Pontoppidan \p6n-'top-e-dan\, Henrik (b. July 24, 1857, Fredericia, Den.—d. Aug. 21, 1943, Ordrup, near Copenhagen) Danish realist writer of novels and short stories. He studied engineering and worked as a
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Pontormo ► Pope I 1527
teacher before taking up writing. His works, typically written in a cold, aloof, epic style, present a comprehensive picture of his country and his epoch. His earlier works are informed with a desire for social progress; his later ones despair of its realization. His major novels include the semiautobiographical Lucky Peter (1898-1904) and the five-volume cycle The Realm of the Dead (1912-16). He shared the 1917 Nobel Prize for Literature with Karl Gjellerup.
Pontormo Vpon-'tor-moV Jacopo da orig. Jacopo Carrucci (b.
May 24, 1494, Pontormo, Republic of Florence—buried Jan. 2, 1557, Florence) Florentine painter. The son of a painter, he was apprenticed to Leonardo da Vinci and later to Piero di Cosimo and Andrea del Sarto (who exerted the greatest influence on him). The agitated, almost neurotic emo¬ tionalism of his work reflects a departure from the balance and tranquil¬ lity of the High Renaissance. His expressive style is sometimes considered an early manifestation of Mannerism. Primarily a religious painter, he also did sensitive portraits and was employed by the Medici family to decorate their villa at Poggio a Caiano with mythological subjects.
Pontus Ancient district, northeastern Anatolia adjoining the Black Sea. An independent kingdom with its capital at Amasia, it was established in the 4th century bc. It continued expanding its borders until 66 bc, when its last king, Mithradates VI Eupator, was defeated by the Roman general Pompey the Great. It was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 63 bc.
pony Any of several breeds of small horses standing less than 14.2 hands (57 in., 144 cm) high and noted for gentleness and endurance. Among the common pony breeds are the Shetland; the stylish and hardy Welsh; the high-stepping Welsh Cob; the Exmoor and Dartmoor, natives of the English moors that are used to breed polo ponies; and the Highland, a thick, gray saddle animal.
Pony Express (1860-61) U.S. system of mail delivery by horse and rider relays. The 1,800-mi (2,900-km) route between St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento, Calif., included 157 stations. Riders changed horses every 10 to 15 miles, and it took about 10 days to complete the route. The sponsoring company of Russell, Majors, Wadell employed riders such as William F. Cody and Pony Bob Haslam. The system provided an important mail link with the West, but it was a financial failure and became obsolete after 18 months with the completion of the transcontinental telegraph system.
poodle German water retriever. Poodles have a long muzzle, hanging ears, and docked tail. The dense, solid-coloured, wiry topcoat covers a woolly undercoat. Poodles’ hair was traditionally clipped to permit them to swim efficiently when retrieving; today they are usually clipped in ornamental patterns. A dog with unclipped hair, which forms ropelike cords, is called a corded poodle. The standard poodle is more than 15 in.
(38 cm) tall and weighs up to 70 lb (32 kg); the miniature stands 10-15 in. (25.5-38 cm); the toy is under 10 in. (25.5 cm) and weighs about 7 lb (3 kg). The poodle is the national dog of France, where it was once trained to scent and dig up truffles. Poodles are regarded as the most intelligent of all domestic dog breeds.
pool or pocket billiards Billiards game played on an oblong table having six pockets with 15 object balls and a white cue ball. At the begin¬ ning of play, the balls are arranged (racked) in a pyramid formation with its apex on a spot near the foot of the table. The first player breaks the formation by driving the cue ball into it; to continue play, he or she must hit a ball into a pocket. In the popular “8-ball” game, the first player (or team) to sink either the seven solid-coloured balls (numbered 1-7) or the seven banded (striped) balls (9-15), finishing with the black 8-ball, wins. In “9-ball,” only the balls numbered 1-9 are used, and they must be sunk sequentially; the player who sinks the 9-ball wins. Pool probably reached its present form in England and France by c. 1800; today it is most popu¬ lar in North America.
Poona See Pune
Poor Law In British history, a body of laws undertaking to provide relief for the poor, developed in 16th-century England and maintained, with vari¬
ous changes, until after World War II. The original laws provided relief, including care for the elderly, sick, and infant poor as well as work for the able-bodied through local parishes. Their scope was curtailed in the 1830s, when poverty among the able-bodied was considered a moral failing. The new law provided no relief for the able-bodied poor except employment in the workhouse, with the object of stimulating workers to seek regular employment rather than charity. In the 1930s and ’40s the Poor Laws were replaced by a comprehensive system of public welfare services.
Pop art Art in which commonplace objects (such as comic strips, soup cans, road signs, and hamburgers) were used as subject matter. The Pop art movement was largely a British and American cultural phenomenon of the late 1950s and ’60s. Works by such Pop artists as the Americans Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Tom Wesselman, James Rosenquist, and Robert Indiana and the Britons David Hockney and Peter Blake, among others, were characterized by their portrayal of any and all aspects of popular culture that had a powerful impact on contemporary life; their iconography—taken from television, comic books, movie maga¬ zines, and all forms of advertising—was presented emphatically and objectively and by means of the precise commercial techniques used by the media from which the iconography itself was borrowed. Some of the more striking forms that Pop art took were Lichtenstein’s stylized repro¬ ductions of comic strips and Warhol’s meticulously literal paintings and silk-screen prints of soup-can labels and Marilyn Monroe. Pop art repre¬ sented an attempt to return to a more objective, universally acceptable form of art after the dominance in both the United States and Europe of the highly personal Abstract Expressionist movement. Its effects— including its decisive destruction of the boundary between “high” and “low” art—have continued to be powerfully felt throughout the visual arts to the present day.
Pope \po-'pa\ (d. 1692, San Juan Pueblo, New Spain) Tewa Pueblo medi¬ cine man. Believing he was guided by tribal ancestral spirits (kachinas), Pope led an Indian revolt in 1680 against the Spanish invaders in what is now the southwestern U.S. The rebellion, known as the Pueblo Revolt, drove the Spanish out of Santa Fe and temporarily restored the old Pueblo way of life. Pope was accorded great honours, but success made him des¬ potic. Although he was eventually deposed, he was reelected Pueblo leader in 1688.
pope Ecclesiastical title of the bishop of Rome, head of the Roman Catho¬ lic church. In the early church, especially in the 3rd-5th century, it was a title of affectionate respect for any bishop. It is still used for the Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria and for Orthodox priests, but around the 9th century it came to be reserved in the West exclusively for the bishop of Rome. Catholic doctrine regards the pope as the successor of St. Peter the Apostle and accords him supreme jurisdiction over the church in mat¬ ters of faith and morals, as well as in church discipline and government. Papal infallibility in matters of doctrine was asserted by the First Vatican Council in 1870. See also papacy, Roman Catholicism. See tables on fol¬ lowing pages.
Pope, Alexander (b. May 21, 1688, London, Eng.—d. May 30, 1744, Twickenham, near London) English poet and satirist. A precocious boy precluded from formal education by his Roman Catholicism, Pope was mainly self-educated. A deformity of the spine and other health problems limited his growth and physical activities, leading him to devote him¬ self to reading and writing. His first major work was An Essay on Criti¬ cism (1711), a poem on the art of writing that contains several brilliant epigrams (e.g., “To err is human, to forgive, divine”). His witty mock- epic The Rape of the Lock (1712,