9. By December 2019, the Wii U version had sold 1.9 million units worldwide.


title: Cars Toons

text: Cars Toons is a television series of American computer-animated short films produced by Pixar. It features the main characters Lightning McQueen and Mater from Pixar's "Cars" franchise non-canonically in the original plot. Larry the Cable Guy reprises his role as Mater while Keith Ferguson replaces Owen Wilson as the voice of Lightning McQueen until "The Radiator Springs 500 ½", when Wilson reprises his role.


title: Cars Toons

text: The series premiered on October 27, 2008 on both Disney Channel, Toon Disney and ABC Family. Not exclusive to television, the shorts were also released on home media and/or as theatrical shorts. The series ended on May 20, 2014 with "The Radiator Springs 500 ½" being the final short to be made.


title: Cars Toons

text: All "Cars Toons" in "Mater's Tall Tales" follow a shared formula: Each episode opens with Mater popping out of his garage door and declaring, "If I'm lyin', I'm cryin'!" (or a variation thereof as seen on the home media and television releases) before cutting to the episode's title card.


title: Cars Toons

text: Each episode then properly begins with Lightning McQueen and Mater seeing something that results in the latter proceeding to tell the former a tall tale about something he supposedly did in the past, before the action shifts to the flashback of Mater's story. At a midway point, the action briefly shifts back to Mater and McQueen in which the former proclaims that the latter was also involved by saying, "Don't you remember? You was there too!" (or also some other variation thereof). The flashback then resumes with McQueen's sudden and usually unwilling participation in the story's events. After Mater finishes telling his tall tale (with the exception of "Tokyo Mater"), McQueen denies the fact that Mater's tale is real and Mater replies, "Well, suit yourself!" (or also some variation thereof) before one or more characters/elements involved in the story coincidentally appear to McQueen's shock, paradoxically suggesting that Mater's story really happened.


title: Cars Toons

text: Each episode ends with Mater and McQueen posing in their corresponding story's costumes, with the exception of "Tokyo Mater". All episodes also feature Mia and Tia and various pit crew forklifts in supporting roles (with the exception of "Time Travel Mater").


title: Cars Toons

text: All "Cars Toons" in "Tales from Radiator Springs" simply follow the comedic antics and adventures of McQueen, Mater and their friends in their hometown Radiator Springs, following the events of "Cars 2".


title: Cars Toons

text: After the success of "Cars", production of "Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales" began in 2006. The first nine shorts were produced by Pixar, while all the following shorts were produced by Pixar's subsidiary, Pixar Canada.


title: Cars Toons

text: "Tokyo Mater" premiered in theaters in the US with "Bolt" on December 12, 2008. The short is the first Disney·Pixar production presented in Disney Digital 3-D. However, the DVD release features a different short, "Super Rhino". Sulley and Mike from the 2001 film "Monsters, Inc." (also made by Pixar) make cameo appearances in "Tokyo Mater" as their car forms from the ending of the first film.


title: Cars Toons

text: It was announced that "Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales" was to be released as part of the "Disney·Pixar Cars Die-Cast Line" in mid-2009. In October 2009, they released several die-casts. They released all of the "Rescue Squad Mater" and "Mater the Greater" die-casts, and they are working on "El Materdor" die-casts and reverse.


title: Cars Toons

text: A video game based on the series also titled "Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales" and developed by Papaya Studio, was released on October 19, 2010 for the Wii. A PC version was also released outside the United States and on Steam worldwide in 2014.


title: Cars Toons

text: A DVD and Blu-ray compilation of the first nine shorts, titled "Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales", was released on October 31, 2010. The compilation includes "Mater the Greater", "Rescue Squad Mater", "Monster Truck Mater", "Unidentified Flying Mater", "El Materdor", "Moon Mater", "Heavy Metal Mater", "Mater Private Eye" and "Tokyo Mater", with "Moon Mater" and "Mater Private Eye" created exclusively for this set. Choosing the "Play All" option from the menu gives each short (except for "Mater the Greater" which plays first) unique intros.


title: Cars Toons

text: The remaining two episodes of "Mater's Tall Tales", "Air Mater" and "Time Travel Mater" were released on the Pixar Short Film Collection, Volume 2. And the three episodes of "Tales from Radiator Springs", "Hiccups", "Bugged" and "Spinning" were released on YouTube. The remaining episode of "Tales from Radiator Springs", "The Radiator Springs 500 ½" was released on the Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 3.


