title: Yan Xishan

text: During the Battle of Xinkou, the Chinese defenders resisted the efforts of Japan's elite Itakagi Division for over a month, despite Japanese advantages in artillery and air support. By the end of October 1937, Japan's losses had become four times greater than those suffered at Pingxingguan, with the Itakagi Division near defeat. Contemporary Communist accounts called the battle "the most fierce in North China," and Japanese military reports referred to the battle a "stalemate", one of the few setbacks that Japanese military planners admitted to in the first several years of the war. In an effort to save their forces at Xinkou, Japanese forces began an effort to occupy Shanxi from a second direction, in the east. After a week of fighting, Japanese forces captured the strategic Niangzi Pass and opened the way to capturing Taiyuan. Communist guerrilla tactics were ineffective in slowing down the Japanese advance. The defenders at Xinkou, realizing that they were in danger of being outflanked, withdrew southward, past Taiyuan, and left a small force of 6,000 men to hold off the entire Japanese army. A representative of the Japanese Army, speaking of the final defense of Taiyuan, said that "nowhere in China have the Chinese fought so obstinately."


title: Yan Xishan

text: The Japanese suffered 30,000 dead, with an equal number wounded, in their effort to take northern Shanxi. A Japanese study found that the Battles of Pingxingguan, Xinkou, and Taiyuan had been responsible for over half of all the casualties suffered by the Japanese in North China. Yan himself was forced to withdraw after 90% of his army had been destroyed, including a large force of reinforcements that had been sent into Shanxi by the central government. Throughout 1937, numerous high-ranking Communist leaders, including Mao Zedong, lavished praise on Yan for waging an uncompromising campaign of resistance against the Japanese.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Shortly before losing Taiyuan, Yan moved his headquarters to Linfen, in southwestern Shanxi. Japanese forces halted their advance to focus on combating Communist guerrilla units still active in their territory and communicated to Yan that they would exterminate his forces within a year but that he and his supporters would be treated with consideration if they severed relations with the central government and assisted the Japanese in suppressing the Communists. Yan responded by repeating his promise not to surrender until Japan had been defeated. Possibly because of the severity of his losses in northern Shanxi, Yan abandoned a plan of defense based on positional warfare and began to reform his army as a force capable of waging guerrilla warfare. After 1938, most of Yan's followers came to refer to his regime as a "guerrilla administration."


title: Yan Xishan

text: In February 1938, Japanese forces invaded Linfen. Yan's forces, under the command of Wei Lihuang, put up a stiff defense at Lingshi Pass but were eventually forced to abandon the position when a Japanese column broke through a different pass and threatened Linfen from the east. Wei prevented the Japanese from seizing the strategic Zhongtiao Mountain Range, but the loss of Linfen and Lingshi forced Yan to withdraw with what remained of his army across the Yellow River, into Yichuan County, Shaanxi, which closely neighbored the Communists' base, the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In the spring of 1938, the Japanese transferred many of their forces away from Shanxi, and Yan succeeded in re-establishing his authority by setting up a headquarters in the remote mountainous district of Qixian. The Japanese made several raids into southern Shanxi but withdrew after they had encountered heavy resistance. By 1938, Yan's tactics had evolved to resemble the guerrilla warfare practiced by Communist forces in other parts of Shanxi, and his defenses featured co-ordination with Communist forces and regular divisions of the Nationalists.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's alliance with the Communists eventually suffered, as tensions escalated between the Nationalists and the Communists in other parts of China. Yan himself eventually came to fear the rapid power and influence that Communist forces operating in Shanxi had quickly gained, and that fear caused him to become increasingly hostile to Communist agents and soldiers. Those tensions eventually led to the breakdown of his good relations with the Communists by October 1939. During the Nationalist 1939–1940 Winter Offensive, which was led by Yan, he was perceived to be intentionally weakening the Communist-dominated "Shanxi New Army" by sacrificing them as the vanguard. Yan accused the New Army leadership of replacing Kuomintang officers with Communists, seizing grain supply from his Shanxi Clique troops, and sabotaging the Nationalist-led Winter Offensive. In December 1939, those units rebelled against Yan in what is known as the Jin-Xi Incident. Both the Nationalists and the Communists sent in reinforcements in the subsequent conflict. By February 1940, the internal conflict had mostly ceased. Yan's "old" Shanxi Clique army maintained control of southern Shanxi, the Eighth Route Army took control of north-western Shanxi, and the central government forces loyal to Chiang took control of central Shanxi. Yan's forces continued to battle the Japanese throughout 1940 as part of an indecisive guerrilla campaign.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In 1940 Yan's friend, Ryūkichi Tanaka, became chief of staff of the Japanese First Army, which was stationed in Shanxi. After Yan's animosity with the Communists became apparent, Tanaka began negotiations with Yan in an effort to induce him to enter into an anti-Communist alliance with Japan. Yan agreed to send a high-level representative to meet with the Japanese and obtained permission from the central government to negotiate with them for an agreement to remove all troops from Shanxi in exchange for Yan's co-operation. Perhaps because the Japanese were unwilling to meet those demands, Yan withdrew from negotiations in December 1940, when Tanaka's superiors recalled him to Japan. Two months later the Japanese repeated their charge that Yan was a "dupe" of the Communists.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In May 1941, Tanaka returned to Shanxi and reopened negotiations with Yan, despite a general resistance from other Japanese military leaders in Northern China. Tanaka returned to Tokyo in August 1941 to pave the way for talks between Yan and General Yoshio Iwamatsu, then the commander of the Japanese First Army in Shanxi. In the summer of 1942, Yan told the Japanese that he would aid them in their fight against the Communists if the Japanese withdrew a large part of their forces from Shanxi and provided his army with food, weapons, and CH$15 million of precious metals.


title: Yan Xishan

text: When Iwamatsu sent his chief of staff, Colonel Tadashi Hanaya, to Qixian for the purpose of delivering what Yan demanded, Yan called the Japanese concessions inadequate and refused to negotiate with them. That refusal is variously explained as Yan's resentment over the arrogance of the Japanese, his conviction that they would lose the war in the Pacific after he had heard about the Battle of Midway, and/or the result of a translation error that convinced him that the Japanese were using the negotiations as a ploy to ambush and to attack him by surprise. The Japanese, in any case, believed that they had been intentionally misled and humiliated. Iwamatsu lost his command, and Hanaya was reassigned to the Pacific.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After 1943, the Japanese began to negotiate with Yan clandestinely through civilian representatives (notably his friend Daisaku Komoto) in an effort to avoid being humiliated by him. Through Komoto's efforts, Yan and the Japanese came to observe an informal ceasefire, but the terms of the agreement are unknown. By 1944, Yan's troops were actively battling the Communists, possibly with the co-operation and the assistance of the Japanese. His relationship with Chiang also deteriorated by 1944, when Yan warned that the masses would turn to Communism if Chiang's government did not improve considerably. An American reporter who visited Shanxi in 1944 observed that Yan "was thought of not necessarily as a puppet but rather as a compromise between the extremes of the treason at Nanjing and national resistance at Chongqing" by the Japanese.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II, Yan Xishan was notable for his ability to recruit thousands of Japanese soldiers stationed in northwest Shanxi in 1945, including their commanding officers, into his army. He was known to have successfully used a variety of tactics to achieve those defections: flattery, face-saving gestures, appeals to idealism, and genuine expressions of mutual interest. If he was not completely successful, he sometimes resorted to "bribes and women." His tactics in both convincing the Japanese to stay and preventing them from leaving were highly successful, as the efforts of the Japanese were instrumental in keeping the area surrounding Taiyuan free from Communist control for the four years before the Communists won the Chinese Civil War.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan was successful in keeping the presence of the Japanese from American and Nationalist observers. He was known for making shows of disarming Japanese, only to rearm them at night. In one instance, he disarmed several units of Japanese, had a reporter take a picture of the stacked weapons to show that he was following orders, and gave the weapons back to the Japanese. He once officially labelled a detachment of Japanese troops as "railway repair laborers" in public records before he sent them, fully armed, into areas without railway tracks but full of Communist insurgents.


title: Yan Xishan

text: By recruiting the Japanese into his service in that manner, he retained both the extensive industrial complex around Taiyuan and virtually all of the managerial and technical personnel employed by the Japanese to run it. Yan was so successful in convincing surrendered Japanese to work for him that as word spread to other areas of Northern China, Japanese soldiers from those areas began to converge on Taiyuan to serve his government and army. At its greatest strength, the Japanese "special forces" under Yan totaled 15,000 troops, plus an officer corps that was distributed throughout Yan's army. Those numbers were reduced to 10,000 after serious American efforts to repatriate the Japanese were partially successful. By 1949, casualties had reduced the number of Japanese soldiers under Yan's command to 3,000. The leader of the Japanese under Yan's command, Imamura Hosaku, committed suicide on the day that Taiyuan fell to Communist forces.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After the end of the Pacific War, Yan's forces, including thousands of former Japanese troops, held out against the Communists during the Chinese Civil War for four years, until April 1949, after the Nationalist government had lost control of Northern China, which allowed the Communists to encircle and besiege his forces. The area surrounding the provincial capital of Taiyuan was the longest to resist Communist control.


title: Yan Xishan

text: The Shangdang Campaign was the first battle between Communist and Nationalist forces after World War II. It began as an attempt by Yan, who was authorized by Chiang, to re-assert control over southern Shanxi, where the Communists were known to be especially active. Meanwhile, Yan's former general, Fu Zuoyi, had captured several important cities in Inner Mongolia: Baotou and Hohhot. If both Yan and Fu had been successful, they would have cut off the Communist headquarters in Yan'an from their forces in Northeast China. The local commander, Liu Bocheng, later named one of China's "Ten Great Marshals, decided to direct his forces against Yan in order to prevent that from happening. Liu's political commissar was the 41-year-old Deng Xiaoping, who later became China's "paramount leader."


