Arts and Urban Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Arts and Urban Life - Essay Example Punch's versifier detailed 'The muck and mud that still our movements clog', while Conrad made the same point more sonorously in describing 'the enormity of cold, black, wet, muddy, inhospitable accumulation of bricks, slates, and stones, things in themselves unlovely and unfriendly to man." (Freeman, 89). The city of London is perhaps one of the oldest yet also one of the most powerful cities in the world. This account speaks about the atmosphere, weather, but not the people. All urban histories states about the city in terms of physical structures and ultrastructural layouts. When the reality is that the people of the city and their lives day in and day out constitute the core of urban life, which embodies their struggle, aspirations, and moments of heightened awareness, then art in the urban life in any form will also express those. In the detective fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle or Richard Harding Davis, fog underlay or encouraged the city's criminal associations, with Sherlock Holmes speculating as to how the 'thief or murderer could roam London' 'as the tiger does the jungle', since figures are but 'dimly seen, then blend once more into the cloud bank' (Doyle, CA, 913). The question arises, what is a city, is it the demonstrable difficulties of urban life, its malign incompatibility with human wishes, or entirely something else arising out of it. In some cases, the metropolis itself has been assigned a character in itself, which responds enthusiastically to the process of transformation in the city space and the ways it is perceived by the individual. Radical artists such as Whistler and Monet were exploring similar possibilities during the 1870s. Such figures moved away from the particularization of realist art and conventional topographic painting, concerning themselves with atmospheric evocation. James's immersion, in all senses, in London's fog was therefore something he shared with its most famous visual chroniclers, impressionist painters, even though he initially had little obvious sympathy for their art (James, 219). Accounts of London by Dickens, and, even more so, by Gissing, repeatedly emphasized the city's aromas and the tidal roar of its 'flaring and clamorous' streets where 'the odors of burning naphtha and fried fish were pungent on the wind'. To judge from The Princess Casamassima, the Thames is equally noisy and smelly, with Hyacinth (Gissing, 111), Robinson observing the 'grinding, puffing, smoking, splashing activity of the turbid flood', but in his own trip down river, James concentrates on the tonal limitation s of the scene, its blacks and sables, silvers and grays (Jackson, 277). Baldwin's "Another Country" is a novel, but more of an essay on love. Love on the backdrop of a city, where life at least takes the form of impressionist art. Love is a theme that the author had explored both on homosexual and heterosexual perspectives. On closer examination, there is another theme in this novel, racialism. While love is a necessity and is utterly constructive, hate is terribly destructive, and this theme is core concept

Sustainable Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Sustainable Development - Essay Example Theoretically speaking, all developmental activities can be carried out in an entirely sustainable manner, and that is in no way a thing that is impossible to achieve. But the real-life scenario is something totally different. For the purpose of successfully implementing various measures that are aimed at bringing about sustainable development many political issues and other challenges have to be confronted. As a matter of fact, all such matters are chiefly responsible for the current state of affairs, where a lot is still undone in the realm (of sustainable development) (1)Sustainable DevelopmentEven though the concept of sustainable development is indeed a noble one, yet, much progress has not been displayed, till date. Perhaps, the chief factor for this is that, many people do not have a clear understanding of the term. Overall, the concept is rather ambiguous, conveying different meanings. (1)As mentioned earlier, several summits and conferences aimed at promoting sustainable dev elopment have been taking place, on the International landscape. For instance, the Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development) came into existence in the year 1992. Apart from the European Union, a total of 192 countries were a part of that convention. A decade later, in the year 2002, all of those regions gave a solemn commitment that the rate at which the Globe is losing its biodiversity would be reduced, over the subsequent eight years. But that did not happen, as is evident by the corresponding scenario., even as the year 2010 came to an end. (1) The concept of sustainable development has both a strong point and also a shortcoming. Numerous political and economic entities of the World have been brought on a common platform, by sustainable development. That denotes the concept’s strong point. But at the same time, none of those parties have been successful in initiating any practical policies that substantially contribute towards the cause of sustainable development. (3) Sustainable Development and Economy Many people are having the misconception that, by adhering to the norms of sustainable development, a growth economy cannot be realized, and that it leads to a steady-state economy. That is nothing but just a myth, and the following would clearly explain this. It needs to be noted that sustainable development endeavors to meet the needs of the present, by fully keeping in view the well-being of the future. Here, the vital point worth mentioning is that, all those needs can be successfully met only by achieving required economic growth. Similarly, all the standards of this concept can be successfully implemented only when there is economic prosperity. To put the matter in a nutshell, economic growth and sustainability are strongly connected with each other. And meticulous adherence to the guidelines of the latter would