title: Cars Toons

text: In addition to "The Radiator Springs 500 ½," which was released in 2014, director Rob Gibbs revealed at the 2013 Disney D23 Expo a fifth "Cars Toons: Tales from Radiator Springs" episode titled "To Protect and Serve." The short was expected to debut in 2014 on Disney Channel, but to date this has not occurred.


title: Postmodernity

text: Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist "after" modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the 1980s or early 1990s – and that it was replaced by postmodernity, and still others would extend modernity to cover the developments denoted by postmodernity. The idea of the postmodern condition is sometimes characterized as a culture stripped of its capacity to function in any linear or autonomous state like regressive isolationism, as opposed to the progressive mind state of modernism.


title: Postmodernity

text: Postmodernity can mean a personal response to a postmodern society, the conditions in a society which make it postmodern or the state of being that is associated with a postmodern society as well as a historical epoch. In most contexts it should be distinguished from postmodernism, the adoption of postmodern philosophies or traits in the arts, culture and society. In fact, today's historical perspectives on the developments of postmodern art (postmodernism) and postmodern society (postmodernity) can be best described as two umbrella terms for processes engaged in an ongoing dialectical relationship like post-postmodernism, the result of which is the evolving culture of the contemporary world.


title: Postmodernity

text: Some commentators deny that modernity ended, and consider the post-WWII era to be a continuation of modernity, which they refer to as late modernity.


title: Postmodernity

text: "Postmodernity" is the state or condition of being postmodern – after or in reaction to that which is modern, as in postmodern art ("see postmodernism"). Modernity is defined as a period or condition loosely identified with the Progressive Era, the Industrial Revolution, or the Enlightenment. In philosophy and critical theory "postmodernity" refers to the state or condition of society which is said to exist "after" modernity, a historical condition that marks the reasons for the end of modernity. This usage is ascribed to the philosophers Jean-François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard.


title: Postmodernity

text: One "project" of modernity is said by Habermas to have been the fostering of progress by incorporating principles of rationality and hierarchy into public and artistic life. (See also postindustrial, Information Age.) Lyotard understood modernity as a cultural condition characterized by constant change in the pursuit of progress. Postmodernity then represents the culmination of this process where constant change has become the "status quo" and the notion of progress obsolete. Following Ludwig Wittgenstein's critique of the possibility of absolute and total knowledge, Lyotard further argued that the various metanarratives of progress such as positivist science, Marxism, and structuralism were defunct as methods of achieving progress.


title: Postmodernity

text: The literary critic Fredric Jameson and the geographer David Harvey have identified postmodernity with "late capitalism" or "flexible accumulation", a stage of capitalism following finance capitalism, characterised by highly mobile labor and capital and what Harvey called "time and space compression". They suggest that this coincides with the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system which, they believe, defined the economic order following the Second World War. (See also consumerism, critical theory.)


title: Postmodernity

text: Those who generally view modernity as obsolete or an outright failure, a flaw in humanity's evolution leading to disasters like Auschwitz and Hiroshima, see postmodernity as a positive development. Other philosophers, particularly those seeing themselves as within the modern project, see the state of postmodernity as a negative consequence of holding postmodernist ideas. For example, Jürgen Habermas and others contend that postmodernity represents a resurgence of long running counter-enlightenment ideas, that the modern project is not finished and that universality cannot be so lightly dispensed with. Postmodernity, the consequence of holding postmodern ideas, is generally a negative term in this context.


title: Postmodernity

text: Postmodernity is a condition or a state of being associated with changes to institutions and creations (Giddens, 1990) and with social and political results and innovations, globally but especially in the West since the 1950s, whereas postmodernism is an aesthetic, literary, political or social philosophy, the "cultural and intellectual phenomenon", especially since the 1920s' new movements in the arts. Both of these terms are used by philosophers, social scientists and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary culture, economics and society that are the result of features of late 20th century and early 21st century life, including the fragmentation of authority and the commoditization of knowledge ("see" "Modernity").