title: Yan Xishan

text: The initial skirmishes of the campaign were fought on 19 August 1945, when Yan dispatched 16,000 troops under Shi Zebo to capture the city of Changzhi, in southeastern Shanxi. On 1 September, Liu arrived with 31,000 troops and encircled Changzhi. After initial engagements between Shi Zebo's and Liu Bocheng's forces, Shi barricaded his forces inside the regional center of Chengzhi. Liu's army occupied the area surrounding Chengzhi but was not able to take the city, which led to a stalemate.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After it became clear that Liu's forces were in danger of being defeated, Yan sent 20,000 more troops, who were commanded by Peng Yubin, to reinforce Shi and break the siege. Liu responded by concentrating his forces against Peng and leaving only a screening force behind to carry out low-level suppression activities in Changzhi. Most of the forces left behind in Changzhi were selected from a local 50,000-man irregular militia unit, which had been used by Liu mainly for logistical support.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Peng was initially successful in defeating Communist detachments, but his forces were eventually led into an ambush. He was killed, and his army quickly surrendered en masse. When Shi realized that he had no hope of relief, he attempted to break out and flee to Taiyuan on 8 October but was caught on open ground, ambushed, and forced to surrender on 10 October. He was taken as a prisoner-of-war.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Although both forces suffered the same amount of dead or wounded (4,000 to 5,000) the Communists captured 31,000 of Yan's troops, who surrendered once they had fallen into those ambushes. After surrendering, most of Yan's forces were subjected to organized persuasion or coercion and eventually joined the Communists. Most of the Communist casualties in the campaign occurred when they attempted to confront Peng's reinforcements in an orthodox battle, which allowed Yan's forces to target Liu's troops with their superior arms. After those tactics failed, Communist forces killed or captured both Shi's and Peng's forces by leading both of them into a series of well-orchestrated ambushes.


title: Yan Xishan

text: The Shangdang Campaign ended with the Communists being in firm control of southern Shanxi. Because the army fielded by Yan was much better supplied and armed, the victory allowed the local Communists to acquire far more arms than had previously been available to them, including, for the first time, field artillery. It is said that the victory in the Shangdang campaign altered the course of the ongoing Chongqing peace negotiations, which allowed Mao Zedong to act from a stronger negotiating position. Their victory in the Shangdang campaign boosted the long-term prestige of both Liu and Deng. After the campaign, Liu left a small force behind to defend southern Shanxi and led most of his best units and captured equipment to confront the forces of Sun Lianzhong in the Pinghan Campaign.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In 1946, Communist forces in Northwest China identified the capture of Yan's capital of Taiyuan as one of their main objectives, and throughout 1946 and 1947, Yan was constantly involved in efforts to defend the north and to retake the south. Those efforts were only temporarily successful, and by the winter of 1947, his control of Shanxi had become restricted to the area of northern Shanxi adjacent to Taiyuan. Yan observed that the Communists were growing stronger and predicted that within six months, they would rule half of China. After losing southern Shanxi, Yan undertook preparations to defend Taiyuan to the death, perhaps in the hopes that if he and other anti-Communist leaders could hold out long enough, the United States would eventually join the war on their side and save his forces from destruction.


title: Yan Xishan

text: By 1948, Yan's forces had suffered a succession of serious military defeats by the Communists, lost control of southern and central Shanxi, and were surrounded on all sides by territory controlled by the Communists. Anticipating an assault on northern Shanxi, Yan prepared his armies by fortifying over 5,000 bunkers, constructed over the rugged natural terrain surrounding Taiyuan. The Nationalist 30th Army was airlifted from Xian to Taiyuan to fortify the city, which was protected by over 600 pieces of artillery. Yan repeatedly declared his intentions to die in the city during that period. The total number of Nationalist troops present in northern Shanxi by the fall of 1948 was 145,000.


title: Yan Xishan

text: To overcome the defenses, the Communist commander Xu Xiangqian developed a strategy of engaging positions on the outskirts of Taiyuan before the city itself was besieged. The first hostilities in the Taiyuan Campaign occurred on 5 October 1948. By 13 November, the Communists had succeeded in taking the area around the eastern side of Taiyuan. The Nationalists suffered serious setbacks when entire divisions defected or surrendered. In one case, a Nationalist division, led by Dai Bingnan, pretended to surrender but then arrested the Communist officers who entered Dai's camp to accept. Yan Xishan mistakenly believed the leader of the arrested group, Jin Fu, was the high-ranking Communist leader Hu Yaobang, who the Nationalists believed was active in the region. Yan airlifted the captured group to Chiang, who executed them after they had failed to produce important information. Dai himself was rewarded with a large amount of gold for his actions but was not allowed to be airlifted out of Taiyuan. After the city fell, he was captured, tried in a well-propagandized show trial, and publicly executed.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Between November 1948 and April 1949, a stalemate was reached, and there was little advancement by either side. Tactics used by the Communists during that time included psychological warfare, such as forcing relatives of the Nationalist defenders to the front to ask for the defenders' surrender. Those tactics were successful, as from 1 December 1948 to March 1949, over 12,000 Nationalist soldiers surrendered.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After major PLA victories in Hebei in late January 1949, the Communist armies in Shanxi were reinforced with additional troops and artillery. After that reinforcement, the total number of men under Liu's command exceeded 320,000, of which 220,000 were reserves. By the end of 1948, Yan Xishan had lost over 40,000 troops, but he attempted to supplement that number through large-scale conscription.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan Xishan himself, along with most of the provincial treasury, was airlifted out of Taiyuan in March 1949 for the express purpose of asking the central government for more supplies. He left behind Sun Chu as the commander of his military police force, with Yan's son-in-law, Wang Jingguo, in charge of most Nationalist forces. Overall command was delegated to Imamura Hosaku, the Japanese lieutenant-general who had joined Yan after World War II.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Shortly after Yan had been airlifted out of Taiyuan, Nationalist planes stopped dropping food and supplies for the defenders for fear of being shot down by the advancing Communists. The Communists, depending largely on their reinforcements of artillery, launched a major assault on 20 April 1949 and succeeded in taking all of the positions surrounding Taiyuan by 22 April. A subsequent appeal to the defenders to surrender was refused. On the morning of 22 April 1949, the Communists bombarded Taiyuan with 1,300 pieces of artillery, breached the city's walls, and initiated bloody street-to-street fighting for control of the city. At 10:00 a.m. on 22 April, the Taiyuan Campaign ended bt the Communists taking complete control of Shanxi. The total Nationalist casualties amounted to all 145,000 defenders, many of whom were taken as prisoners-of-war. The Communists lost 45,000 men and an unknown number of civilian laborers whom they had drafted, all of whom had been killed or injured.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In March 1949, Yan flew to the capital of Nanjing to ask the central government for more food and ammunition. He had taken most of the provincial treasury with him and did not return before Taiyuan had fallen to Communist forces. Shortly after arriving in Nanjing, Yan insinuated himself into a quarrel between the acting president of the Chinese Republic, Li Zongren, and Chiang Kai-shek, who had resigned from the presidency in January 1949. However, many officials and generals remained loyal to Chiang, who retained over US$200 million, which he did not allow Li to use to fight the Communists or to stabilize the currency. The ongoing power struggle between Li and Chiang seriously disrupted the larger effort to defend Nationalist territory from the Communist forces.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan focused his efforts on attempting to promote greater co-operation between Li and Chiang. On one occasion, he broke down in tears when attempting, at Chiang's request, to convince Li not to resign. He repeatedly used the example of the loss of Shanxi and warned that the Nationalist cause was doomed unless Li and Chiang's relationship improved. Li eventually attempted to form a government, including Chiang's supporters and critics, with Yan as premier. Despite Yan's efforts, Chiang refused to allow Li access to more than a fraction of the wealth that Chiang had sent to Taiwan, and officers loyal to Chiang refused to follow Li's orders, which frustrated efforts to co-ordinate Nationalist defenses and to stabilize the currency.


