Concepcion \,k6n-sep-'sy6n\ City (pop., 2002 prelim.: 371,000), capi¬ tal of Bio-Bio region, south-central Chile. One of Chile’s largest cities, it was founded in 1550 on the Pacific coast, where it was twice burned by Araucanian Indians. It has also been struck by numerous earthquakes, two of which were followed by tsunamis, and in 1754 it was moved inland to its present site near the mouth of the Bio-Bio River. Despite its severe seis¬ mic activity, it has become a major commercial and industrial centre and a distribution point for southern Chile. Local industries include textiles, food products, and steel.
concept formation Process of developing abstract rules or mental constructs based on sensory experience. Concept formation figures promi¬ nently in cognitive development and was a subject of great importance to Jean Piaget, who argued that learning entails an understanding of a phe¬ nomenon’s characteristics and how they are logically linked. Noam Chom¬ sky later argued that certain cognitive structures (such as basic grammatical rules) are innate in human beings. Both scholars held that, as a concept emerges, it becomes subject to testing: a child’s concept of “bird,” for example, will be tested against specific instances of birds. The human capacity for play contributes importantly to this process by allow¬ ing for consideration of a wide range of possibilities.
Conception Bay Inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, southeastern Newfound¬ land, Canada. Named by a Portuguese explorer who visited the coast in 1500 on the Feast of the Conception, it is about 30 mi (50 km) long and 12 mi (19 km) wide. Its shore settlements, among Newfoundland’s oldest and most densely populated, support seafood canneries and beach resorts.
conceptual art Any of various art forms in which the idea for a work of art is considered more important than the finished product. The theory was explored by Marcel Duchamp from c. 1910, but the term was coined
Comte, drawing by Tony Toullion, 19th century; in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
H. ROGER-VIOLLET
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446 I Concert of Europe ► Concordat of 1801
in the late 1950s by Edward Kienholz. In the 1960s and ’70s it became a major international movement; its leading exponents were Sol LeWitt (b. 1928) and Joseph Kosuth (b. 1945). Its adherents radically redefined art objects, materials, and techniques, and began questioning the very exist¬ ence and use of art. Its claim is that the “true” work of art is not a physi¬ cal object produced by the artist for exhibition or sale, but rather consists of “concepts” or “ideas.” Typical conceptual works include photographs, texts, maps, graphs, and image-text combinations that are deliberately rendered visually uninteresting or trivial in order to divert attention to the “ideas” they express. Its manifestations have been extremely diverse; a well-known example is Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs (1965), which combines a real chair, a photograph of a chair, and a dictionary defini¬ tion of “chair.” Conceptual art was fundamental to much of the art pro¬ duced in the late 20th century.
Concert of Europe In the post-Napoleonic era, the consensus among the European monarchies favoring preservation of the territorial and political status quo. The term assumed the responsibility and the right of the great powers to intervene in states threatened by internal rebellion. The powers discussed such intervention at several congresses, including those of Aix-la-Chapelle, Troppau, Laibach, and Verona.
concertina Portable bellows-operated musical instrument. The first concertina was patented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in London in 1829, and he later produced an instrument with full chromatic capacity. Like the accordion, its sound is produced by free reeds, but it uses buttons rather than keys. The very similar Argentinian bandoneon is square rather than hexagonal.
concerto \k3n-'cher-to\ Musical composition for solo instrument and orchestra. The solo concerto grew out of the older concerto grosso. Giuseppe Torelli’s violin concertos of 1698 are the first known solo con¬ certos. Antonio Vivaldi, the first important concerto composer, wrote more than 350 solo concertos, mostly for violin. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the first keyboard concertos. From the Classical period on, most concer¬ tos have been written for piano, followed in popularity by the violin and then the cello. Wofgang Amadeus Mozart wrote 27 piano concertos; other notable composers of piano concertos include Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Johannes Brahms. From the outset the concerto has been almost exclusively a three-movement form, with fast tempos in the first and third movements and a slow central movement. It has generally been intended to display the soloist’s virtu¬ osity, particularly in the unaccompanied and often improvised cadenzas near the ends of the first and third movements. Nineteenth-century con¬ certos were often conceived as a kind of dramatic struggle between solo¬ ist and orchestra; many later composers preferred that the soloist blend with the orchestra.
concerto grosso Principal orchestral music of the Baroque era, char¬ acterized by contrast between a small group of soloists and a larger orches¬ tra. The small group (concertino) usually consisted of two violins and continuo, the instruments of the older trio sonata, though wind instru¬ ments were also used. The larger group (ripieno) generally consisted of strings with continuo. Alessandro Stradella (1642-82) wrote the first known concerto grosso c. 1675. Arcangelo Corelli’s set of 12 (c. 1680- 90), Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (c. 1720), and George Frideric Handel’s Opus 6 concertos (c. 1740) are the most cel¬ ebrated examples. From 1750 the concerto grosso was eclipsed by the solo CONCERTO.
conch Vkaqk, 'kanch\ Marine snail whose shell has a broadly triangular outer whorl and a wide lip, often jut¬ ting toward the uppermost point.
True conchs (family Strombidae) feed on fine plant matter in warm waters. The queen conch ( Strombus gigas), found from Florida to Brazil, has an ornamental shell; the pink opening into the first whorl of the shell may be 12 in. (30 cm) long. The clam-eating fulgur conchs (family Melongenidae) include the chan¬ neled conch ( Busycon canalicula- twri) and the lightning conch ( B. contrarium), both about 7 in. (18 cm)
long and common on the U.S. Atlantic coast. See also whelk.
Conchobar mac Nessa Vka-nii-or-mok-'ne-so, 'kaq-ko-or-mok-'ne- so\ or Conor \'ka-nor\ In ancient Irish Gaelic literature, the reputed king of the Ulaids of northeastern Ireland at the beginning of the 1st century bc. In the Ulster cycle he is the ideal Irish king. In The Book of Leinster (c. 1160), Conor fell in love with the beauty Deirdre. Deirdre, however, was in love with Nofsi, with whom she eloped and lived in Scotland; Conor’s slaying of his rival caused a revolt in Ulster, and Deirdre killed herself.
Conciliar Movement Vkon-'si-le-orX (1409^19) In Roman Catholi¬ cism, an effort to strengthen the authority of church councils over that of the papacy. Originally aimed at ending the Western Schism, the Conciliar Movement had its roots in legal and intellectual circles in the 13th cen¬ tury but emerged as a force at the Council of Pisa (1409), which elected a third pope in an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the parties of the existing pope and antipope. A second council, the Council of Constance (1414—18), ended the schism by voiding all papal offices and electing a new pope. Participants hoped to play an ongoing role in the church, but the popes continued to seek supremacy, and the Council of Basel (1431— 49) ended fruitlessly.