title: Postmodernity

text: The relationship between postmodernity and critical theory, sociology and philosophy is fiercely contested. The terms "postmodernity" and "postmodernism" are often hard to distinguish, the former being often the result of the latter. The period has had diverse political ramifications: its "anti-ideological ideas" appear to have been associated with the feminist movement, racial equality movements, gay rights movements, most forms of late 20th century anarchism and even the peace movement as well as various hybrids of these in the current anti-globalization movement. Though none of these institutions entirely embraces all aspects of the postmodern movement in its most concentrated definition they all reflect, or borrow from, some of its core ideas.


title: Postmodernity

text: Some authors, such as Lyotard and Baudrillard, believe that modernity ended in the late 20th century and thus have defined a period subsequent to modernity, namely postmodernity, while others, such as Bauman and Giddens, would extend modernity to cover the developments denoted by postmodernity. Others still contend that modernity ended with the Victorian Age in the 1950s.


title: Postmodernity

text: Postmodernity has gone through two relatively distinct phases the first beginning in the late 1940s and 1950s and ending with the Cold War (when analog media with limited bandwidth encouraged a few, authoritative media channels) and the second beginning at the end of the Cold War (marked by the spread of cable television and "new media" based on digital means of information dissemination and broadcast).


title: Postmodernity

text: The first phase of postmodernity overlaps the end of modernity and is part of the modern period "(see lumpers/splitters, periodization)". Television became the primary news source, manufacturing decreased in importance in the economies of Western Europe and the United States but trade volumes increased within the developed core. In 1967–1969 a crucial cultural explosion took place within the developed world as the baby boom generation, which had grown up with postmodernity as its fundamental experience of society, demanded entrance into the political, cultural and educational power structure. A series of demonstrations and acts of rebellion – ranging from nonviolent and cultural, through violent acts of terrorism – represented the opposition of the young to the policies and perspectives of the previous age. Opposition to the Algerian War and the Vietnam War, to laws allowing or encouraging racial segregation and to laws which overtly discriminated against women and restricted access to divorce, increased use of marijuana and psychedelics, the emergence of pop cultural styles of music and drama, including rock music and the ubiquity of stereo, television and radio helped make these changes visible in the broader cultural context. This period is associated with the work of Marshall McLuhan, a philosopher who focused on the results of living in a media culture and argued that participation in a mass media culture both overshadows actual content disseminated and is liberating because it loosens the authority of local social normative standards.


title: Postmodernity

text: The second phase of postmodernity is "digitality" – the increasing power of personal and digital means of communication including fax machines, modems, cable and high speed internet, which has altered the condition of postmodernity dramatically: digital production of information allows individuals to manipulate virtually every aspect of the media environment. This has brought producers into conflict with consumers over intellectual capital and intellectual property and led to the creation of a new economy whose supporters argue that the dramatic fall in information costs will alter society fundamentally.


title: Postmodernity

text: Digitality, or what Esther Dyson referred to as "being digital", emerged as a separate condition from postmodernity. The ability to manipulate items of popular culture, the World Wide Web, the use of search engines to index knowledge, and telecommunications were producing a "convergence" marked by the rise of "participatory culture" in the words of Henry Jenkins.


title: Postmodernity

text: One demarcation point of this era is the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberalization of China in 1991. Francis Fukuyama wrote "The End of History" in 1989 in anticipation of the fall of the Berlin wall. He predicted that the question of political philosophy had been answered, that large scale wars over fundamental values would no longer arise since "all prior contradictions are resolved and all human needs satisfied." This is a kind of 'endism' also taken up by Arthur Danto who in 1984 acclaimed that Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes asked the right question of art and hence art had ended.


title: Postmodernity

text: The debate on postmodernity has two distinct elements that are often confused; (1) the nature of contemporary society and (2) the nature of the critique of contemporary society. The first of these elements is concerned with the nature of changes that took place during the late 20th century. There are three principal analyses. Theorists such as Callinicos (1991) and Calhoun (1995) offer a conservative position on the nature of contemporary society, downplaying the significance and extent of socio-economic changes and emphasizing a continuity with the past. Second a range of theorists have tried to analyze the present as a development of the "modern" project into a second, distinct phase that is nevertheless still "modernity": this has been termed the "second" or "risk" society by Ulrich Beck (1986), "late" or "high" modernity by Giddens (1990, 1991), "liquid" modernity by Zygmunt Bauman (2000), and the "network" society by Castells (1996, 1997). Third are those who argue that contemporary society has moved into a literally post-modern phase distinct from modernity. The most prominent proponents of this position are Lyotard and Baudrillard.