title: Yan Xishan

text: By late 1949, the Nationalists' position had become desperate. The currency issued by the central government rapidly declined in value until it became virtually worthless. Military forces loyal to Li attempted to defend Guangdong and Guangxi, and those loyal to Chiang attempted to defend Sichuan. Both forces refused to co-operate with each other, which eventually led to the loss of both regions. Yan's constant attempts to work with both sides led to being alienated from both Li and Chiang, who resented Yan for co-operating with either side. The Communists succeeded in taking all territory held on the mainland by the end of 1949 and so defeated both Li and Chiang. Li went into exile in the United States, while Yan continued to serve as Premier in Taiwan until 1950, when Chiang re-assumed the presidency.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's final years were filled with disappointment and sadness. After following Chiang to Taiwan, he enjoyed the title of Chiang's "senior advisor" but in reality was utterly powerless. Chiang may have held a long-term grudge against Yan for the activities on behalf of Li in Guangdong. On more than one occasion, Yan requested permission to go to Japan, but he was not allowed to leave Taiwan.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan was deserted by all but a handful of followers and spent most of his remaining years writing books on philosophy, history, and contemporary events, which he frequently had translated into English. His late philosophical perspective has been described as "anti-communist and anti-capitalist Confucian utopianism." Several months before the Korean War Yan published a book, "Peace or World War", in which he predicted that North Korea would invade South Korea, South Korea would be quickly overcome, the United States would intervene on the side of South Korea, and Communist China would intervene on the side of North Korea. All of those events later occurred over the course of the Korean War.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan died in Taiwan on 24 May 1960. He was buried in the Qixingjun region of Yangmingshan. For decades, Yan's residence and grave were cared for by a small number of former aides, who had accompanied him from Shanxi. In 2011, when the last of his aides turned 81 and was unable to care for the residence, the responsibility of maintaining the site was taken over by the Taipei City Government.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After the Chinese Civil War, Yan, like most other Nationalist generals who did not switch sides, was demonized by Communist propaganda. It was not until after 1979, with new reforms in China, that he began to be viewed more positively and thus more realistically as a pragmatic anti-Japanese hero. The contributions by Yan during his period in office are beginning to be recognized by the current Chinese government. One of his achievements, his success in containing one of the epidemics in Shanxi, was cited recently by various Chinese governmental organizations as an example to follow to contain the bird flu and SARS epidemics in China to criticize the incompetence of Chinese governmental officials in handling those epidemics.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan was sincere about his attempts to modernize Shanxi and achieved success in some regards. When he was forced out of Shanxi by the Communists, the province had become a major producer of coal, iron, chemicals, and munitions. Yan's generous support for the Research Association for the Improvement of Chinese Medicine generated a body of teaching and publication in modern Chinese medicine that became one of the foundations of the national institution of modern traditional Chinese medicine that was adopted in the 1950s. Throughout his rule, he attempted to promote social reforms that later came to be taken for granted but were highly controversial during his time, the abolition of foot binding, work for women outside the home, universal primary education, and the existence of peasant militias as a fundamental unit of the army. He was possibly the warlord most committed to his province in his era but was constantly challenged by his own dilettantism and the selfishness and the incompetence of his own officials.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Although Yan constantly spoke of the desirability and need for reforms, he remained until the 1930s too conservative to implement anything resembling the kind of reforms needed to successfully modernize Shanxi. Many of his attempts at reform in the 1920s had been attempted generations earlier, during the Tongzhi Restoration. The Qing dynasty reformers had found their reforms inadequate solutions to the problems of their time, and under the Model Governor, those reforms proved equally unsatisfactory. During the 1930s, Yan became increasingly open to radical social and economic policies, including wealth redistribution via graduated taxation, state-led industrialization, opposition to the money economy, an orientation towards functional (vs. "moral") education and the large-scale assimilation of Western technology. Despite his adoption of Soviet-style economic policies and increasingly-radical attempts at social reform, Yan was regarded as a "conservative" throughout his career, which suggests that the term "conservative" must be used carefully within the context of modern Chinese history.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After Yan's time, Shanxi became the site of Mao Zedong's "model brigade" of Dazhai: a utopian communist scheme in Xiyang County that was supposed to be the model for all other peasants in China to emulate. If the people of Dazhai were especially suited for such an experiment, it is possible that decades of Yan's socialist indoctrination may have prepared the people of Shanxi for Communist rule. After the death of Mao, the experiment was discontinued, and most peasants reverted to private farming.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: "Sa Aking Mga Kabatà" () is a poem about the love of one's native language written in Tagalog. It is widely attributed to the Filipino national hero José Rizal, who supposedly wrote it in 1868 at the age of eight. There is no evidence, however, to support authorship by Rizal and several historians now believe it to be a hoax. The actual author of the poem is suspected to have been the poets Gabriel Beato Francisco or Herminigildo Cruz.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: The poem was widely taught in Philippine schools to point out Rizal's precociousness and early development of his nationalistic ideals.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: A passage of the poem often paraphrased as "Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika, masahol pa sa hayop at malansang isda" (English: "He who knows not to love his own language, is worse than beasts and putrid fish") is widely quoted in order to justify pressuring Philippine citizens into using Tagalog; this ironically includes its majority of nonnative speakers. It is encountered most frequently during the "Buwan ng Wika" ('Language Month'), a commemoration of the establishment of the Filipino language as the national language of the Philippines.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: No manuscript for "Sa Aking Mga Kabatà" written in Rizal's handwriting exists. The poem was first published in 1906, a decade after his death, in a book authored by the poet Hermenigildo Cruz. Cruz claimed that he received the poem from another poet, Gabriel Beato Francisco, who in turn received it in 1884 from an alleged close friend of Rizal, Saturnino Raselis. José Rizal, however, never mentioned anyone by the name of Saturnino Raselis. The poem may have actually been written by Cruz or Francisco.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: Pascual H. Poblete published a different account in his introduction to the 1909 translation "Noli Me Tangere; Novelang Wicang Castila Na Tinagalog Ni Pascual H. Poblete" (note old Tagalog spelling), he claims that the poem was well-known to Filipino poets during Rizal's childhood. This account was later repeated in Austin Coates' 1968 biography of Rizal, "", who further added that Juan Luna had a role in preserving the poem. This is not substantiated by any known evidence.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: The earliest known poems of Rizal in the National Historical Institute’s collection, "Poesías Por José Rizal", also date six years after the alleged writing date of "Sa Aking Mga Kabatà". His own account of the earliest awakening of his nationalistic views, identifies it as the year 1872 – the year of the executions of the priests Mariano Gómez, José Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora. The poem is never mentioned by Rizal himself in all of his writings, despite its apparent significance in terms of his future ideals.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: Historian Ambeth Ocampo, National Artist of the Philippines and writer Virgilio S. Almario and others have debunked Rizal's traditional authorship of the poem based on the following:


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: The poem uses the Tagalog word "kalayaan" (liberty/freedom). However, Rizal first encountered the word at least by 1882, when he was 25 years old – 17 years after he supposedly wrote the poem. Rizal first came across "kalayaan" (or as it was spelled during the Spanish period, "kalayahan"), through a Tagalog translation by Marcelo H. del Pilar of Rizal's own essay "El Amor Patrio".


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: The fluency and sophistication of the Tagalog used in the poem also do not match Rizal's grasp of the language. Although Rizal's native tongue was Tagalog, his early education was all in Spanish. In the oft-quoted anecdote of the moth and the flame from Rizal's memoir, the children's book he and his mother were reading was entitled "El Amigo de los Niños", and it was in Spanish. He would later lament his difficulties in expressing himself in Tagalog. In 1886, Rizal was in Leipzig working on a Tagalog translation of Friedrich Schiller's "William Tell", which he sent home to his brother Paciano. In the accompanying letter, Rizal speaks of his difficulty finding an appropriate Tagalog equivalent of "Freiheit" (freedom), settling on "kalayahan". Rizal cited Del Pilar's translation of his own essay as his source for "kalayahan". Rizal also attempted to write "Makamisa" (the intended sequel to "El filibusterismo") in Tagalog, only to give up after only ten pages and start again in Spanish.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: The 8-year old Rizal's apparent familiarity with Latin and English is also questionable. In his memoir as a student in Manila, a year after the poem's supposed writing date, he admitted only having 'a little' knowledge of Latin from lessons by a friend of his father. Rizal also did not study English until 1880, more than ten years after the poem was allegedly written. English was not a prominent language in the Philippines in 1869 and its presence in the poem is believed to betray later authorship during the American Commonwealth of the Philippines.


title: Sa Aking Mga Kabata

text: The poem also makes use of the letters 'K' and 'W', whereas during Rizal's childhood, Tagalog spelling was based on Spanish orthography where neither letters were used. The letters 'C' and 'U' were used instead (i.e., the poem would have been spelled "Sa Aquing Mañga Cabata"). The shift in Tagalog and later Filipino orthography from 'C' to 'K' and 'U' to 'W' were proposed by Rizal himself as an adult, and was later made official in the early 20th century by the Philippine government as per grammarian Lope K. Santos's proposal.


title: Prime Minister of Iraq

text: The prime minister of Iraq is the head of government of Iraq. On 27 October 2022, Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani became the incumbent prime minister.


title: Prime Minister of Iraq

text: The prime minister was originally an appointed office, subsidiary to the head of state, and the nominal leader of the Iraqi parliament. Under the 2005 constitution the prime minister is the country's active executive authority. Nouri al-Maliki (formerly Jawad al-Maliki) was selected to be prime minister on 21 April 2006. On 14 August 2014, al-Maliki agreed to step down as prime minister of Iraq to allow Haider al-Abadi to take his place. On 25 October 2018, Adil Abdul-Mahdi was sworn into office five months after the 2018 elections until his resignation in 2019. He was once again appointed, this time as a caretaker prime minister due to political dispute. Abdul-Mahdi was replaced by Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, who was approved by the parliament on 7 May 2020. Al-Kadhimi was replaced by Al-Sudani after the 2021 Iraqi parliamentary election.


title: Prime Minister of Iraq

text: After an election, the Council of Representatives elects the president of the Republic and his deputies, including the president of the Council of Ministers. The Presidency Council must then name a prime minister unanimously within two weeks. If it fails to do so, then the responsibility of naming the prime minister reverts to the National Assembly. In that event, the Council of Representatives must confirm the nomination by an absolute majority. If the prime minister is unable to nominate his Council of Ministers within one month, the Presidency Council must name another prime minister.


title: Prime Minister of Iraq

text: The Iraqi Counter Terrorism Bureau reports to the prime minister directly. The Iraqi CTB oversees the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Command, a formation that includes all Iraqi Special Operations Forces. As of 30 June 2009, there had been legislation in progress for a year to make the Iraqi CTB a separate ministry.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: The history of what today is called the Heine–Borel theorem starts in the 19th century, with the search for solid foundations of real analysis. Central to the theory was the concept of uniform continuity and the theorem stating that every continuous function on a closed interval is uniformly continuous. Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet was the first to prove this and implicitly he used the existence of a finite subcover of a given open cover of a closed interval in his proof. He used this proof in his 1852 lectures, which were published only in 1904. Later Eduard Heine, Karl Weierstrass and Salvatore Pincherle used similar techniques. Émile Borel in 1895 was the first to state and prove a form of what is now called the Heine–Borel theorem. His formulation was restricted to countable covers. Pierre Cousin (1895), Lebesgue (1898) and Schoenflies (1900) generalized it to arbitrary covers.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: Let "S" be a subset of R. Observe first the following: if "a" is a limit point of "S", then any finite collection "C" of open sets, such that each open set "U" ∈ "C" is disjoint from some neighborhood "V" of "a", fails to be a cover of "S". Indeed, the intersection of the finite family of sets "V" is a neighborhood "W" of "a" in R. Since "a" is a limit point of "S", "W" must contain a point "x" in "S". This "x" ∈ "S" is not covered by the family "C", because every "U" in "C" is disjoint from "V" and hence disjoint from "W", which contains "x".


