document_title: Thriller (Michael Jackson album)

question_text: when did thriller became the best selling album

root

text: Thriller (Michael Jackson album)

text: Background[edit]

text: Jackson's previous album Off the Wall (1979) received critical acclaim[14][15] and was a commercial success, selling over 20 million copies worldwide.[16] The years between Off the Wall and Thriller were a transitional period for Jackson, a time of increased independence.[17] The period saw him become deeply unhappy; Jackson said, "Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room sometimes and cry. It's so hard to make friends ... I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home."[18]

tag: p

text: When Jackson turned 21 in August 1979, he hired John Branca as his manager.[19] Jackson confided in Branca that he wanted to be the biggest and wealthiest star in show business. He was upset about what he perceived to be the under-performance of Off the Wall, saying: "It was totally unfair that it didn't get Record of the Year and it can never happen again."[20] He also felt undervalued by the music industry; in 1980, when Rolling Stone declined to run a cover story on him, Jackson responded: "I've been told over and over that black people on the cover of magazines doesn't sell copies ... Just wait. Someday those magazines are going to be begging me for an interview. Maybe I'll give them one, and maybe I won't."[20]

text: Recording[edit]

text: Jackson reunited with Off the Wall producer Quincy Jones to record his sixth studio album, his second under the Epic label. The pair worked together on 30 songs, nine of which were included on the album.[21] Thriller was recorded at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California, with a production budget of $750,000 (US$1,926,319.15 in 2017 dollars[22]). The recording commenced on April 14, 1982 at noon with Jackson and Paul McCartney recording "The Girl Is Mine; it was completed on the final day of mixing, November 8, 1982.[23] Several members of the band Toto were involved in the album's recording and production.[21] Jackson wrote four songs for the record: "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", "The Girl Is Mine", "Beat It" and "Billie Jean".[24] Unlike many artists, Jackson did not write these songs on paper. Instead, he dictated into a sound recorder; when recording he would sing from memory.[25][26]

text: The relationship between Jackson and Jones became strained during the recording. Jackson spent much of his time rehearsing dance steps alone.[26] When the album was completed, both Jones and Jackson were unhappy with the result and remixed every song, spending a week on each.[26]

text: Jackson was inspired to create an album where "every song was a killer" and developed Thriller with that in mind.[27][28] Jones and songwriter Rod Temperton gave detailed accounts of what occurred for the 2001 reissue of the album. Jones discussed "Billie Jean" and why it was so personal to Jackson, who struggled with obsessed fans. Jones wanted to shorten the long introduction, but Jackson insisted that it remain because it made him want to dance.[24] The ongoing backlash against disco made it necessary to move in a different musical direction from the disco-heavy Off the Wall.[28] Jones and Jackson were determined to make a rock song that would appeal to all tastes and spent weeks looking for a suitable guitarist for the song "Beat It". Eventually, they found Steve Lukather of Toto to play the rhythm guitar parts and Eddie Van Halen of the rock band Van Halen to play the solo.[24][26]

text: When Rod Temperton wrote the song "Thriller", he wanted to call it "Starlight" or "Midnight Man", but settled on "Thriller" because he felt the name had merchandising potential.[26] Wanting a notable person to recite the closing lyrics, Jones brought in actor Vincent Price, an acquaintance of Jones' wife; Price completed his part in two takes. Temperton wrote the spoken portion in a taxi on the way to the recording studio. Jones and Temperton said that some recordings were left off the final cut because they did not have the "edginess" of other album tracks.[24]

text: Songs recorded by Jackson for consideration included "Carousel" (written by Michael Sembello), "Got the Hots" (written by Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones), "Nite Line" (written by Glen Ballard), "Trouble" (aka "She's Trouble", written by Terry Britten, Bill Livsey and Sue Shifrin) and "Hot Street" (written by Rod Temperton), also known as "Slapstick". Jackson also cut a version of "Starlight". Demos of all these songs exist and have leaked onto the internet. "Carousel", "Got the Hots" and "Hot Street" were completed, but left off of the final version of the album. A short clip of "Carousel" appeared as a bonus track on the 2001 reissue of the album; the full version was later released on iTunes in 2013 as part of The Ultimate Fan Extras Collection.

text: Music and lyrics[edit]

text:
"Thriller"

Excerpt of the album's title track and one of Jackson's signature pieces, "Thriller", released as a single in 1984. Jackson uses cinematic sound effects, horror film motifs and vocal trickery to convey a sense of danger.[29]
"Human Nature"

"Human Nature", a top ten hit single in the US. It is the most notable ballad on the album, praised for its moody, introspective lyrics and sound.
"Billie Jean"

"Billie Jean", a number one hit single in many countries. The song was written and co-produced by Jackson. The track mixed uptempo funk and disco with the somber themes of paranoia and obsession.[30]
Problems playing these files? See media help.

