Thomas Paine, detail of a portrait by John Wesley Jarvis; in the Thomas Paine Memorial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.
paint Decorative and protective coating commonly applied to rigid sur¬ faces as a liquid consisting of a pigment suspended in a vehicle, or binder. The vehicle, usually a resin dissolved in a solvent, dries to a tough film, binding the pigment to the surface. Paint was used for pictorial and deco¬ rative purposes in the caves of France and Spain as early as 15,000 bc.
paintbrush See Indian paintbrush
Painted Desert Region, north-central Arizona, U.S. It stretches about 150 mi (240 km) from the Grand Canyon to Petrified Forest National Park and has an area of about 7,500 sq mi (19,425 sq km). The name was first used in 1858 by a government explorer to describe the area’s brilliantly coloured rock surfaces, exposed by erosion. A large part of the desert lies within Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations. The Navajo peoples use the various sands for their ceremonial sand paintings.
painted lady Either of two spe¬ cies of butterflies in the genus Van¬ essa (family Nymphalidae): V. cardui of Africa and Europe or V. vir- giniensis of North and Central America. They have broad, elabo¬ rately patterned wings of reddish orange, brown, white, and blue. In spring, vast numbers of V. cardui travel thousands of miles across the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe. A few members of the sub¬ sequent generation travel south in late summer, but most perish in the northern winter. North American painted ladies travel in spring from northwestern Mexico to the Mojave Desert and sometimes as far as Canada. Their larvae eat plants in the aster family; V. cardui larvae eat thistles and stinging nettles.
American painted lady (Vanessa vir¬ gin iensis)
E.S. ROSS
Painted turtle (Chrysemys picta)
LEONARD LEE RUE III-THE NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY COLLECTION/PHOTO RESEARCHERS
painted turtle Species ( Chryse¬ mys picta, family Emydidae) of brightly marked North American turtle found from southern Canada to northern Mexico. It has a smooth shell, 4-7 in. (10-18 cm) long, with
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1434 I Painter ► Pakistan
red and yellow markings on its relatively flat, black or greenish brown upper shell. It usually lives in quiet, shallow bodies of fresh water, espe¬ cially those with thickly planted mud bottoms, feeding on plants, small animals, and some carrion. It often basks in large groups on logs and other objects. In many areas it hibernates.
Painter, Theophilus Shickel (b. Aug. 22,1889, Salem, Va., U.S.—d. Oct. 5, 1969, Fort Stockton, Texas) U.S. zoologist and cell biologist. He received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1913. He was the first to show that the unusually large chromosomes in the salivary glands of Drosophila were particularly well suited for studies of genes and chromosomes. In the early 1930s he published a drawing of a section of a Drosophila chromosome showing more than 150 bands, which for the first time allowed the pre¬ cise positions of genes to be determined.
painting Art consisting of representational, imaginative, or abstract designs produced by application of coloured paints to a two-dimensional, prepared, flat surface. The elements of design (i.e., line, colour, tone, tex¬ ture) are used in various ways to produce sensations of volume, space, movement, and light. The range of media (e.g., tempera, fresco, oil, water¬ colour, ink, gouache, encaustic, casein) and the choice of a particular form (e.g., mural, easel, panel, miniature, illuminated manuscript, scroll, screen, fan) combine to realize a unique visual image. Painting as an art form dates back to prehistoric cave paintings. The early cultural traditions of tribes, religions, guilds, royal courts, and states controlled the craft, form, imagery, and subject matter of painting and determined its function (e.g., ritualistic, devotional, decorative). Painters were considered skilled arti¬ sans rather than creative artists until eventually, in East Asia and Renais¬ sance Europe, the fine artist emerged with the social status of a scholar and courtier. Fine artists signed their work and decided its design and often its subject and imagery. Over time painters have increasingly gained the freedom to invent their own visual language and to experiment with new forms and unconventional materials and techniques. In the early 20th century painters began to experiment with nonrepresentational art in which formal qualities such as line, colour, and form were explored rather than subject matter. Throughout the century styles vacillated between representational and nonrepresentational painting. In the late 20th century some critics forecast the “death of painting” in the face of new media such as video and intallation art, yet talented new artists repeatedly brought painting back to the centre of artistic production.
pair production Formation of an electron and a positron from high- energy electromagnetic radiation traveling through matter, usually in the vicinity of an atomic nucleus. It is a direct conversion of radiant energy into matter in accordance with the equation E = me 2 , where E is the amount of energy, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light. It is one of the principal ways in which high-energy gamma rays are absorbed in mat¬ ter. The positrons quickly disappear by being reconverted into photons in the process of annihilation with other electrons. Pair production may sometimes refer to the formation of other particle/antiparticle pairs as well.
Paisiello X.pa-ez-'ye-loV, Giovanni (b. May 9, 1740, Taranto, King¬ dom of Naples—d. June 5, 1816, Naples) Italian composer. Trained in Naples, he served the Russian empress Catherine II as chapel master in St. Petersburg (1776-84), where he wrote many short operas. He had his first operatic success in Vienna in 1784 then returned to Naples to become dramatic composer to Ferdinand IV. In 1802 Paisiello was invited by Napoleon to work in Paris, but after two years he returned to Naples, where, despite changes in regime, he retained his court post until 1815. He composed more than 80 operas, including a very popular Barber of Seville (1782).
Paisley, Ian (Richard Kyle) (b. April 6, 1926, Armagh, County Armagh, N.Ire.) Protestant leader in Northern Ireland. After being ordained in the Reformed Presbyterian church (1946), he cofounded a new sect, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster (1951), which soon grew to more than 30 churches. In the 1960s he became the voice of extreme Protestant opin¬ ion in the sectarian strife of Northern Ireland, opposed to any concessions to the Catholics. He led demonstrations throughout Northern Ireland and was repeatedly imprisoned for unlawful assembly. Elected to the House of Commons in 1970, he cofounded the Democratic Unionist Party in 1971 and also organized a paramilitary group of Protestant fighters called the Third Force. In 1998 he opposed the Good Friday Agreement, which called for power sharing between Roman Catholics and Protestants. He won a seat in the new Northern Ireland Assembly that the accord established, though
he continued to refuse to participate in negotiations with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army.
Paiute \'pl-,yut\ Either of two distinct American Indian groups living mostly in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, U.S. Their languages belong to the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan family. Their name for themselves is Numa. The Southern Paiute occupied southern Utah, north¬ western Arizona, southern Nevada, and southwestern California. The Northern Paiute occupied east-central California, western Nevada, and eastern Oregon. Both groups were primarily food collectors who subsisted on wild plant foods supplemented by small game. They occupied tempo¬ rary brush shelters, used rabbit-skin clothing, and made baskets for food gathering. They were organized in loosely knit bands. Most Paiute were directed onto reservations in the 19th century; they number some 13,500. See also Ute; Wovoka.
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