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: If "S" is compact but not closed, then it has a limit point "a" not in "S". Consider a collection consisting of an open neighborhood "N"("x") for each "x" ∈ "S", chosen small enough to not intersect some neighborhood "V" of "a". Then is an open cover of "S", but any finite subcollection of has the form of "C" discussed previously, and thus cannot be an open subcover of "S". This contradicts the compactness of "S". Hence, every limit point of "S" is in "S", so "S" is closed.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: The proof above applies with almost no change to showing that any compact subset "S" of a Hausdorff topological space "X" is closed in "X".


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: Let formula_1 be a compact set in formula_2, and formula_3 a ball of radius 1 centered at formula_4. Then the set of all such balls centered at formula_5 is clearly an open cover of formula_1, since formula_7 contains all of formula_1. Since formula_1 is compact, take a finite subcover of this cover. This subcover is the finite union of balls of radius 1. Consider all pairs of centers of these (finitely many) balls (of radius 1) and let formula_10 be the maximum of the distances between them. Then if formula_11 and formula_12 are the centers (respectively) of unit balls containing arbitrary formula_13, the triangle inequality says:


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: Let "K" be a closed subset of a compact set "T" in R and let "C" be an open cover of "K". Then is an open set and


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: is an open cover of "T". Since "T" is compact, then "C" has a finite subcover formula_18 that also covers the smaller set "K". Since "U" does not contain any point of "K", the set "K" is already covered by formula_19 that is a finite subcollection of the original collection "C". It is thus possible to extract from any open cover "C" of "K" a finite subcover.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: Assume, by way of contradiction, that "T" is not compact. Then there exists an infinite open cover "C" of "T" that does not admit any finite subcover. Through bisection of each of the sides of "T", the box "T" can be broken up into 2 sub "n"-boxes, each of which has diameter equal to half the diameter of "T". Then at least one of the 2 sections of "T" must require an infinite subcover of "C", otherwise "C" itself would have a finite subcover, by uniting together the finite covers of the sections. Call this section "T".


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: Likewise, the sides of "T" can be bisected, yielding 2 sections of "T", at least one of which must require an infinite subcover of "C". Continuing in like manner yields a decreasing sequence of nested "n"-boxes:


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: where the side length of "T" is , which tends to 0 as "k" tends to infinity. Let us define a sequence ("x") such that each "x" is in "T". This sequence is Cauchy, so it must converge to some limit "L". Since each "T" is closed, and for each "k" the sequence ("x") is eventually always inside "T", we see that "L" ∈ "T" for each "k".


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: Since "C" covers "T", then it has some member "U" ∈ "C" such that "L" ∈ "U". Since "U" is open, there is an "n"-ball . For large enough "k", one has , but then the infinite number of members of "C" needed to cover "T" can be replaced by just one: "U", a contradiction.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: Thus, "T" is compact. Since "S" is closed and a subset of the compact set "T", then "S" is also compact (see above).


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: The Heine–Borel theorem does not hold as stated for general metric and topological vector spaces, and this gives rise to the necessity to consider special classes of spaces where this proposition is true. They are called the spaces with the Heine–Borel property.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: A metric space formula_22 is said to have the Heine–Borel property if each closed bounded set in formula_23 is compact.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: Many metric spaces fail to have the Heine–Borel property, such as the metric space of rational numbers (or indeed any incomplete metric space). Complete metric spaces may also fail to have the property; for instance, no infinite-dimensional Banach spaces have the Heine–Borel property (as metric spaces). Even more trivially, if the real line is not endowed with the usual metric, it may fail to have the Heine–Borel property.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: A metric space formula_22 has a Heine–Borel metric which is Cauchy locally identical to formula_25 if and only if it is complete, formula_26-compact, and locally compact.


title: Heine–Borel theorem

text: A topological vector space formula_23 is said to have the Heine–Borel property (R.E. Edwards uses the term "boundedly compact space") if each closed bounded set in formula_23 is compact. No infinite-dimensional Banach spaces have the Heine–Borel property (as topological vector spaces). But some infinite-dimensional Fréchet spaces do have, for instance, the space formula_29 of smooth functions on an open set formula_30 and the space formula_31 of holomorphic functions on an open set formula_32. More generally, any quasi-complete nuclear space has the Heine–Borel property. All Montel spaces have the Heine–Borel property as well.


title: Figurative art

text: Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract art:


title: Figurative art

text: Since the arrival of abstract art the term figurative has been used to refer to any form of modern art that retains strong references to the real world.


title: Figurative art

text: Painting and sculpture can therefore be divided into the categories of figurative, representational and abstract, although, strictly speaking, abstract art is derived (or abstracted) from a figurative or other natural source. However, "abstract" is sometimes used as a synonym for non-representational art and non-objective art, i.e. art which has no derivation from figures or objects.


title: Figurative art

text: Figurative art is not synonymous with figure painting (art that represents the human figure), although human and animal figures are frequent subjects.


title: Figurative art

text: The formal elements, those aesthetic effects created by design, upon which figurative art is dependent, include line, shape, color, light and dark, mass, volume, texture, and perspective, although these elements of design could also play a role in creating other types of imagery—for instance abstract, or non-representational or non-objective two-dimensional artwork. The difference is that in figurative art these elements are deployed to create an impression or illusion of form and space, and, usually, to create emphasis in the narrative portrayed.


title: Figurative art

text: Figurative art is itself based upon a tacit understanding of abstracted shapes: the figure sculpture of Greek antiquity was not naturalistic, for its forms were idealized and geometric. Ernst Gombrich referred to the strictures of this schematic imagery, the adherence to that which was already known, rather than that which is seen, as the "Egyptian method", an allusion to the memory-based clarity of imagery in Egyptian art.


title: Figurative art

text: Eventually idealization gave way to observation, and a figurative art which balanced ideal geometry with greater realism was seen in Classical sculpture by 480 B.C. The Greeks referred to the reliance on visual observation as mimesis. Until the time of the Impressionists, figurative art was characterized by attempts to reconcile these opposing principles.


title: Figurative art

text: From the early Renaissance, Mannerism and the Baroque through 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century painting Figurative art has steadily broadened its parameters. An important landmark in the evolution of figurative art is the first known reclining nude in Western painting in Sleeping Venus (1510) by Giorgione. It introduced the female nude as subject and started a long line of famous paintings.


title: Figurative art

text: Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), a French painter in the classical style whose work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color, served as an alternative to the more narrative Baroque style of the 17th century. He was a major inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne. The rise of the Neoclassical art of Jacques-Louis David ultimately engendered the realistic reactions of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet leading to the multi-faceted figurative art of the 20th century.


title: Figurative art

text: In November, 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Clinton Edward Bowyer (born May 30, 1979) is an American former professional stock car racing driver and commentator for "NASCAR on Fox".