title: Postmodernity

text: Another set of issues concerns the nature of critique, often replaying debates over (what can be crudely termed) universalism and relativism, where modernism is seen to represent the former and postmodernity the latter. Seyla Benhabib (1995) and Judith Butler (1995) pursue this debate in relation to feminist politics, Benhabib arguing that postmodern critique comprises three main elements; an anti-foundationalist concept of the subject and identity, the death of history and of notions of teleology and progress, and the death of metaphysics defined as the search for objective truth. Benhabib argues forcefully against these critical positions, holding that they undermine the bases upon which feminist politics can be founded, removing the possibility of agency, the sense of self-hood and the appropriation of women's history in the name of an emancipated future. The denial of normative ideals removes the possibility for utopia, central for ethical thinking and democratic action.


title: Postmodernity

text: Butler responds to Benhabib by arguing that her use of postmodernism is an expression of a wider paranoia over anti-foundationalist philosophy, in particular, poststructuralism.


title: Postmodernity

text: Butler uses the debate over the nature of the post-modernist critique to demonstrate how philosophy is implicated in power relationships and defends poststructuralist critique by arguing that the critique of the subject itself is the beginning of analysis, not the end, because the first task of enquiry is the questioning of accepted "universal" and "objective" norms.


title: Postmodernity

text: The Benhabib-Butler debate demonstrates that there is no simple definition of a postmodern theorist as the very definition of postmodernity itself is contested. Michel Foucault rejected the label of postmodernism explicitly in interviews yet is seen by many, such as Benhabib, as advocating a form of critique that is "postmodern" in that it breaks with utopian and transcendental "modern" critiques by calling universal norms of the Enlightenment into question. Giddens (1990) rejects this characterisation of "modern critique", pointing out that a critique of Enlightenment universals was central to philosophers of the modern period, most notably Nietzsche.


title: Postmodernity

text: Jameson views a number of phenomena as distinguishing postmodernity from modernity. He speaks of "a new kind of superficiality" or "depthlessness" in which models that once explained people and things in terms of an "inside" and an "outside" (such as hermeneutics, the dialectic, Freudian repression, the existentialist distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity, and the semiotic distinction of signifier and signified) have been rejected.


title: Postmodernity

text: Second is a rejection of the modernist "Utopian gesture", evident in Van Gogh, of the transformation through art of misery into beauty whereas in the postmodernism movement the object world has undergone a "fundamental mutation" so that it has "now become a set of texts or simulacra". Whereas modernist art sought to redeem and sacralize the world, to give life to world (we might say, following Graff, to give the world back the enchantment that science and the decline of religion had taken away from it), postmodernist art bestows upon the world a "deathly quality… whose glacéd X-ray elegance mortifies the reified eye of the viewer in a way that would seem to have nothing to do with death or the death obsession or the death anxiety on the level of content" (ibid.). Graff sees the origins of this transformative mission of art in an attempted substitution of art for religion in giving meaning to the world that the rise of science and Enlightenment rationality had removed – but in the postmodern period this is seen as futile.


title: Postmodernity

text: The third feature of the postmodern age that Jameson identifies is the "waning of affect" – not that all emotion has disappeared from the postmodern age but that it lacks a particular kind of emotion such as that found in "Rimbaud's magical flowers 'that look back at you'". He notes that "pastiche eclipses parody" as "the increasing unavailability of the personal style" leads to pastiche becoming a universal practice.


title: Postmodernity

text: Jameson argues that distance "has been abolished" in postmodernity, that we "are submerged in its henceforth filled and suffused volumes to the point where our now postmodern bodies are bereft of spatial co-ordinates". This "new global space" constitutes postmodernity's "moment of truth". The various other features of the postmodern that he identifies "can all now be seen as themselves partial (yet constitutive) aspects of the same general spatial object". The postmodern era has seen a change in the social function of culture. He identifies culture in the modern age as having had a property of "semi-autonomy", with an "existence… above the practical world of the existent" but, in the postmodern age, culture has been deprived of this autonomy, the cultural has expanded to consume the entire social realm so that all becomes "cultural". "Critical distance", the assumption that culture can be positioned outside "the massive Being of capital" upon which left-wing theories of cultural politics are dependent, has become outmoded. The "prodigious new expansion of multinational capital ends up penetrating and colonizing those very pre-capitalist enclaves (Nature and the Unconscious) which offered extraterritorial and Archimedean footholds for critical effectivity".