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text: Thriller explores genres including pop, post-disco, rock and funk.[31][32][33] According to Steve Huey of AllMusic, it refined the strengths of Off the Wall; the dance and rock tracks are more aggressive, while the pop tunes and ballads are softer and more soulful.[34] The album includes the ballads "The Lady in My Life", "Human Nature" and "The Girl Is Mine". The funk tracks "Billie Jean" and "Wanna Be Startin' Something'", and the disco songs "Baby Be Mine" and "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"[30][31][34][35] have a similar sound to Off the Wall.

text: "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" climaxes in an African-inspired chant (often misidentified as Swahili, but actually syllables based on Duala),[36] giving the song an international flavor.[37] "The Girl Is Mine" tells of two friends' fight over a woman, arguing over who loves her more, and concludes with a rap.[26][37] The album's songs have a tempo ranging from 80 beats per minute on "The Girl is Mine", to 138 on "Beat It".[38]

text: Thriller foreshadows the contradictory themes of Jackson's later works.[39] With Thriller, Jackson began using a motif of paranoia and darker themes including supernatural imagery in the title track.[30] This is evident on the songs "Billie Jean", "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and "Thriller".[31] In "Billie Jean", Jackson sings about an obsessive fan who alleges he fathered her child; in "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" he argues against media gossip.[30][34] For "Billie Jean", Jones had Jackson sing overdubs through a six-foot cardboard tube and brought in jazz saxophonist Tom Scott to play the lyricon, a wind-controlled synthesizer. Bassist Louis Johnson ran through his part on a Yamaha bass guitar. The song opens with a long bass-and-drums introduction.[40] "Thriller" includes sound effects such as creaking doors, thunder, footsteps, wind, and howling dogs.[26]

text: The anti-gang-violence "Beat It" became a homage to West Side Story and was Jackson's first successful rock cross-over piece.[34][41] Jackson later said of "Beat It", "the point is no one has to be the tough guy, you can walk away from a fight and still be a man. You don't have to die to prove you're a man".[37] "Human Nature", co-written by Steve Porcaro of the band Toto,[42] is moody and introspective, as conveyed in lyrics such as, "Looking out, across the morning, the City's heart begins to beat, reaching out, I touch her shoulder, I'm dreaming of the street".[37]

text: By the late 1970s, Jackson's abilities as a vocalist were well regarded; AllMusic described him as a "blindingly gifted vocalist".[14] Rolling Stone critic Stephen Holden likened his vocals to the "breathless, dreamy stutter" of Stevie Wonder, and wrote that "Jackson's feathery-timbred tenor is extraordinarily beautiful. It slides smoothly into a startling falsetto that's used very daringly."[15] With the release of Thriller, Jackson could sing low—down to a basso low C—but he preferred to sing higher because pop tenors have more range to create style.[43] Rolling Stone critic Christopher Connely wrote that Jackson was now singing in a "fully adult voice" that was "tinged by sadness".[30]

text: "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)", credited to James Ingram and Quincy Jones and "The Lady in My Life" by Rod Temperton, both gave the album a stronger R&B direction; the latter song was described as "the closest Jackson has come to crooning a sexy, soulful ballad after his Motown years" by J. Randy Taraborrelli.[37] The singer had already adopted a "vocal hiccup" (first used in 1973 on "It's Too Late to Change the Time"[44]), which he continued to implement in Thriller. The purpose of the hiccup—somewhat like a gulping for air or gasping—is to help invoke a certain emotion, be it excitement, sadness or fear.[45]

text: Release and reception[edit]

text: Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRatingAllMusic[31]Christgau's Record GuideA[46]Encyclopedia of Popular Music[47]Entertainment WeeklyA[48]MusicHound R&B5/5[49]Q[50]Rolling Stone[30]The Rolling Stone Album Guide[51]Slant Magazine[35]The Village VoiceA–[52]

text: Thriller was released on November 30, 1982, and sold one million copies worldwide per week at its peak.[43] Seven singles were released from the album beginning with "The Girl Is Mine", the duet with Paul McCartney which was criticized at the time as a poor choice for the lead release and led some critics to believe that the album would be a disappointment and to suggestions that Jackson was bowing to a white audience.[37] "The Girl Is Mine" was followed by the hit single "Billie Jean", which made Thriller a chart-topper.[53][54] Success continued with the single "Beat It", which featured guitarists Eddie Van Halen and Steve Lukather.[55] The album's title track was released as a single and also became a hit internationally.[37]

text: The cover for Thriller features Jackson in a white suit that belonged to photographer Dick Zimmerman. The gatefold sleeve reveals a tiger cub at Jackson's leg, which Zimmerman reported the singer mostly kept away from his face fearing he would be scratched.[56] Another picture from the shoot, with Jackson embracing the cub, was used for the 2001 special edition of Thriller.[57]

text: In a contemporaneous review for Rolling Stone, Christopher Connelly called Thriller "a zesty LP" with a "harrowing, dark message". He compared the songs on the album with the life challenges that the 24-year-old Jackson had faced since Off the Wall, while observing that he "dropped the boyish falsetto" and was facing his "challenges head-on" with "a feisty determination" and "a full, adult voice".[30] John Rockwell wrote in The New York Times that perhaps Jackson was a "sometimes too practiced ... performer", that at times Quincy Jones may "depersonalize his individuality" with his "slightly anonymous production", and that Jackson may be hiding his true emotions behind "layers of impenetrable, gauzy veils".[58]

text: Rockwell nonetheless deemed Thriller "a wonderful pop record, the latest statement by one of the great singers in popular music today" and that there are "hits here, too, lots of them". Rockwell believed it helped breach "the destructive barriers that spring up regularly between white and black music", especially as "white publications and radio stations that normally avoid black music seem willing to pretend he isn't black after all".[58] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said "this is virtually a hits-plus-filler job, but at such a high level it's almost classic anyway".[52] He later wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), "what we couldn't know is how brilliantly every hit but 'P.Y.T.' would thrive on mass exposure and public pleasure."[46]