title: Clint Bowyer

text: He competed in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2005 to 2020, driving for Richard Childress Racing for eight years, Michael Waltrip Racing for four years, HScott Motorsports for one year, and Stewart-Haas Racing for four years. Bowyer won the 2008 Nationwide Series championship driving for RCR.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer began racing at the age of five in motocross. He went on to capture over 200 wins and numerous championships over the next eight years. In 1996, he began racing street stocks at Thunderhill Speedway in Mayetta, Kansas, and won the Modified championship there in 2000. Bowyer racked up 18 wins and 32 top-five finishes on his way to capturing the 2001 Modified championships at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas and Heartland Park Topeka. In 2002, he began racing in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series, posting 9 poles, 12 wins and 32 top-five finishes en route to a second-place finish in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series national point standings. He was also crowned the 2002 NASCAR Weekly Racing Series Midwest Champion after another Modified championship at Lakeside Speedway and a Late Model championship at the famed I-70 Speedway in Odessa, Missouri, his first attempt at racing on asphalt.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In 2003, Bowyer raced a full season in the NASCAR AutoZone Elite Division Midwest Series, scoring one top-ten finish in 11 starts. He also would make his first ARCA starts in 2003, and caught the eye of legendary car owner Richard Childress after leading 47 laps and finishing second in his debut at Nashville Superspeedway driving for Scott Traylor out of Kansas City.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: After the second-place finish, Childress called Bowyer by phone and offered him a job. Bowyer thought he was joking and hung up on him. Childress called back soon afterward and with a not-too-happy tone he still offered the job to Bowyer.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In 2004, Bowyer began by finishing eighth in the ARCA Re/Max Series race at Daytona in the No. 7 Chevrolet for Scott Traylor. In 2004, Bowyer began running in the Busch Series for Childress, sharing seat time in the No. 21 Reese's -sponsored Chevrolet with Kevin Harvick. He drove in half of the 34 Busch Series races that year, winning one pole at Talladega and seven Top 10s, attaining a season-high third-place finish in the Federated Auto Parts 300 at Nashville Superspeedway in June. He also ran three races for Kevin Harvick Incorporated with help from Andy Petree Racing driving the No. 33 Chevrolet sponsored by Monaco Coaches and Snap-on. Bowyer made two starts for Bill McAnally Racing in the Camping World West Series in the No. 20 Chevrolet. In his two starts at Phoenix and Auto Club Speedway, he won one pole and had a best finish of second.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer's first full Busch season was in 2005, replacing Ron Hornaday in the No. 2 ACDelco-sponsored Chevrolet. He won two poles and two races en route to a second-place finish to repeat-champion Martin Truex Jr., losing by only 68 points. He also made his Nextel Cup debut in the No. 33 Sylvania-sponsored Chevy on April 23, 2005, during the Subway Fresh 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. He finished 22nd as the first car one lap down. Richard Childress Racing announced on October 15, 2005, that Bowyer would race the No. 07 Jack Daniel's-sponsored Chevrolet full-time in the Nextel Cup series, replacing Dave Blaney for the 2006 season.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer began his rookie Cup season with three Top 5 finishes and had a total of eleven Top 10s that season, with his best finish being a third at California Speedway. He finished 68 points behind Denny Hamlin for NASCAR Rookie of the Year honors. Bowyer also continued to drive the No. 2 in the Busch Series full-time, winning once and finishing third in points. Bowyer won his first Craftsman Truck Series race in the No. 46 Chevrolet Silverado fielded by Morgan-Dollar Motorsports at Texas Motor Speedway on November 3, 2006, in his third career Truck start, making his first CTS start that year at Martinsville for Green Light Racing.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: After starting the 2007 season with a last-lap crash at Daytona (crossing the finish line upside down and on fire as teammate Kevin Harvick won), Bowyer won the Budweiser Pole position for the Dodge Avenger 500 at Darlington Raceway. He finished the regular season ninth in points, but was seeded 12th for the playoff since race wins determine playoff seeding. Bowyer won his second pole at the Sylvania 300 at Loudon, and two days later went on to win his first Nextel Cup race in his 64th start. The win made Bowyer the fifteenth driver to win at least one race in all three of NASCAR's top series.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: For the 2007 Busch season, Bowyer ran a partial Busch Series schedule in the RCR No. 2 car. On April 20, 2007, he won the Busch Series Bashas' Supermarkets 200 at Phoenix International Raceway. He followed that up with another Busch Series win on May 4 in the Circuit City 250 at Richmond International Raceway. Bowyer also ran select races in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for Kevin Harvick.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In 2008, Bowyer continued to drive in the Cup and Nationwide Series full-time. Bowyer dominated the late stages of the Daytona 500 but was spun out by Juan Pablo Montoya with 17 laps remaining. On May 3, 2008, Bowyer earned his second Sprint Cup victory, winning the Crown Royal Presents the Dan Lowry 400 at Richmond International Speedway. Bowyer led only two laps, going to the front after Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch got together with less than four laps remaining in the race.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: On August 23, 2008, Bowyer was announced as the driver of the No. 33 Chevrolet Impala SS for RCR. Casey Mears from Hendrick Motorsports replaced Bowyer in the Jack Daniel's-sponsored car. This move was necessitated by a sponsor's request, as General Mills did not want Mears, who had been driving in the 2008 season for rival cereal maker Kellogg's, representing them, so Childress sponsors General Mills and Brown-Forman Corporation (parent company to Jack Daniel's) agreed to the swap so Bowyer, who drove for Brown-Forman, would drive for General Mills, and Mears could drive for Brown-Forman, as they had no problems with Mears representing the company.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: On November 15, 2008, Bowyer won the NASCAR Nationwide Series Championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway with a narrow margin of victory over Carl Edwards of 21 points. Edwards won the race with Bowyer finishing 5th.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer concentrated primarily on the Sprint Cup Series in 2009 and drove the No. 33 Chevrolet Impala to 15th place in the season standings. Bowyer trimmed his participation in the Nationwide series to 12 races but performed well, winning at Daytona (July 3) and Dover (September 26), finishing in the Top 5 in six of the 12 races and notching eight Top 10s.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer started the Cup season in strong fashion, finishing fourth in the Daytona 500 and second at Las Vegas in the third race of the year. With a sixth in Atlanta and a fifth in Martinsville, Bowyer was second in the overall standings after six races.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: A tough stretch in races 7 through 12 dropped Bowyer down to 17th overall, 109 points behind Mark Martin in 12th place. After a much more consistent run in races 13- 23 (3rd at Pocono in the No. 33 Hartford Racing paint out, 8th at Sonoma, 8th at Michigan), Bowyer had climbed up to 14th overall, within 58 points of 12th place. Finishing in the Top 15 in 8 of 11 races helped him make up 51 points on the 12th-place position.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: A 21st finish the following week (race 24) at Bristol really hurt Bowyer's chance at the Chase, dropping him 112 points behind Matt Kenseth in 12th with just two races prior to the Chase. It was the 25th race (Pep Boys 500 at Atlanta) that sealed Bowyer's fate, as a spin on lap 309 cost him two laps and the chance to compete in the Chase.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: While his chances at the Chase were over, Bowyer finished the season as he started it, with five Top 10s and nine Top 15s in the last 11 races. His top finish was the sixth-place run at Charlotte in the Scary Fast Count Chocula paint out. Overall, Bowyer finished the 2009 Sprint Cup Series in 15th place.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: True to form, Bowyer, performed well early in 2010, finishing fourth in Daytona, seventh at Martinsville, and ninth at Phoenix to stand sixth after seven races. However, at Texas in the Samsung Mobile 500 (race 8), Bowyer got caught in a major crash on lap 317 that wiped out eighth other drivers and caused a 19-minute red flag race stoppage. The resulting 36th-place finish dropped Bowyer to 14th position overall, only one point behind 12th place Joey Logano. Seventh- and 12th-place finishes at Talladega and Richmond put Bowyer back into 12th place after 10 races.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: The 11th race run at Darlington promised to be special. Bowyer ran the new "The Hartford Racing" paint out as part of The Hartford's 200th anniversary celebration. As part of Fox's coverage, Bowyer was one of four cars with an in-car camera for the race. However, 101 laps into the race, Bowyer went to the pits and ultimately the garage, with brake issues. After a second long stop to correct, Bowyer finished in 32nd position, 36 laps down.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer ran well again in races 12 through 14, like 17th, seventh, and ninth-place finishes allowed him to move back up into 12th-place overall. In race 13 (Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte), Bowyer led lap 217 following a caution for debris. Kurt Busch passed Bowyer on the following lap and went on to win the race.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In races 15–17, Bowyer finished 22nd at Michigan, 31st at Sonoma, and seventh at Loudon, NH. Despite the poor finish, Bowyer was very competitive at Sonoma. He led lap 80 (of 110) and was in seventh place with 11 laps to go. But on lap 100, Elliott Sadler got bumped by Jeff Gordon and spun Bowyer, dropping him all the way back to 34th place.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer had one of his strongest runs of the year in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona, leading 17 of the final 21 laps. Unfortunately on the final Green-White restart, Bowyer got split by Jeff Gordon, lost the lead, fell back in the pack and ultimately spun. In finishing 17th, Bowyer fell 49 points behind 12th place Carl Edwards.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In race 19 at Chicagoland, Bowyer ran well all night, finishing 4th and moving up into 12th place in the overall standings. He started 15th but moved up quickly, running in the Top 10 for the first half and then in the Top 5 for most of the latter half of the race, battling Jeff Gordon for the lead with less than 40 laps to go.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Bowyer started second and led the most laps before fading back into the Top 5. Taking the white flag in the second position, he suddenly witnessed then-leader Tony Stewart run out of fuel, giving Bowyer the third win of his Sprint Cup career and vaulting him to second in the Chase standings behind Denny Hamlin. However, this was negated during post-race inspection at NASCAR's R&D center. Reports surfaced that Bowyer's car used at Richmond had come close to failing inspection. NASCAR announced on September 22 that they had issued fines and penalties to the No. 33 team after failing a secondary inspection. Most critically, crew chief Shane Wilson was suspended for the next 6 races and both Bowyer and car owner Richard Childress face $150,000 in fines and the loss of 150 championship points. The penalty dropped Bowyer back to 12th in points, 185 points behind Denny Hamlin. Childress appealed the decision, which reduced the suspensions to four races and $100,000, but the 150-point deduction was upheld.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: During the Pepsi Max 400 weekend at Fontana, Bowyer and fellow Childress driver Austin Dillon taped an episode of "The Price Is Right" that was scheduled to feature NASCAR-themed Showcases (a practice that occurs during a Fontana race; host Drew Carey was the Grand Marshal of the August 2008 race) and aired on November 15. Bowyer finished 2nd to Tony Stewart in the race.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer barely edged teammate Kevin Harvick for the victory in the fall Talladega race, the AMP Energy Juice 500. The race ended with the leaders in Turn 1 when a caution was displayed for a large wreck on the front straightaway on the final lap.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer finished 10th in the final Chase standings, earning him a spot on stage at the season-ending Awards Banquet.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer started off the 2011 season strong in the Budweiser shootout practice sessions, and he and his teammates regularly sat on top of the pylon. In the race, he and Jeff Burton led many laps but faded to 10th at the end (9th due to Denny Hamlin being penalized for going below the yellow line).


