Bearden, Roma re (Howard) (b. Sept. 2, 1914, Charlotte, N.C., U.S.—d. March 11, 1988, New York, N.Y.) U.S. painter. He studied with George Grosz at the Art Students League and Columbia University. After military service in World War II, he attended the Sorbonne and traveled in Europe. During this time he achieved recognition for his complex, semiabstract collages of photographs and painted paper on canvas. The narrative structure of his work is clear; aspects of African American cul¬ ture, including ritual, music, and family, were his predominant themes. By the 1960s Bearden was recognized as the preeminent collagist in the U.S. He is regarded as one of the most important African American art¬ ists of the 20th century.
Beardsley, Aubrey (Vincent) (b. Aug. 21, 1872, Brighton, Sussex, Eng.—d. March 16, 1898, Menton, Fr.) British illustrator. His only for¬ mal training was a few months of evening classes at the Westminster School of Art. His style was based on the work of Edward Burne-Jones and Japanese woodcuts, and he quickly became a master of the curvilin¬ ear black-and-white ornamental illustration popularized by the Art Nou¬ veau movement. In 1893 he illustrated an edition of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, and in 1894 he achieved notoriety with his erotic illus¬ trations for the English version of Oscar Wilde’s Salome. He became art editor and illustrator of the new quarterly The Yellow Book that same year. He died at age 25 of tuberculosis.
bearing In machine construction, a connector (usually a support) that permits the connected members to rotate or to move in a straight line rela¬ tive to one another. Often one of the members is fixed, and the bearing acts as a support for the moving member. Most bearings support rotating shafts against either transverse (radial) or thrust (axial) loads. To mini¬ mize friction, the contacting surfaces in a bearing may be separated by a film of oil or gas; these are sliding bearings (see oil seal). In ball bearings and roller bearings, the surfaces are separated by balls or rollers.
bearing wall or load-bearing wall Wall that carries the load of floors and roof above in addition to its own weight. The traditional masonry bearing wall is thickened in proportion to the forces it has to resist: its own weight, the dead load of floors and roof, the live load of people, as well as the lateral forces of arches, vaults, and wind. Such walls may be much thicker toward the base, where maximum loads accumu¬ late. Bearing walls may also be framed and sheathed or constructed of reinforced concrete.
Bearn \ba-'am\ Historical region and former province, southwestern France. It was bounded by Gascony and the Pyrenees; its capital was Pau. It formed part of Aquitania under the Romans; it was later devastated by the Vandals and Visigoths. Held as the countship of Bearn by the future Henry IV, it became a holding of the French crown when he became king in 1589. In the 16th century Pau was an important cultural centre under the patronage of Margaret of Angouleme.
Beas River \'be-,as\ ancient Hyphasis River, northwestern India. One of the “five rivers” that give the Punjab its name, it rises in the Himalayas in central Himachal Pradesh state and flows south and southwest for some 290 mi (470 km) to the Sutlej River in western Punjab state. It was the approximate limit of Alexander the Great’s invasion of India in 326 bc.
beat In physics, the pulsation resulting from a combination of two waves of slightly different frequency. Beat frequency is the difference between the frequencies of the combining waves. When the interfering frequen¬ cies are in the audible range, the beats are heard as alternating soft and loud pulses. The human ear can detect beats with frequencies up to 10 hertz, or 10 beats per second. Piano tuners listen for beats when compar¬ ing the pitch of a tuning fork to that of a vibrating string; when no beats are heard, the fork and string are at the same frequency. Ultrasonic or inaudible frequencies can be superimposed to produce audible beats, allowing the detection of vocal sounds produced by bats or dolphins.
Beat movement American social and literary movement of the 1950s and ’60s. It is associated with artists’ communities in San Francisco, Los
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184 I Beatles ► Beaumarchais
Angeles, and New York. Its adherents expressed alienation from conven¬ tional society and advocated personal release and illumination through heightened sensory awareness and altered states of consciousness. Beat poets, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso (1930-2001), and Gary Snyder, sought to liberate poetry from academic refinement, creating verse that was vernacular, sometimes sprinkled with obscenities, but often powerful and moving. Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs developed an unstructured, spontaneous, sometimes hallucina¬ tory approach to prose writing that was designed to convey the imme¬ diacy of experience. The Beat movement had faded by c. 1970, though its influence continued to be felt decades later.
Beatles British rock group that came to personify the counterculture of the 1960s. Its principal members, all born in Liverpool, Eng., were Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The group began with the pairing of McCartney and Lennon in 1956; Harrison joined in 1957, and Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best later. In 1960 they adopted the name the Beatles. In 1962 they signed a recording contract and replaced Best with Starr (Sutcliffe had left the group in 1961). The release in 1962-63 of such songs as “Please Please Me” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” made them England’s most popular rock group, and in 1964 “Bea- tlemania” struck the U.S. Originally inspired by Chuck Berry, Elvis Pres¬ ley, Little Richard, and Buddy Holly, among others, their direct, energetic songs kept them at the top of the pop charts. Their long hair and tastes in dress were influential throughout the world, as were their experimenta¬ tion with hallucinogenic drugs and Indian mysticism and their involve¬ ment with the politics of peace. From 1965 to 1967 the Beatles’ music rapidly evolved, becoming increasingly subtle, sophisticated, and varied—ranging from ballads such as “Yesterday” to the psychedelic hard rock of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Their public performances ended in 1966. Albums such as Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), and The Beatles (“White Album,” 1968) set new trends in rock. In 1967 they pro¬ duced Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , an album novel for its conception as a dramatic whole, use of electronic music, and character as a studio work not reproducible onstage. They appeared in the films A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965). The group dissolved in 1970. In 1988 the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Lennon (1994), McCartney (1999), and Harrison (2004) were also inducted as solo performers.
Beaton, Sir Cecil (Walter Hardy) (b. Jan. 14, 1904, London, Eng.—d. Jan. 18, 1980, Broadchalke, Salisbury, Wiltshire) British pho¬ tographer and designer. When he received his first camera at age 11, he began making portraits of his sisters. In the 1920s he became staff pho¬ tographer at Vanity Fair and Vogue. In Beaton’s exotic and bizarre por¬ traits, the sitter is only one element of an overall decorative composition dominated by flamboyant backgrounds. His photographs of the siege of Britain were published in Winged Squadrons (1942). After the war he designed costumes and stage sets, including those for the movies Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964).
Beatrix \ba-a-'treks\ (Wilhelmina Armgard) (b. Jan. 31, 1938, Soestdijk, Neth.) Queen of The Netherlands. Beatrix went into exile with her family when the Germans invaded The Netherlands in World War II, and she spent the war years in Britain and Canada. In 1965 her betrothal to a German diplomat sparked controversy because of his past membership in the Hitler Youth and the German army. They were married in 1966, and the hostility waned with the births of the first male heirs in the house of Orange since 1890. Beatrix became queen in 1980 after the abdication of her mother, Juliana.