text: A year after the album's release, Time summed up the three main singles from the album, saying, "The pulse of America and much of the rest of the world moves irregularly, beating in time to the tough strut of 'Billie Jean', the asphalt aria of 'Beat It', the supremely cool chills of 'Thriller'."[43] In 1989, Toronto Star music critics reflected on the albums they had reviewed in the past ten years in order to create a list judging them on the basis of "commercial impact to social import, to strictly musical merit." Thriller was placed at number 1 on the list, where it was referred to as his "master work" and that "commercial success has since overshadowed Jackson's artistic accomplishments on Thriller, and that's a pity. It was a record for the times, brimming with breathless anticipation and a dread fear of the adult world, a brilliant fantasy that pumped with sexual heat, yet made room for serious reflection".[59]

text: The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984, including Album of the Year. Jackson won seven of the Grammys for the album, while the eighth Grammy went to Bruce Swedien.[60][61][62] That same year, Jackson won eight American Music Awards, the Special Award of Merit and three MTV Video Music Awards.[63] Thriller was recognized as the world's best-selling album on February 7, 1984, when it was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records.[64] It is one of four albums to be the best-seller of two years (1983–1984) in the US.[65]

text: On December 16, 2015, Thriller was certified 30× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipments of at least 30 million units in the US.[66][67] After the inclusion of streaming and tracks sales into the RIAA album awards in 2017, Thriller was re-certified 33× platinum for a total of 33 million album-equivalent units.[10] The album topped the charts in many countries, sold 4.2 million copies in the UK,[68] 2.5 million in Japan,[69] and was certified 15× Platinum in Australia.[70] Still popular today, Thriller sells an estimated 130,000 copies in the US per year; it reached number two in the US Catalog charts in February 2003 and number 39 in the UK in March 2007.[63]

text: Influence and legacy[edit]

text: Music industry[edit]

text: Blender described Jackson as the "late 20th century's preeminent pop icon", while The New York Times gave the opinion that he was a "musical phenomenon" and that "in the world of pop music, there is Michael Jackson and there is everybody else".[40][71] Jackson changed the way the industry functioned: both as an artistic persona and as a financial, profitable entity. His attorney John Branca observed that Jackson achieved the highest royalty rate in the music industry to that point: approximately $2 (US$4.71 in 2017 dollars[22]) for each album sold.

text: As a result, Jackson earned record-breaking profits from compact disc sales and from the sale of copies of the documentary, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, produced by Jackson and John Landis. Funded by MTV, the film sold over 350,000 copies in its first few months. In a market then driven by singles, Thriller raised the significance of albums, yet its multiple hit singles changed perceived notions as to the number of successful singles that could be taken from an individual album.[34] The era saw the arrival of novelties like the Michael Jackson doll, that appeared in stores in May 1984 at a price of $12 (US$28 in 2017 dollars[22]).[43] Thriller retains a position in American culture; biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli explains, "At some point, Thriller stopped selling like a leisure item—like a magazine, a toy, tickets to a hit movie—and started selling like a household staple".[72]

text: At the time of the album's release, a press statement from Gil Friesen, the then President of A&M Records, read that, "The whole industry has a stake in this success".[43] Time magazine speculated that "the fallout from Thriller has given the [music] business its best years since the heady days of 1978, when it had an estimated total domestic revenue of $4.1 billion".[43] Time summed up Thriller's impact as a "restoration of confidence" for an industry bordering on "the ruins of punk and the chic regions of synthesizer pop". The publication described Jackson's influence at that point as, "Star of records, radio, rock video. A one-man rescue team for the music business. A songwriter who sets the beat for a decade. A dancer with the fanciest feet on the street. A singer who cuts across all boundaries of taste and style and color too".[43]

text: When Thriller and "Billie Jean" were searching to reach their market demographic, MTV and cable TV had a smaller market share than the much larger reach of broadcast television stations in the United States. A national broadcast TV audience on ABC, NBC and CBS affiliate stations, as well as major independent TV stations, was desired by CBS/Epic Records to promote Thriller. The national broadcast TV premiere of the Thriller album's first video, "Billie Jean", was during the week of Halloween in October 1984 and was the idea of Video Concert Hall executive producers Charles Henderson and Jerry Crowe.[73][74] Video Concert Hall, the first nationwide music video TV network, taped the one-hour special in Hollywood and Atlanta, where the TV studios of Video Concert Hall were located.[75][76][77][78] The Thriller TV special was hosted by Thriller video co-star Vincent Price, distributed by Henderson-Crowe Syndications, Inc. and aired in the top 20 TV markets and much of the United States, including TV stations WNEW (New York), WFLD (Chicago), KTTV (Los Angeles), WPLG (Miami), WQTV (Boston) and WXIA (Atlanta), for a total of 150 TV stations.[73][74]

text: From the moment Thriller was released, it set the standard for the music industry: artists, record labels, producers, marketers and even choreographers. The music video was ahead of its time and it is considered a monumental one—not only in Jackson's career, but also in the history of pop music. Epic Records' approach to creating a song and video that would appeal to the mass market ended up influencing the way that professionals now market and release their songs.[79] John Landis' production of a mini-movie, rather than the usual short music video, would raise the bar for other directors and producers.[80]

text: Music videos and racial equality[edit]

text: Before the success of Thriller, many felt Jackson had struggled to get MTV airing because he was black.[40] In an effort to attain air time for Jackson, CBS Records President Walter Yetnikoff pressured MTV and declared, "I'm not going to give you any more videos and I'm going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don't want to play music by a black guy."[40]