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer qualified 5th for the Daytona 500 and finished 2nd to teammate Jeff Burton in the second Gatorade duel by 0.005 seconds. They together dominated that race. In the Daytona 500, Bowyer teamed up with many drivers throughout the day including Jeff Burton; Paul Menard (his new RCR teammate); Dale Earnhardt Jr.; and Kyle Busch. After Burton's engine let go, Bowyer found himself getting a push from Kyle Busch. With four laps to go, Kurt Busch got into the back of Regan Smith which turned him up in front of Bowyer. Ryan Newman was also involved. Bowyer was able to salvage a 17th-place finish out of it, mainly because of the big pileups earlier in the race. He had led 31 laps.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: The next race at Phoenix, Bowyer was taken out early in a multi-car crash on the backstretch. The Helping Hands (his pit crew) were able to repair the car fairly quickly and he was able to finish 27th.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In the 2011 Aaron's 499 at Talladega, Bowyer led the most laps with 38 and was being pushed by Kevin Harvick on the last lap, dueling with Hendrick drivers Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin. Approaching the tri-oval, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. squeezed to the far inside, and Johnson beat Bowyer to the line by 0.002 seconds (less than a foot) in a four-wide finish, tied with the finish of Ricky Craven over Kurt Busch in the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 for closest finish in Sprint Cup history.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: At Dover, in the Nationwide series, Bowyer was involved in a major crash on the last lap, with Bowyer going on his side. He, and no one else were injured.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: At New Hampshire, Bowyer led 49 of the last 51 laps and seemed to be on the road to victory; but with two laps to go, in a bizarre twist of fate, Tony Stewart passed him to win in a role reversal from the 2010 race.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: On October 7, Bowyer signed a 3-year contract to race the No. 15 Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing, starting in 2012.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer did not make the Chase, but he won the Chase race at Talladega for the 2nd consecutive year, pulling a slingshot on Burton out of turn 4 on the final lap of the race. The margin of victory was 0.018 seconds. It was his last win with Richard Childress Racing.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: The 2012 season marked a new beginning for Bowyer as he moved from Richard Childress Racing to Michael Waltrip Racing, signing a 3-year deal. Improvements at Michael Waltrip Racing with the addition of former RCR director of competition Scott Miller and veteran driver Mark Martin as a teammate translated into Bowyer's best season statistically in the Sprint Cup Series.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer's 2012 season began sour, as his Daytona 500 qualifying time was disallowed, and he also ran out of fuel under green when he missed pit road during the 500. In March, he ended up starting a year-long rivalry with Jeff Gordon at the Martinsville race. Gordon's team, Hendrick Motorsports, was going for their 200th victory at the team's statistically best track. On a late green-white-checkered restart with 2 laps to go, Gordon was running first with Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson in second and Bowyer third. Bowyer dove to the low side and made it three wide going into turn one, sending all three spinning around and giving the win to Ryan Newman. Bowyer apologized for the contact but later incidents at other 2012 races led to a heated rivalry.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In June, at the Toyota/Save Mart 350at Sonoma, California, Bowyer dominated the race, scoring his first road course victory as well as his first MWR win by holding off Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch. At the AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta, Bowyer suffered battery issues but still managed to clinch a Chase berth with a 27th-place finish. He rebounded the following week at the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond, winning the race using fuel strategy despite being spun by Juan Pablo Montoya mid-race.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer's two wins positioned him sixth at the start of the Chase for the Sprint Cup. In the Chase, he won at Charlotte after Brad Keselowski made a late-race pit stop.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Coming to the white flag at the AdvoCare 500 (Phoenix) on November 11, 2012, Bowyer's rivalry with Jeff Gordon came to a head. Earlier in the race, Bowyer accidentally put Gordon into the wall. Gordon was then black-flagged for a failed attempt to cut Bowyer's tire. On the next-to-last lap, Gordon decided enough was enough and responded by intentionally wrecking Bowyer in turn three, collecting Joey Logano and Aric Almirola. After Gordon's car was parked behind his team's hauler, a member of Bowyer's team shoved Gordon from behind and both teams scuffled. After Bowyer entered the pit area with his damaged car and noticed his team was not in his pit stall, he sprinted towards Gordon's hauler attempting to enter it before being restrained by a single NASCAR official. The incident knocked Bowyer down to fourth place in the points standings and mathematically ended Bowyer's chance of winning the Championship. Bowyer was not penalized for his involvement in the fight, but his crew chief Brian Pattie was fined $35,000 after he expressed his displeasure with Gordon by using profanity on national television, forcing ESPN to apologize to viewers.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: The following week, Bowyer rebounded, and finished second at Homestead (ironically behind Gordon) and completed the season with a career best second-place finish in the final points, passing Jimmie Johnson by one point, who was eliminated with a drive train malfunction. In victory lane at the race, Jeff Gordon apologized for his behavior at Phoenix and moved on from the incident.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer started out 2013 by participating in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, driving a Ferrari 458 with AF Corse/Michael Waltrip Racing. The team finished 16th overall and 7th in class.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: At Richmond International Raceway on September 7, Bowyer became the subject of controversy as, late in the race, his No. 15 Toyota spun; accusations were made that the spin was intentional, as part of an effort by MWR to ensure that Martin Truex Jr. qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. NASCAR president Mike Helton stated the following morning that scoring officials on the scene did not believe the spin was intentional, but that NASCAR was reviewing the incident. The following Monday evening, NASCAR docked all three MWR teams, including Bowyer, 50 driver/owner points. MWR was also fined $300,000. Despite the large penalty, Bowyer retained enough points to remain in the Chase. He had already clinched a spot in the Chase at the Irwin Tools Night Race.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer did not participate in the Sprint Unlimited as he did not win a pole during the 2013 season. His season started on a wild note when Bowyer was involved in a last lap crash of race 2 in the Budweiser Duels, with Bowyer's car being sent airborne and performing a barrel roll before landing on its wheels.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: At Darlington, Bowyer was the center of controversy when he got some contact with Kurt Busch. While racing Busch for a top-ten spot, Bowyer drove into the back of Kurt Busch who spun out and wrecked. Busch replied by waving his hands in frustration at Bowyer under yellow. In a post-race interview, Bowyer apologized, stating "You never want to wreck anybody. It was quite clear I got into the back of him and wrecked him."


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Two weeks later at Richmond, Bowyer tried to move to the lead on lap 1 but tapped pole-sitter Kyle Larson which forced Larson to drive from 43rd for a recovery. Later his car caught fire on pit road during a pit-stop.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: After an Atlanta engine blowup, Bowyer's hopes to make the Chase by consistency were dashed and the next week Bowyer missed the Chase by a slim 3 points. He would finish 19th in points


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In the Texas Nationwide race, Bowyer replaced Elliott Sadler on lap seven due to a stomach illness, Bowyer qualified for Sadler for the race.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer started off the season with a top 10 at Daytona. Despite having a few top tens throughout the year, on August 19 it was announced that Bowyer & MWR will part ways after the season ends, with MWR not fielding full-time teams in 2016. On September 30, 2015, it was announced that Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas Racing) would retire from the NASCAR Sprint Cup series after the 2016 season and negotiated a contract which will allow Bowyer to drive the No. 14 car in the 2017 season. On October 2, 2015, it was announced that Bowyer will move to HScott Motorsports for the 2016 season replacing Justin Allgaier before making his transition to Stewart-Haas Racing the following season. On December 15, 2015, a leaked photo on Twitter showed that Bowyer will bring over his No. 15 & 5-Hour-Energy sponsorship from Michael Waltrip Racing to HScott Motorsports for his lone season with them. Bowyer made the Chase due to having enough points to qualify, but his Chase was hit heavily by a 25 driver and owner points penalty, a $75,000 fine and the suspension of crew chief Billy Scott for 3 races. Bowyer appealed the penalties but they were upheld by the appeals panel. With the penalty, Bowyer didn't advance to the second round of the Chase.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In his last season with MWR, Bowyer was winless, and scored just 12 top 10s and finished 16th in the championship.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer started the season on a low note finishing 33rd after a loose wheel at Daytona. Bowyer struggled at Atlanta with his car down a cylinder finishing 35th. Bowyer had some poor finishes, and including a 38th-place finish at Texas where he left the garage after the car was repairable. Bowyer later a first top ten finish this season coming at Bristol with an 8th-place finish. Two weeks later, Bowyer finished a season best 7th-place finish after avoiding massive crashes at Talladega. Coming back to Daytona, Bowyer would avoid crashes to finish 9th. Bowyer ended the season winless and no top 5s with only 3 top tens and finishing 27th in the point standings.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer returned to the Nationwide Series, now known as the Xfinity Series, at Chicagoland, driving the No. 88 for JR Motorsports. He ended up starting the race in 7th and finishing the race in 6th.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: With Tony Stewart's retirement, Bowyer moved from the No. 15 HSM Chevy to the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion. Bowyer started the season with a 2nd-place finish on the 2nd Can-Am Duel. Bowyer got his first top ten at Las Vegas with a 10th-place finish. Bowyer had a significantly better race at Auto Club, finishing third and a 2nd-place at Bristol several races later. After no top fives 7 races later he finished second at Sonoma behind teammate Kevin Harvick giving Stewart-Haas Racing its 2nd ever 1-2 finish for the first time since 2011. Bowyer finished second again at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona the following week. Deja vu happened as a mechanical issue in the Southern 500 at Darlington put Bowyer in a must-win situation at Richmond (just like in 2014) to make the Playoffs. He finished 24th after contact with Matt Kenseth as Kenseth avoided an ambulance at the entry of pit road while under caution and 18th in the final points standings.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer got off to a strong start in 2018, posting Top 15 finishes in four of the first five events, including a third-place finish at the Atlanta race. On March 26, he broke a 190-race winless streak with a victory at the spring Martinsville race, which gave him his first Playoff run since 2015. Bowyer then scored his second win of the season at the rain-shortened June Michigan race. Despite bad finishes at Las Vegas and Dover, he has stayed consistent in the Playoffs, advancing to the Round of 8 before a crash at Phoenix eliminated him from the Playoffs. Bowyer finished the season 12th in points.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: At the conclusion of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race, Bowyer chopped Ryan Newman's nose which sent Bowyer into the wall during the cool-down lap. Following the race, Bowyer attacked Newman on pit road. Both drivers were called to the NASCAR hauler, but neither was penalized for the incident. During an autograph session at a Bass Pro Shops store on May 23, a fan brought a pair of boxing gloves for both drivers to sign. Despite a string of inconsistent finishes and no wins during the season, Bowyer managed to make the 2019 playoffs after finishing fifth at Indianapolis. On September 14, Bowyer won the pole at Las Vegas, his first pole since 2007. He finished fourth at the Charlotte Roval to advance to the Round of 12. Bowyer was eliminated in the Round of 12 after the Kansas race. He finished 9th in the final points standings despite not reaching victory lane as he did the season prior, his first top ten points finish since 2013. On December 4, 2019, Stewart-Haas Racing announced that Johnny Klausmeier would replace Mike Bugarewicz as the crew chief of the No. 14 team in 2020.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In March, Bowyer edged out Jimmie Johnson to win the pole for the Auto Club 400, the fourth of his career. He finished the race in 23rd place, one lap down. After accumulating seven top-ten finishes, including a runner-up finish at the spring Bristol race(his 82nd and final top-five), Bowyer qualified for the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. On October 8, Bowyer revealed that he would be joining the Fox Sports broadcast booth for the 2021 season, stepping away from the driver's seat. Bowyer was eliminated from the playoffs after the round of 12. Bowyer scored his 226th and final top-ten at Martinsville and finished 14th at the season finale at Phoenix in his final race the following week later. He finished 12th in the points standings in his final season.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer started his own Dirt Late Model team, Clint Bowyer Racing in 2008. Well-established veteran Shannon Babb of Mowequa, IL was behind the wheel of Clint's Rocket Chassis, and had a very solid season. Babb left to form his own team at the end of 2008, due to wanting to run more of an "outlaw" type schedule, and wanting to race closer to home to be with his family. For the 2009 season, the 2005 World 100 Champion Dale McDowell (who ironically inherited the win via Babb being light at the scales) took over the seat, and the number was changed to Dale's signature No. 17M, Jared Landers also drives for the team in the No. 5 late model.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: The team elected to run the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series full-time in 2009, choosing to run Warrior Racecars, with help from Warrior's owner, Sanford Goddard. Winning two races and finishing fourth in the points standings, it was a decent season. Since then, the 17M has become a staple of the Lucas Oil Series, continuing on the 2010 tour. Clint Bowyer Racing also has fielded cars in Tony Stewart's Prelude to the Dream in 2008 (Bowyer, 2nd and Jimmie Johnson, 10th) and 2010 (Johnson won, Bowyer 2nd). Both years these were also Warrior Racecars.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Clint Bowyer Racing fielded a car for Clint in 2011 for the UNOH DIRTcar Nationals. A victory in a feature night race helped Clint secure the overall modified championship in the event. In 2014 Clint Bowyer Racing won its first Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Championship with Don O'Neal driving the No. 5 Peak Performance car.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In 2016, after Clint Bowyer's lowest-ranking season with HScott Motorsports, Clint Bowyer and Clint Bowyer Racing filed a lawsuit against Harry Scott, Jr. charging him with breach-of-contract and fraud. The team charged that Bowyer brought some former MWR sponsors to the team and that HScott missed monthly payments for Bowyer's driving services in October and November 2016. Bowyer also alleged that the team was using money owed to him, to pay off their creditors. Upon filing the suit, Bowyer received a temporary court order against HScott Motorsports, ordering them to hold onto at least 2.2 million pending the lawsuit. The lawsuit was quickly settled out of court less than a week later, in a "mutual, amicable, confidential settlement."


