Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Grünewald, Mathias mätēˈäs grünˈəvält [key], c.1475–1528, German painter of religious subjects. His original name was Mathis Gothart Neithart. Although he assimilated various compositional ...

(Encyclopedia) Léger, Fernand fĕrnäNˈ lāzhāˈ [key], 1881–1955, French painter. Léger first studied architecture, then he began to paint, studying briefly at the École des Beaux-Arts. He became known for h...

(Encyclopedia) litmus, organic dye usually used in the laboratory as an indicator of acidity or alkalinity (see acids and bases). Naturally pink in color, it turns blue in alkali solutions and red in acids. Commonly...

(Encyclopedia) Irish setter, breed of large sporting dog developed in Ireland in the 18th cent. It stands about 26 in. (66.0 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs between 50 and 70 lb (22.7–31.8 kg). Its moderately ...

(Encyclopedia) Irish terrier, a breed of hardy working terrier developed in the British Isles and believed to be one of the oldest terriers. It stands about 18 in. (46 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs from 25 to ...

(Encyclopedia) Lear, Edward, 1812–88, English humorist and artist. At 19 he was employed as a draftsman by the London Zoological Society; the paintings of parrots that he produced for The Family of the Psittacidae...

(Encyclopedia) Hiroshige (Ando Hiroshige) änˈdō hērōˈshēgāˌ [key], 1797–1858, Japanese painter and color-print artist of the ukiyo-e school. His prolific work includes a series of landscapes (1833) entitl...

(Encyclopedia) optical activity, the ability of asymmetric compounds to rotate the orientation of planar polarized light. Such compounds and their mirror images are know as enantiomers, or optical isomers. Although ...

(Encyclopedia) Ostwald, Wilhelm vĭlˈhĕlm ôstˈvält [key], 1853–1932, German physical chemist and natural philosopher, b. Riga, Latvia. He was professor of chemistry and director of the chemical laboratory (18...

(Encyclopedia) Overbeck, Johann Friedrich yōˈhän frēˈdrĭkh oˈvərbĕk [key], 1789–1869, German religious painter. Expelled from the Vienna Academy because of his opposition to its classicism, he went to Rom...