text: His position persuaded MTV to begin airing "Billie Jean" and later "Beat It", (along with Prince's "Little Red Corvette") which led to a long partnership and later helped other black music artists to gain mainstream recognition.[81] MTV denies claims of racism in their broadcasting.[82] The popularity of his videos, such as "Beat It" and "Billie Jean", helped to place the young channel "on the map" and MTV's focus shifted in favor of pop and R&B.[81][83] Jackson transformed the medium of music video into an art form and promotional tool through the use of complex story lines, dance routines, special effects and cameo appearances by well known personalities.[34]

text: When the 14-minute-long Thriller video aired, MTV ran it twice an hour to meet demand.[84] The short film marked an increase in scale for music videos and has been routinely named the best music video ever.[34] The popularity of the video sent the album back to number one in the album chart, but Jackson's label did not support the release of the third music video from the album. They were already pleased with its success, so Jackson convinced MTV to fund the project.[26][84]

text: Author, music critic and journalist Nelson George wrote in 2004, "It's difficult to hear the songs from Thriller and disengage them from the videos. For most of us the images define the songs. In fact it could be argued that Michael is the first artist of the MTV age to have an entire album so intimately connected in the public imagination with its imagery".[29] Short films like Thriller largely remained unique to Jackson, while the group dance sequence in "Beat It" has been frequently imitated.[24] The choreography in Thriller has become a part of global pop culture, replicated everywhere from Bollywood to prisons in the Philippines.[85][86]

text: For a black artist in the 1980s to that point, Jackson's success was unprecedented. According to The Washington Post, Thriller paved the way for other African-American artists to achieve mainstream recognition, such as Prince.[87] Christgau credited "The Girl Is Mine" for giving radio exposure to the idea of interracial love.[46] Time noted, "Jackson is the biggest thing since the Beatles. He is the hottest single phenomenon since Elvis Presley. He just may be the most popular black singer ever".[43]

text: Contemporary appeal[edit]

text: Today, Thriller is still viewed in a positive light by critics some three decades later. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that the record had something to interest everyone. He believed it showcased harder funk and hard rock while remaining "undeniably fun". He went on to compliment "Billie Jean" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and said, "The record's two best songs: 'Billie Jean, ... and the delirious 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'', the freshest funk on the album [but] the most claustrophobic, scariest track Jackson ever recorded." Erlewine gave the opinion that it was an improvement on the artist's previous album, although he was critical of the title track, describing it as "ridiculous" and as having the effect of "arriving in the middle of the record and sucking out its momentum".[31]

text: In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Jon Pareles commented that Jackson "doubled his ambitions and multiplied his audience" with the album and wrote of its legacy, "Thriller had extramusical help in becoming the best-selling noncompilation album of all time: Jackson's dancing feet and dazzling stage presence, amplified by the newfound promotional reach of music video and the Reagan era's embrace of glossy celebrity. But especially in the album's seven hit singles (out of nine songs), the music stands on its own."[88]

text: Sputnikmusic reviewer Tyler Fisher noted that Thriller "stands one of Jackson's greatest efforts, giving him an eternal legacy in pop music."[89] Culture critic Nelson George wrote that Jackson "has educated R. Kelly, Usher, Justin Timberlake and countless others with Thriller as a textbook".[90] As a sign of the album's longevity, in 2003 Thriller was ranked at number 20 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list and was listed by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers at number three of the "Definitive 200" albums of all time.[13][91] In 2008, 25 years after its release, the record was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and, a few weeks later, was among 25 recordings preserved by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry as "culturally significant".[92][93] In 2009, music critics for MTV Base and VH1 both listed Thriller as the best album released since 1981.[94] Thriller, along with other critic favorites, were then polled by the public. 40,000 people found Thriller to be the Best Album of all time by MTV Generation, gaining a third of all votes.[94][95]

text: Reissues and catalog sales[edit]

text: Thriller was reissued on October 16, 2001, in an expanded set titled Thriller: Special Edition. The original tracks were remastered and the album included a new booklet and bonus material, including the songs "Someone in the Dark", "Carousel" and Jackson's original "Billie Jean" demo, as well as audio interviews with Jones and Temperton discussing the recording of the album.[24][96] Sony also hired sound engineer and mixer Mick Guzauski[97][98] to work with Jackson on creating 5.1-channel surround sound mixes of Thriller, as well as all his other albums, for release on the then-new Super Audio CD format. Despite numerous retries, the artist never approved any of the mixes.[99] Consequently, Thriller was issued on SACD only in a stereo version.[100]

text: In February 2008, Epic Records released Thriller 25; Jackson served as executive producer.[101] Thriller 25 appeared on CD, USB and vinyl with seven bonus tracks, a new song called "For All Time", a snippet of Vincent Price's voice-over and five remixes featuring American artists Fergie, will.i.am, Kanye West and Akon.[101][102][103] It also included a DVD featuring three music videos, the Motown 25 "Billie Jean" performance and a booklet with a message from Jackson.[101] The ballad "For All Time" supposedly dates from 1982, but is often credited as being from the Dangerous sessions.[104] Two singles were released from the reissue: "The Girl Is Mine 2008" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' 2008".