title: Postmodernity

text: can be said to focus on conditions of life which became increasingly prevalent in the late 20th century in the most industrialized nations, including the ubiquity of mass media and mass production, the rise of a global economy and a shift from manufacturing to service economies. Jameson and Harvey described it as consumerism, where manufacturing, distribution and dissemination have become exceptionally inexpensive but social connectedness and community have become rarer. Other thinkers assert that postmodernity is the natural reaction to mass broadcasting in a society conditioned to mass production and mass politics. The work of Alasdair MacIntyre informs the versions of postmodernism elaborated by such authors as Murphy (2003) and Bielskis (2005), for whom MacIntyre's postmodern revision of Aristotelianism poses a challenge to the kind of consumerist ideology that now promotes capital accumulation.


title: Postmodernity

text: The sociological view of postmodernity ascribes it to more rapid transportation, wider communication and the ability to abandon standardization of mass production, leading to a system which values a wider range of capital than previously and allows value to be stored in a greater variety of forms. Harvey argues that postmodernity is an escape from "Fordism", a term coined by Antonio Gramsci to describe the mode of industrial regulation and accumulation which prevailed during the Keynesian era of economic policy in OECD countries from the early 1930s to the 1970s. Fordism for Harvey is associated with Keynesianism in that the first concerns methods of production and capital-labor relations while the latter concerns economic policy and regulation. Post-fordism is therefore one of the basic aspects of postmodernity from Harvey's point of view.


title: Postmodernity

text: Artifacts of postmodernity include the dominance of television and popular culture, the wide accessibility of information and mass telecommunications. Postmodernity also exhibits a greater resistance to making sacrifices in the name of progress discernible in environmentalism and the growing importance of the anti-war movement. Postmodernity in the industrialised core is marked by increasing focus on civil rights and equal opportunity as well as movements such as feminism and multiculturalism and the backlash against these movements. The postmodern political sphere is marked by multiple arenas and possibilities of citizenship and political action concerning various forms of struggle against oppression or alienation (in collectives defined by sex or ethnicity) while the modernist political arena remains restricted to class struggle.


title: Postmodernity

text: Theorists such as Michel Maffesoli believe that postmodernity is corroding the circumstances that provide for its subsistence and will eventually result in a decline of individualism and the birth of a new neo-Tribal era.


title: Postmodernity

text: According to theories of postmodernity, economic and technological conditions of our age have given rise to a decentralized, media-dominated society in which ideas are only simulacra, inter-referential representations and copies of each other with no real, original, stable or objective source of communication and meaning. Globalization, brought on by innovations in communication, manufacturing and transportation, is often cited as one force which has driven the decentralized modern life, creating a culturally pluralistic and interconnected global society lacking any single dominant center of political power, communication or intellectual production. The postmodernist view is that inter-subjective, not objective, knowledge will be the dominant form of discourse under such conditions and that ubiquity of dissemination fundamentally alters the relationship between reader and that which is read, between observer and the observed, between those who consume and those who produce.


title: Postmodernity

text: Another conception of postmodernity is as an epistemological shift. This perspective suggests that the way people communicate and justify knowledge (i.e. epistemology) changes in conjunction with other societal changes, that the cultural and technological changes of the 1960s and 1970s included such a shift, and that this shift should be denoted as from modernity to postmodernity. [See French (2016), French & Ehrman (2016), or Sørensen (2007).


title: Postmodernity

text: Criticisms of the postmodern condition can broadly be put into four categories: criticisms of postmodernity from the perspective of those who reject modernism and its offshoots, criticisms from supporters of modernism who believe that postmodernity lacks crucial characteristics of the modern project, critics from within postmodernity who seek reform or change based on their understanding of postmodernism, and those who believe that postmodernity is a passing, and not a growing, phase in social organization.


title: Tabasco pepper

text: The tabasco pepper is a variety of the chili pepper species "Capsicum frutescens" originating in Mexico. It is best known through its use in Tabasco sauce, followed by peppered vinegar.