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In April 2014, Bowyer married Lorra. Weeks after their marriage they announced that they were expecting their first child together, a boy. On October 1, 2014, their son Cash Aaron Bowyer was born. On June 15, 2016, it was announced that Bowyer and his wife were expecting their second child. On December 9, 2016, his wife Lorra gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Presley Elizabeth.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: He is an avid fan of the Kansas City Royals of the MLB, the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL, and the University of Kansas Jayhawks of the NCAA.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer was absent from Fox's final Cup Series broadcast of the season at Sonoma on June 12. Larry McReynolds had replaced him in the booth for practice/qualifying and the race. Jordan Bianchi from "The Athletic" reported that Bowyer was "handling a personal matter" and would miss the race weekend. On June 16, WDAF-TV reported that on June 5, at 9 PM, Bowyer had hit a woman when driving home from the Cup Series race at Gateway earlier in the day. The incident took place on an exit ramp near Osage Beach, Missouri. The woman was pronounced dead and presumed to be under the influence. Bowyer's blood alcohol content was .000. An investigation revealed that the woman was walking along the exit ramp against the flow of traffic when she was struck by Bowyer's car. Furthermore, police found a bag of a crystalline substance among her personal items. A person questioned at a nearby campground said he and the woman used meth and alcohol earlier that day.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: On May 6, 2008, Clint Bowyer attended and hosted the first annual Clint Bowyer Charity Golf Event in his hometown of Emporia, Kansas. It raised $160,000 for the Emporia Community foundation to "make Emporia a better place".


title: Clint Bowyer

text: While Bowyer was in Emporia for one of his golf tournaments for charity, he had the idea to raise money for and build a community center. Bowyer dedicated the building on March 12, 2012. Bowyer says he envisions the building can be used for anything for business meetings to weddings to concerts and was constructed with flexibility in mind. The new Bowyer Community Building is located at the Lyon County fairgrounds, which is on Highway 50 in Emporia.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: Bowyer made a guest appearance on an episode of A&E's "Duck Dynasty" in 2012 on an episode titled "Drag Me To Glory". Bowyer was featured in the episode using his customized camouflage limousine in a race with the shows star, Willie Robertson, who was using a similar limousine. In 2015, he co-hosted an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" with Guy Fieri where they went around Charlotte to find the best food spots.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: In June 2019, Bowyer was a color commentator for the "Fox NASCAR" broadcast of the Xfinity race at Pocono. Part of a Cup drivers-only coverage, he worked alongside Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano in the broadcast booth.


title: Clint Bowyer

text: On October 8, 2020, Bowyer revealed that he would be joining the Fox Sports broadcast booth full time for the 2021 season, stepping away from the driver's seat.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: Carlos López Estrada (born September 12, 1988) is a Mexican Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, music video director, commercial director, theatre director, and actor. Born in Mexico, he moved to the United States when he was 12 and later enrolled at Chapman University.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: He made his feature film directorial debut in 2018 with "Blindspotting," which premiered opening night at Sundance 2018 and was subsequently released by Lionsgate Entertainment. His second film, "Summertime," premiered opening night of Sundance 2020 and was released in July 2021. Carlos' third film, "Raya and the Last Dragon," was released by Disney in March 2021 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 94th Academy Awards. Estrada and actress Kelly Marie Tran announced that they were establishing a new production company called Antigravity Academy in November 2022, intending to help produce entertainment from and about people from historically excluded communities.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: López Estrada directed a short film titled "Identity Theft" based on a one-act play written by Andrew Rothschild. It stars stage veterans Bill Irwin and Kate Burton. The film premiered at the 2015 Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: López Estrada directed his first feature film in 2017, "Blindspotting", starring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal. The film, released in 2018, is semi-autobiographical and based on Diggs and Casal's lives in a rapidly gentrifying Oakland.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: As of October 2019, Walt Disney Animation Studios announced that they were developing a feature film with López Estrada. López Estrada is also set to direct a live-action/CGI remake of Disney's "Robin Hood". López Estrada was confirmed to direct "Raya and the Last Dragon" with Don Hall. López Estrada left Disney in early 2022. In July 2022, López Estrada joins to Nexus Studios.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: On October 31, 2022, López Estrada was announced to be the writer and director of the live-action adaptation of Your Name for Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot Productions, replacing Marc Webb and Lee Isaac Chung.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: López Estrada has directed videos for a variety of artists, including clipping., Thundercat, Flying Lotus, Hook n Sling, Goo Goo Dolls, Reptar, Passion Pit, El Sportivo & The Blooz, MYPET, Saint Motel, Maximum Balloon, Bowerbirds, Capital Cities and many more.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: In 2011, López Estrada directed a music video for Mexican pop band Jesse & Joy of their song "Me Voy." The video, which uses stop motion and found the production team trimming 2900 photographs in order to create the sequences included, earned the title of Best Short Form Music Video at the 13th Annual Latin Grammy Awards in 2012. López Estrada also directed "Chocolate" from "Electricidad" for Jesse & Joy.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: In 2013, López Estrada co-directed a music video for Capital Cities’ "Kangaroo Court" which features American actor Darren Criss and American actress Shannon Woodward.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: López Estrada directed five videos for the experimental rap group clipping.’s major label debut titled "CLPPNG". López Estrada came in contact with clipping. after befriending Jonathan Snipes, a member of the trio that makes up clipping., while López Estrada was in film school. “Work Work” was the first single from the album. Stereogum detailed López Estrada's work on the videos as being, “[An] inventive, memorable, and weirdly unsettling experience." This work led to many collaborations with rapper Daveed Diggs, a member of clipping.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: In 2015, López Estrada directed a video for Thundercat's "Them Changes", which featured artists Flying Lotus and Kamasi Washington. The song is a part of Thundercat's "The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam", which was his first collection of solo material in two years and placed the artist in collaboration with various others, such as Flying Lotus and Kamasi Washington, who each contributed keyboard and saxophone, respectively.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: In 2021, López Estrada directed the music video for Katy Perry's "Electric" song in collaboration with the Pokémon franchise for its 25th anniversary.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: In 2018, López Estrada directed the second episode of the final season of "Legion", titled "Chapter 21". The episode was released in July 2019.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: In October 2015, López Estrada starred in an original multimedia theatre show, titled "Ded!". based on the Mexican Day of the Dead tradition, which he created and co-directed with Cristina Bercovitz. He and Bercovitz had previously worked together as co-directors on the music video for clipping.’s “GET UP.” The show ran at the Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles and was composed of an ensemble of musicians, actors and puppeteers. The show also featured a guest performance by Bill Irwin. "Living Out Loud, Los Angeles" praised López Estrada's pantomime and comedic performance in the show.


title: Carlos López Estrada

text: López Estrada directed a taping of "#BARS", a live musical theatre and rap medley workshop in New York City, springing from the culmination of a six-week seminar by Rafael Casal, a poet, writer, rapper and co-creator of #BARS. The film features performances by a variety of artists, including Rafael Casal, rapper Daveed Diggs, poet Sarah Kay and nine more performers from New York City.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from New York University in 1935.


title: Romare Bearden

text: He began his artistic career creating scenes of the American South. Later, he worked to express the humanity he felt was lacking in the world after his experience in the US Army during World War II on the European front. He returned to Paris in 1950 and studied art history and philosophy at the Sorbonne.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Bearden's early work focused on unity and cooperation within the African-American community. After a period during the 1950s when he painted more abstractly, this theme reemerged in his collage works of the 1960s. "The New York Times" described Bearden as "the nation's foremost collagist" in his 1988 obituary. Bearden became a founding member of the Harlem-based art group known as The Spiral, formed to discuss the responsibility of the African-American artist in the civil rights movement.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Bearden was the author or coauthor of several books. He also was a songwriter, known as co-writer of the jazz classic "Sea Breeze", which was recorded by Billy Eckstine, a former high school classmate at Peabody High School, and Dizzy Gillespie. He had long supported young, emerging artists, and he and his wife established the Bearden Foundation to continue this work, as well as to support young scholars. In 1987, Bearden was awarded the National Medal of Arts.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bearden's family moved with him to New York City when he was a toddler, as part of the Great Migration. After enrolling in P.S. 5 in 1917, on 141 Street and Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem, Bearden attended P.S. 139, followed by DeWitt Clinton High School. In 1927 he moved to East Liberty, Pittsburgh, with his grandparents, and then returned to New York City. The Bearden household soon became a meeting place for major figures of the Harlem Renaissance. His father, Howard Bearden, was a pianist. Romare's mother, Bessye Bearden, played an active role with the New York City Board of Education, and also served as founder and president of the Colored Women's Democratic League. She was also a New York correspondent for "The Chicago Defender", an African-American newspaper. Bearden had Cherokee, Italian, and African ancestry. "The Washington Post" described him as "African American." Bearden's fair skin allowed him to cross boundaries that many other black people were restricted from.