text: Thriller 25 was a commercial success and did particularly well as a reissue. It peaked at number one in eight countries and Europe. It peaked at number two in the US, number three in the UK and reached the top 10 in over 30 national charts. It was certified Gold in 11 countries including the UK, received a 2× Gold certification in France and received platinum certification in Poland.[105][106][107] In the United States, Thriller 25 was the second best-selling album of its release week, selling one hundred and sixty six thousand copies, just fourteen thousand short of reaching the number one position. It was ineligible for the Billboard 200 chart as a re-release but entered the Pop Catalog Charts at number one (where it stayed for ten non-consecutive weeks),[108] with the best sales on that chart since December 1996.[109][110][111] With the arrival of Halloween that November, Thriller 25 spent an eleventh non-consecutive week atop the US catalog chart. This brought US sales of the album to 688,000 copies, making it the best-selling catalog album of 2008.[112] This was Jackson's best launch since Invincible in 2001, selling three million copies worldwide in 12 weeks.[113]

text: After Jackson's death in June 2009, Thriller set additional records. It sold more than 100,000 copies, placing it at number two on the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart. Songs from Thriller also helped Jackson become the first artist to sell more than one million song downloads in a week.[114] According to Nielsen SoundScan, Thriller was the 14th best-selling album of 2009 in the United States, with 1.27 million copies sold.[115]

text: For one week beginning November 20, 2015, Google Play Music offered a free copy of the album to its users in the U.S.[116]  It is called Thriller (Google Play Exclusive Version).  It adds a tenth track to the original, Billie Jean (Home Demo from 1981).

text: To date, Thriller remains the best-selling album of all time, selling over 66 million copies worldwide.[3]

text: Track listing[edit]

text: Side oneNo.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length1."Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"Michael JacksonQuincy JonesJackson[a]6:022."Baby Be Mine"Rod TempertonJones4:203."The Girl Is Mine" (with Paul McCartney)JacksonJonesJackson[a]3:414."Thriller"TempertonJones5:57

text: Side twoNo.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length5."Beat It"JacksonJonesJackson[a]4:186."Billie Jean"JacksonJonesJackson[a]4:547."Human Nature"Steve PorcaroJohn BettisJones4:078."P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"James IngramJonesJones3:589."The Lady in My Life"TempertonJones4:59Total length:42:19

text: Notes

text: ^[a]  signifies a co-producer

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text: Personnel[edit]

text: Personnel as listed in the album's liner notes are:[117]

text:
Tom Bahler – synclavier (track 5)
Brian Banks – synthesizer (track 4), synthesizer programming (2)
Michael Boddicker – synthesizers (tracks 1–2), Emulator (6–9), Vocoder (8)
Bruce Cannon – effects (track 4)
Leon "Ndugu" Chancler – drums (tracks 2, 6, 8)
Paulinho da Costa – percussion (tracks 1, 7)
David Foster – synthesizer (track 3), synthesizer arrangement (3)
Gary Grant – trumpet (tracks 1–2, 4), flugelhorn (1–2, 4)
Nelson Hayes – bathroom stomp board (track 1)
Howard Hewett – background vocals (track 8)
Jerry Hey – trumpet (tracks 1–2, 4), flugelhorn (1–2, 4), horn arrangements (1–2, 4), string arrangements (3, 6), strings conductor (3)
Bunny Hull – background vocals (tracks 1, 8)
James Ingram – background vocals (tracks 1, 8), keyboards (8), handclaps (8), musical arrangements (8)
Janet Jackson – background vocals (track 8)
La Toya Jackson – background vocals (track 8)
Michael Jackson – co-producer (tracks 1, 3, 5-6), lead vocals (all tracks), programming (1, 4), drum case beater (track 5), bathroom stomp board (1), background vocals (1, 4–6), handclaps (8), vocal arrangements (1, 3, 5–6), rhythm arrangements (1, 5–6), horn arrangements (1), synthesizer arrangements (6)
Paul Jackson Jr. – guitar (tracks 5, 8–9)
Louis Johnson – bass guitar (tracks 1, 3, 6, 8–9), handclaps (8)
Quincy Jones – producer (all tracks), rhythm arrangements (tracks 1, 3, 5), vocal arrangements (3), musical arrangements (8)
Becky Lopez – background vocals (tracks 1, 8)
Jerry Lubbock – strings conductor (track 6)
Steve Lukather – guitar (tracks 3, 5, 7), bass guitar (5), musical arrangements (7)
Anthony Marinelli – synthesizer, synthesizer programming (tracks 2, 4)
Paul McCartney – lead vocals (track 3)
David Paich – synthesizers (tracks 2, 7, 9), piano (3), rhythm arrangements (3), musical arrangements (7)
Dean Parks – guitar (tracks 3)
Greg Phillinganes – keyboards (2, 4), synthesizers (1–2, 4–6, 8), piano, Fender Rhodes (1, 3, 5-6, 9), synthesizer programming (8), handclaps (8)
Jeff Porcaro – drums (tracks 3, 5, 7, 9)
Steve Porcaro – synthesizers (tracks 5, 7, 9), synthesizer programming (2–3, 5, 7), musical arrangements (7)
Vincent Price – voice-over (track 4)
Steven Ray – bathroom stomp board (track 1), handclaps (8)
Bill Reichenbach – trombone (tracks 1–2, 4)
Greg Smith – Synergy (track 5), synthesizer (6)
Bruce Swedien – recording engineer (All tracks), audio mixer (All tracks), effects (4)
Chris Shepard – vibraslap (track 5)
Rod Temperton – synthesizer (track 4), rhythm arrangements (2, 4, 9), vocal arrangements (2, 4, 9), arrangements (2, 4, 9)
Eddie Van Halen – guitar solo (track 5)
Jerry Vinci – concertmaster (track 3)
Julia Waters – background vocals (track 1)
Maxine Waters – background vocals (track 1)
Oren Waters – background vocals (track 1)
David Williams – guitar (tracks 1–2, 4, 6)
Larry Williams – saxophone (tracks 1–2, 4),  flute (1–2, 4)
Bill Wolfer – keyboards (track 5), synthesizer (1, 6), programming (6)

text: Charts[edit]

text: Year-end charts[edit]

text:
Original release

Chart (1983)