title: Tabasco pepper

text: Like all "C. frutescens" cultivars, the tabasco plant has a typical bushy growth, which commercial cultivation makes stronger by trimming the plants. The tapered fruits, around 4 cm long, are initially pale yellowish-green and turn yellow and orange before ripening to bright red. Tabascos rate from 30,000 to 50,000 on the Scoville scale of heat levels, and are the only variety of chili pepper whose fruits are "juicy", i.e., not dry on the inside . Tabasco fruits, like all other members of the "C. frutescens" species, remain upright when mature, rather than hanging down from their stems.


title: Tabasco pepper

text: A large part of the tabasco pepper stock fell victim to the tobacco mosaic virus in the 1960s; the first resistant variety ("Greenleaf tabasco") was not cultivated until around 1970.


title: Tabasco pepper

text: The peppers are named after the Mexican state of Tabasco. The initial letter of "tabasco" is rendered in lowercase when referring to the botanical variety but capitalized when referring to the Mexican state or to the brand of hot sauce, Tabasco sauce.


title: Tabasco pepper

text: Tabasco peppers start out green and ripen to orange and then red. It takes approximately 80 days after germination for them to fully mature. The tabasco plant can grow to tall, with a cream or light yellow flower that will develop into upward-oriented fruits later in the growing season. As they are native to the Mexican state of Tabasco, seeds require much warmth to germinate and grow best when the temperature is between . If grown outside of their natural habitat, the peppers are planted two to three weeks after the last frost when soil temperatures exceed and the weather has settled. Peppers are temperamental when it comes to setting fruit; if temperatures are too hot or too cool, or if nighttime temperatures fall below , it can reduce fruit set. A location that receives plenty of light and heat, with soil that is fertile, lightweight, slightly acidic (pH 5.5–7.0), and well-drained, is ideal for growing the plants. Peppers need a steady supply of water for best performance. Growers are careful to make sure that fertilizers and soil are rich in phosphorus, potassium, and calcium and low in nitrogen, which can deter fruit growth.


title: Hughes XF-11

text: The Hughes XF-11 (redesignated XR-11 in 1948) was a prototype military reconnaissance aircraft designed and flown by Howard Hughes and built by Hughes Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Although 100 F-11s were ordered in 1943, the program was delayed beyond the end of World War II, rendering the aircraft surplus to USAAF requirements; the production contract was canceled and only two prototypes and a static test mockup were completed. During the first XF-11 flight in 1946, piloted by Hughes, the aircraft crashed in Beverly Hills, California, and was destroyed. The second prototype was flown in 1947 but was used only briefly for testing before being stricken from inventory in 1949. The program was controversial from the beginning, leading the U.S. Senate to investigate the XF-11 and the Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat in 1946–1947.


title: Hughes XF-11

text: The F-11 was intended to meet the same USAAF operational objective as the Republic XF-12 Rainbow: a fast, long-range, high-altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft. A highly modified version of the earlier private-venture Hughes D-2, it resembled the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, but was much larger and heavier. Hughes Aircraft Company founder Howard Hughes had first promoted the D-2 as a "pursuit type airplane", (i.e. a fighter aircraft), but it lacked both the maneuverability of a fighter and the load-carrying capacity of bomber, and could not accommodate required military equipment; additionally, the USAAF Materiel Command objected to its wooden Duramold construction due to a perceived lack of durability under fire. Hughes was determined to win a military contract but soon realized that the USAAF was highly unlikely to accept the D-2, so he began petitioning USAAF leaders to issue a contract to redesign it for photographic reconnaissance, and spent several million dollars hiring additional staff and opening a new engineering office for the effort.