title: Romare Bearden

text: In 1929, he graduated from Peabody High School in Pittsburgh. He enrolled in Lincoln University, the nation's second oldest historically black college, founded in 1854. He later transferred to Boston University where he served as art director for "Beanpot", Boston University's student humor magazine. Bearden continued his studies at New York University (NYU), where he started to focus more on his art and less on athletics, and became a lead cartoonist and art editor for "The Medley", the monthly journal of the secretive Eucleian Society at NYU. Bearden studied art, education, science, and mathematics, graduating with a degree in science and education in 1935.


title: Romare Bearden

text: He continued his artistic study under German artist George Grosz at the Art Students League in 1936 and 1937. During this period Bearden supported himself by working as a political cartoonist for African-American newspapers, including the "Baltimore Afro-American," where he published a weekly cartoon from 1935 until 1937.


title: Romare Bearden

text: As a child, Bearden played baseball in empty lots in his neighborhood. He enjoyed sports, throwing discus for his high school track team and trying out for football. After his mother became the New York editor for the "Chicago Defender", he did some writing for the paper, including some stories about baseball. But once Bearden transferred from Lincoln University to Boston University, he became the starting fullback for the school football team (1931-2) and then began pitching - first for the freshman team and eventually for the school's varsity baseball team. He was awarded a certificate of merit for his pitching at BU, which he hung with pride in subsequent homes throughout his life.


title: Romare Bearden

text: While at Boston University he played for the Boston Tigers, a semi-professional, all Black team based in the neighborhood of Roxbury. He tended to play with them during the BU baseball off-season and had opportunities to play both iconic Negro League and white baseball teams. For example, he pitched against Satchel Paige while playing for the Pittsburgh Crawfords for a summer, and played exhibition games against teams such as the House of David and the Kansas City Monarchs. When Philadelphia Athletics catcher, Mickey Cochrane, brought a number of teammates to play a game against BU, Bearden gave up only one hit—impressing Athletics owner Connie Mack. Mack offered Bearden a place on the Athletics fifteen years before Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in major league baseball. Sources conflict about whether Mack thought Bearden was white or told Bearden he would have to pass for white. Despite the Athletics World Series in 1929 and 1930, and the American League pennant in 1931, Bearden decided he did not want to hide his identity and chose not to play for the Athletics. After two summers with the Boston Tigers, an injury made Bearden rethink the attention he was giving to baseball and he put greater focus into his art, instead.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Bearden grew as an artist by exploring his life experiences. His early paintings were often of scenes in the American South, and his style was strongly influenced by the Mexican muralists, especially Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. In 1935, Bearden became a case worker for the Harlem office of the New York City Department of Social Services. Throughout his career as an artist, Bearden worked as a case worker off and on to supplement his income. During World War II, Bearden joined the United States Army, serving from 1942 until 1945, largely in Europe.


title: Romare Bearden

text: After serving in the army, Bearden joined the Samuel Kootz Gallery, a commercial gallery in New York that featured avant-garde art. He produced paintings at this time in "an expressionistic, linear, semi-abstract style." He returned to Europe in 1950 to study philosophy with Gaston Bachelard and art history at the Sorbonne, under the auspices of the G.I. Bill. Bearden traveled throughout Europe, visiting Picasso and other artists.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Making major changes in his art, he started producing abstract representations of what he deemed as human, specifically scenes from the Passion of Jesus. He had evolved from what Edward Alden Jewell, a reviewer for the "New York Times", called a "debilitating focus on Regionalist and ethnic concerns" to what became known as his stylistic approach, which participated in the post-war aims of avant-garde American art. His works were exhibited at the Samuel M. Kootz gallery until it was deemed not abstract enough.


title: Romare Bearden

text: During Bearden's success in the gallery, however, he produced "Golgotha," a painting from his series of the Passion of Jesus (see Figure 1). "Golgotha" is an abstract representation of the Crucifixion. The eye of the viewer is drawn to the middle of the image first, where Bearden has rendered Christ's body. The body parts are stylized into abstract geometric shapes, yet are still too realistic to be concretely abstract; this work has a feel of early Cubism. The body is in a central position and darkly contrasted with the highlighted crowds. The crowds of people are on the left and right, and are encapsulated within large spheres of bright colors of purple and indigo. The background of the painting is depicted in lighter jewel tones dissected with linear black ink. Bearden used these colors and contrasts because of the abstract influence of the time, but also for their meanings.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Bearden wanted to explore the emotions and actions of the crowds gathered around the Crucifixion. He worked hard to "depict myths in an attempt to convey universal human values and reactions." According to Bearden, Christ's life, death, and resurrection are the greatest expressions of man's humanism, because of the idea of him that lived on through other men. It is why Bearden focuses on Christ's body first, to portray the idea of the myth, and then highlights the crowd, to show how the idea is passed on to men.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Bearden was focusing on the spiritual intent. He wanted to show ideas of humanism and thought that cannot be seen by the eye, but "must be digested by the mind". This is in accordance with his times, during which other noted artists created abstract representations of historically significant events, such as Robert Motherwell's commemoration of the Spanish Civil War, Jackson Pollock's investigation of Northwest Coast Indian art, Mark Rothko's and Barnett Newman's interpretations of Biblical stories, etc. Bearden depicted humanity through abstract expressionism after feeling he did not see it during the war. Bearden's work was less abstract than these other artists, and Sam Kootz's gallery ended its representation of him.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Bearden turned to music, co-writing the hit song "Sea Breeze", which was recorded by Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie. It is still considered a jazz classic.


title: Romare Bearden

text: In 1954, at age 42, Bearden married Nanette Rohan, a 27-year-old dancer from Staten Island, New York. She later became an artist and critic. The couple eventually created the Bearden Foundation to assist young artists.


title: Romare Bearden

text: In the late 1950s, Bearden's work became more abstract. He used layers of oil paint to produce muted, hidden effects. In 1956, Bearden began studying with a Chinese calligrapher, whom he credits with introducing him to new ideas about space and composition which he used in painting. He also spent much time studying famous European paintings he admired, particularly the work of the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch, and Rembrandt. He began exhibiting again in 1960. About this time he and his wife established a second home on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. In 1961, Bearden joined the Cordier and Ekstrom Gallery in New York City, which would represent him for the rest of his career.


title: Romare Bearden

text: In the early 1960s in Harlem, Bearden was a founding member of the art group known as The Spiral, formed "for the purpose of discussing the commitment of the Negro artist in the present struggle for civil liberties, and as a discussion group to consider common aesthetic problems." The first meeting was held in Bearden's studio on July 5, 1963, and was attended by Bearden, Hale Woodruff, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis, James Yeargans, Felrath Hines, Richard Mayhew, and William Pritchard. Woodruff was responsible for naming the group The Spiral, suggesting the way in which the Archimedean spiral ascends upward as a symbol of progress. Over time the group expanded to include Merton Simpson, Emma Amos, Reginald Gammon, Alvin Hollingsworth, Calvin Douglas, Perry Ferguson, William Majors and Earle Miller. Stylistically the group ranged from Abstract Expressionists to social protest painters.


title: Romare Bearden

text: Bearden's collage work began in 1963 or 1964. He first combined images cut from magazines and colored paper, which he would often further alter with the use of sandpaper, bleach, graphite or paint. Bearden enlarged these collages through the photostat process. Building on the momentum from a successful exhibition of his photostat pieces at the Cordier and Ekstrom Gallery in 1964, Bearden was invited to do a solo exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. This heightened his public profile. Bearden's collage techniques changed over the years, and in later pieces he would use blown-up photostat photographic images, silk-screens, colored paper, and billboard pieces to create large collages on canvas and fiberboard.


title: Romare Bearden

text: In 1971, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective exhibition of Bearden's work, which traveled to the University Art Museum in Berkeley, California. The City of Berkeley then commissioned Bearden to create a mural for the City Council chambers. The sixteen-foot-wide mural, incorporating many visual aspects of the city in collage style, was installed in late 1973 and received positive reviews. It was taken down and loaned to a National Gallery of Art Bearden retrospective in 2003 that traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Following that tour it has been in storage while the City Hall building has awaited a seismic retrofit and the city council has been meeting elsewhere. A portion of the mural inspired the city's current logo.


title: Romare Bearden

text: His early works suggest the importance of African Americans' unity and cooperation. For instance, "The Visitation" implies the importance of collaboration of black communities by depicting intimacy between two black women who are holding hands. Bearden's vernacular realism represented in the work makes "The Visitation" noteworthy; he describes two figures in "The Visitation" somewhat realistically but does not fully follow pure realism, and distorts and exaggerates some parts of their bodies to "convey an experiential feeling or subjective disposition." Bearden said, "the Negro artists [...] must not be content with merely recording a scene as a machine. He must enter wholeheartedly into the situation he wishes to convey."


title: Romare Bearden

text: In 1942, Bearden produced "Factory Workers" (gouache on casein on brown kraft paper mounted on board), which was commissioned by "Forbes" magazine to accompany an article titled "The Negro's War". The article "examined the social and financial costs of racial discrimination during wartime and advocated for full integration of the American workplace." "Factory Workers" and its companion piece "Folk Musicians" serve as prime examples of the influence that Mexican muralists played in Bearden's early work.