Peakposition

Australia (Kent Music Report)[118]

1

Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[119]

1

Canada (RPM Top Albums)[120]

1

France (IFOP)[121]

1

Germany (Official German Charts)[122]

1

Italy (FIMI)[123]

1

Japan (Oricon)[124]

1

Netherlands (Single Top 100)[125]

1

UK Albums (OCC)[126]

1

US Billboard 200[126]

1

US Hot Black Albums[126]

1

Chart (1984)

Peakposition

Australia (Kent Music Report)[118]

2

Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[127]

3

Canada (RPM Top Albums)[128]

4

Germany (Official German Charts)[129]

5

Japan (Oricon)[130]

1

Netherlands (Single Top 100)[131]

4

Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[132]

1

UK Albums (OCC)[133]

6

US Billboard 200[134]

1

US Hot Black Albums[134]

2

Reissue

Chart (2009)

Peakposition

Australia (ARIA)[135]

32

Germany (Official German Charts)[136]

40

US Billboard Comprehensive Albums[137]

16

US Billboard Top Internet Albums[138]

16

US Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums[139]

16

Chart (2010)

Peakposition

Australia (Top 100 Singles)[140]

47

US Billboard 200[141]

137

US Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums[142]

7

text: Decade-end charts[edit]

text:
Chart (1980–1989)

Position

Australia (Kent Music Report)[118]

3

Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[143]

1

Japan (Oricon)[144]

2

UK Albums (OCC)[133]

3

text: Certifications[edit]

text:
Region

Certification
Certified units/Sales

Argentina (CAPIF)[145]

Diamond

500,000^

Australia (ARIA)[146]

16× Platinum

1,150,000[147]

Austria (IFPI Austria)[148]

8× Platinum

400,000*

Canada (Music Canada)[149]

2× Diamond

2,400,000[150]

Denmark (IFPI Denmark)[151]

2× Platinum

100,000^

Finland (Musiikkituottajat)[152]

Platinum

129,061[152]

France (SNEP)[153]

Diamond

3,760,000[154]

Germany (BVMI)[155]

3× Platinum

1,500,000^

Hong Kong (IFPI Hong Kong)[156]

Platinum

20,000*

Italy (FIMI)[157]

Platinum

1,000,000*

Japan (RIAJ)[158]

Gold

2,500,000[69]

Mexico (AMPROFON)[159]

Platinum+Diamond+Gold

1,600,000^

Netherlands (NVPI)[160]

8× Platinum

1,400,000[161]

New Zealand (RMNZ)[162]

12× Platinum

180,000^

Portugal (AFP)[163]

Platinum

50,000^

South Korea

50,000[164]

Sweden (GLF)[165]

4× Platinum

400,000^

Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[166]

6× Platinum

300,000^

United Kingdom (BPI)[167]

13× Platinum

4,400,000[168]

United States (RIAA)[169]

33× Platinum

33,000,000

Summaries

Europe (IFPI)[170]For sales in 2009

Platinum

1,000,000*

Worldwide

66 million[3]

*sales figures based on certification alone^shipments figures based on certification alonesales+streaming figures based on certification alone


document_title: Natural rubber

question_text: where does most of the world's rubber come from

question_tokens: where does most of the world 's rubber come from

text: Natural rubber

text: Varieties[edit]

text: Hevea brasiliensis[edit]

text: The major commercial source of natural rubber latex is the Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), a member of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. This species is preferred because it grows well under cultivation. A properly managed tree responds to wounding by producing more latex for several years.

text: Congo rubber[edit]

text: Congo rubber, formerly a major source of rubber, came from vines in the genus Landolphia (L. kirkii, L. heudelotis, and L. owariensis).[2] These cannot be cultivated, and the intense drive to collect latex from wild plants was responsible for many of the atrocities committed under the Congo Free State.

text: Dandelion[edit]

text: Dandelion milk contains latex. The latex exhibits the same quality as the natural rubber from rubber trees. In the wild types of dandelion, latex content is low and varies greatly. In Nazi Germany, research projects tried to use dandelions as a base for rubber production, but failed.[3] In 2013, by inhibiting one key enzyme and using modern cultivation methods and optimization techniques, scientists in the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME) in Germany developed a cultivar that is suitable for commercial production of natural rubber.[4] In collaboration with Continental Tires, IME began a pilot facility.