title: Hughes XF-11

text: Hughes campaigned the USAAF in Washington, enlisting his father's friend, Secretary of Commerce Jesse Holman Jones, who met with President Franklin Roosevelt in June 1942 to discuss the project. Hughes later found out that Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, the president's son, would visit Hughes Aircraft in August 1943 in the process of surveying several reconnaissance aircraft proposals. When Roosevelt and his team arrived on August 11, Hughes' public relations agent John Meyer showed them the D-2 prototype, took them on a tour of several Hollywood film studios, and introduced Roosevelt to actress Faye Emerson, whom Roosevelt would later marry. Meyer encouraged Roosevelt and his entourage to stay in a private home at his expense, and when Roosevelt demurred, Meyer paid their hotel bill. After Roosevelt left, Meyer invited him to parties he was hosting in New York City and took him to Manhattan nightclubs, where Meyer paid. On August 20, Roosevelt submitted a report to General Henry "Hap" Arnold, chief of the U.S. Army Air Forces, recommending the Hughes proposal. Arnold ordered 100 F-11s for delivery beginning in 1944, overriding the strenuous objections of Materiel Command, which held that Hughes Aircraft lacked the industrial capacity and track record to deliver on its founder's promises, and recommended that Arnold should instead approve a reconnaissance version of the Lockheed XP-58. Arnold later regretted the decision, saying that he made it "much against my better judgment and the advice of my staff" after consultations with the White House.


title: Hughes XF-11

text: A preliminary $43 million contract issued on 11 October 1943 was contested by Hughes, who sought $3.6 to $3.9 million in compensation for the development of the D-2, and objected to Materiel Command's requirements for all-metal construction, self-sealing fuel tanks, and various other major design changes that undermined his contention that the F-11 was directly derived from the D-2. The USAAF strongly objected, arguing that the D-2 project was initiated without USAAF input, and that Hughes had continuously withheld information about the aircraft. In another complication, the War Production Board (WPB) wanted Hughes to build a new assembly plant near Hughes Tool Company headquarters in Houston, where labor costs were lower than in southern California. The WPB eventually allowed the company to use its existing Culver City, California, assembly plant and the USAAF made some small design concessions, but Hughes failed to secure full reimbursement and ultimately agreed to most of the design changes, notably including the elimination of Duramold. The protracted negotiations consumed the better part of ten months, and the final contract was awarded on 1 August 1944. Hughes was awarded $1.6 million in reimbursement.


title: Hughes XF-11

text: The program was plagued by managerial and logistical delays. By early 1944, Hughes was suffering from mental strain from the demands of managing both the F-11 and Hughes H-4 Hercules projects, and had become withdrawn. Warned that the USAAF was considering canceling the F-11 due to a lack of progress, Hughes hired Charles Perrell, former vice president of production at Consolidated Vultee, to manage the program, promising him full and unconditional control. Perrell found Hughes Aircraft rife with inefficiency and suffering from a "complete lack of experience in the design and construction of airplanes in general." His efforts to reorganize were hindered by resistance from senior Hughes Aircraft engineers, who were accustomed to a freewheeling work atmosphere, and from Hughes Tool executives who feared that Perrell would usurp their authority over the aircraft company. 21 engineers, including chief engineer Ed West, resigned in a May 1944 dispute over their offices being moved from Brea, California, to the Culver City plant. The prototype's wings–subcontracted to Fleetwings–were delivered six months behind schedule in April 1945. With the end of the European war in May 1945, the order for 100 F-11s was reduced to just three, a static test model and the two prototypes, and the USAAF de-prioritized the project. The engines were delivered seven months behind schedule in September 1945. By this time, Perrell had been successful in reforming the program, but there was no longer any impetus to deliver 98 production aircraft, and Hughes returned from self-imposed exile and began to interfere despite his earlier promises not to do so. Relations between the two men deteriorated and Hughes had Perrell fired in December.


title: Hughes XF-11

text: The XF-11 emerged as a tricycle landing gear, twin-engine, twin-boom all-metal monoplane with a pressurized central crew nacelle and a much larger wingspan and higher aspect ratio than the P-38 or the D-2. The XF-11 used a pair of Pratt & Whitney R-4360-31 28-cylinder radial engines and was normally flown by a crew of two, but could accommodate a third crewmember in the central nacelle to process film in flight. Each engine drove a pair of contra-rotating four-bladed, variable-pitch propellers, which proved troublesome in testing, having a tendency to suddenly and inexplicably reverse pitch. The first prototype was conditionally accepted by the USAAF on 5 April 1946 although its electrical and hydraulic systems were incomplete. On 24 April, the aircraft was briefly flown at an altitude of over the runway, but the company decided to wait for replacement propellers before initiating formal test flights.


title: Hughes XF-11

text: The first prototype, tail number "44-70155", piloted by Hughes, crashed on 7 July 1946 while on its maiden flight from the Hughes Aircraft factory airfield at Culver City.