text: Other[edit]

text: Many other plants produce forms of latex rich in isoprene polymers, though not all produce usable forms of polymer as easily as the Pará. Some of them require more elaborate processing to produce anything like usable rubber, and most are more difficult to tap. Some produce other desirable materials, for example gutta-percha (Palaquium gutta)[5] and chicle from Manilkara species. Others that have been commercially exploited, or at least showed promise as rubber sources, include the rubber fig (Ficus elastica), Panama rubber tree (Castilla elastica), various spurges (Euphorbia spp.), lettuce (Lactuca species), the related Scorzonera tau-saghyz, various Taraxacum species, including common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and Russian dandelion (Taraxacum kok-saghyz), and perhaps most importantly for its hypoallergenic properties, guayule (Parthenium argentatum). The term gum rubber is sometimes applied to the tree-obtained version of natural rubber in order to distinguish it from the synthetic version.[1]

text: History[edit]

text: The first use of rubber was by the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica. The earliest archeological evidence of the use of natural latex from the Hevea tree comes the Olmec culture, in which rubber was first used for making balls for the Mesoamerican ballgame. Rubber was later used by the Maya and Aztec cultures - in addition to making balls Aztecs used rubber for other purposes such as making containers and to make textiles waterproof by impregnating them with the latex sap.[6][7]

text: The Pará rubber tree is indigenous to South America. Charles Marie de La Condamine is credited with introducing samples of rubber to the Académie Royale des Sciences of France in 1736.[8] In 1751, he presented a paper by François Fresneau to the Académie (published in 1755) that described many of rubber's properties. This has been referred to as the first scientific paper on rubber.[8] In England, Joseph Priestley, in 1770, observed that a piece of the material was extremely good for rubbing off pencil marks on paper, hence the name "rubber". It slowly made its way around England. In 1764 François Fresnau discovered that turpentine was a rubber solvent. Giovanni Fabbroni is credited with the discovery of naphtha as a rubber solvent in 1779.

text: South America remained the main source of the limited amounts of latex rubber used during much of the 19th century. The trade was heavily protected and exporting seeds from Brazil was a capital offense, although no law prohibited it. Nevertheless, in 1876, Henry Wickham smuggled 70,000 Pará rubber tree seeds from Brazil and delivered them to Kew Gardens, England. Only 2,400 of these germinated. Seedlings were then sent to India, British Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Singapore, and British Malaya. Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia) was later to become the biggest producer of rubber. In the early 1900s, the Congo Free State in Africa was also a significant source of natural rubber latex, mostly gathered by forced labor. Liberia and Nigeria started production.

text: In India , commercial cultivation was introduced by British planters, although the experimental efforts to grow rubber on a commercial scale were initiated as early as 1873 at the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. The first commercial Hevea plantations were established at Thattekadu in Kerala in 1902. In later years the plantation expanded to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. India today is the world's 3rd largest producer and 4th largest consumer.[9]

text: In Singapore and Malaya, commercial production was heavily promoted by Sir Henry Nicholas Ridley, who served as the first Scientific Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens from 1888 to 1911. He distributed rubber seeds to many planters and developed the first technique for tapping trees for latex without causing serious harm to the tree.[10] Because of his fervent promotion of this crop, he is popularly remembered by the nickname "Mad Ridley".[11]

text: Pre-World War II[edit]

text: Charles Goodyear developed vulcanization in 1839, although Mesoamericans used stabilized rubber for balls and other objects as early as 1600 BC.[12][13]

text: Before World War II significant uses included door and window profiles, hoses, belts, gaskets, matting, flooring and dampeners (antivibration mounts) for the automotive industry. The use of rubber in car tires (initially solid rather than pneumatic) in particular consumed a significant amount of rubber. Gloves (medical, household and industrial) and toy balloons were large consumers of rubber, although the type of rubber used is concentrated latex. Significant tonnage of rubber was used as adhesives in many manufacturing industries and products, although the two most noticeable were the paper and the carpet industries. Rubber was commonly used to make rubber bands and pencil erasers.

text: Rubber produced as a fiber, sometimes called 'elastic', had significant value to the textile industry because of its excellent elongation and recovery properties. For these purposes, manufactured rubber fiber was made as either an extruded round fiber or rectangular fibers cut into strips from extruded film. Because of its low dye acceptance, feel and appearance, the rubber fiber was either covered by yarn of another fiber or directly woven with other yarns into the fabric. Rubber yarns were used in foundation garments.

text: While rubber is still used in textile manufacturing, its low tenacity limits its use in lightweight garments because latex lacks resistance to oxidizing agents and is damaged by aging, sunlight, oil and perspiration. The textile industry turned to neoprene (polymer of chloroprene), a type of synthetic rubber, as well as another more commonly used elastomer fiber, spandex (also known as elastane), because of their superiority to rubber in both strength and durability.

text: Properties[edit]

text: Rubber exhibits unique physical and chemical properties. Rubber's stress–strain behavior exhibits the Mullins effect and the Payne effect and is often modeled as hyperelastic. Rubber strain crystallizes.

text: Due to the presence of a double bond in each repeat unit, natural rubber is susceptible to vulcanisation and sensitive to ozone cracking.

text: The two main solvents for rubber are turpentine and naphtha (petroleum). Because rubber does not dissolve easily, the material is finely divided by shredding prior to its immersion.

text: An ammonia solution can be used to prevent the coagulation of raw latex.

text: Rubber begins to melt at approximately 180 °C (356 °F).

text: Natural rubber has a strong, unpleasant odour.

text: Elasticity[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: On a microscopic scale, relaxed rubber is a disorganized cluster of erratically changing wrinkled chains. In stretched rubber, the chains are almost linear. The restoring force is due to the preponderance of wrinkled conformations over more linear ones. For the quantitative treatment see ideal chain, for more examples see entropic force.

text: Cooling below the glass transition temperature permits local conformational changes but a reordering is practically impossible because of the larger energy barrier for the concerted movement of longer chains. "Frozen" rubber's elasticity is low and strain results from small changes of bond lengths and angles: this caused the Challenger disaster, when the American Space Shuttle's flattened o-rings failed to relax to fill a widening gap.[14] The glass transition is fast and reversible: the force resumes on heating.

text: The parallel chains of stretched rubber are susceptible to crystallization. This takes some time because turns of twisted chains have to move out of the way of the growing crystallites. Crystallization has occurred, for example, when, after days, an inflated toy balloon is found withered at a relatively large remaining volume. Where it is touched, it shrinks because the temperature of the hand is enough to melt the crystals.

text: Vulcanization of rubber creates disulfide bonds between chains, which limits the degrees of freedom and results in chains that tighten more quickly for a given strain, thereby increasing the elastic force constant and making the rubber harder and less extensible.

text: Chemical makeup[edit]

text: Latex is the polymer cis-1,4-polyisoprene – with a molecular weight of 100,000 to 1,000,000 daltons. Typically, a small percentage (up to 5% of dry mass) of other materials, such as proteins, fatty acids, resins, and inorganic materials (salts) are found in natural rubber. Polyisoprene can also be created synthetically, producing what is sometimes referred to as "synthetic natural rubber", but the synthetic and natural routes are different.[1] Some natural rubber sources, such as gutta-percha, are composed of trans-1,4-polyisoprene, a structural isomer that has similar properties.

text: Natural rubber is an elastomer and a thermoplastic. Once the rubber is vulcanized, it turns into a thermoset. Most rubber in everyday use is vulcanized to a point where it shares properties of both; i.e., if it is heated and cooled, it is degraded but not destroyed.

text: The final properties of a rubber item depend not just on the polymer, but also on modifiers and fillers, such as carbon black, factice, whiting and others.

text: Biosynthesis[edit]

text: Rubber particles are formed in the cytoplasm of specialized latex-producing cells called laticifers within rubber plants.[15] Rubber particles are surrounded by a single phospholipid membrane with hydrophobic tails pointed inward. The membrane allows biosynthetic proteins to be sequestered at the surface of the growing rubber particle, which allows new monomeric units to be added from outside the biomembrane, but within the lacticifer. The rubber particle is an enzymatically active entity that contains three layers of material, the rubber particle, a biomembrane and free monomeric units. The biomembrane is held tightly to the rubber core due to the high negative charge along the double bonds of the rubber polymer backbone.[16] Free monomeric units and conjugated proteins make up the outer layer. The rubber precursor is isopentenyl pyrophosphate (an allylic compound), which elongates by Mg2+-dependent condensation by the action of rubber transferase. The monomer adds to the pyrophosphate end of the growing polymer.[17] The process displaces the terminal high-energy pyrophosphate. The reaction produces a cis polymer. The initiation step is catalyzed by prenyltransferase, which converts three monomers of isopentenyl pyrophosphate into farnesyl pyrophosphate.[18] The farnesyl pyrophosphate can bind to rubber transferase to elongate a new rubber polymer.

text: The required isopentenyl pyrophosphate is obtained from the mevalonate pathway, which derives from acetyl-CoA in the cytosol. In plants, isoprene pyrophosphate can also be obtained from the 1-deox-D-xyulose-5-phosphate/2-C-methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate pathway within plasmids.[19] The relative ratio of the farnesyl pyrophosphate initiator unit and isoprenyl pyrophosphate elongation monomer determines the rate of new particle synthesis versus elongation of existing particles. Though rubber is known to be produced by only one enzyme, extracts of latex host numerous small molecular weight proteins with unknown function. The proteins possibly serve as cofactors, as the synthetic rate decreases with complete removal.[20]

text: Production[edit]

text: Close to 28 million tons of rubber were produced in 2013, of which approximately 44% was natural. Since the bulk is synthetic, which is derived from petroleum, the price of natural rubber is determined, to a large extent, by the prevailing global price of crude oil.[21][22][23] Asia was the main source of natural rubber, accounting for about 94% of output in 2005. The three largest producers, Thailand, Indonesia (2.4 million tons)[24] and Malaysia, together account for around 72% of all natural rubber production. Natural rubber is not cultivated widely in its native continent of South America due to the existence of South American leaf blight, and other natural predators.

text: Cultivation[edit]

text: Rubber latex is extracted from rubber trees. The economic life period of rubber trees in plantations is around 32 years — up to 7 years of immature phase and about 25 years of productive phase.

text: The soil requirement is well-drained, weathered soil consisting of laterite, lateritic types, sedimentary types, nonlateritic red or alluvial soils.

text: The climatic conditions for optimum growth of rubber trees are:

text:
Rainfall of around 250 centimetres (98 in) evenly distributed without any marked dry season and with at least 100 rainy days per year
Temperature range of about 20 to 34 °C, with a monthly mean of 25 to 28 °C
Atmospheric humidity of around 80%
About 2000 hours sunshine per year at the rate of six hours per day throughout the year
Absence of strong winds

text: Many high-yielding clones have been developed for commercial planting. These clones yield more than 2,000 kg of dry rubber per hectare per year, under ideal conditions.

text: Collection[edit]

text: In places such as Kerala where coconuts are in abundance, the half shell of coconut was used as the latex collection container. Glazed pottery or aluminium or plastic cups became more common in Kerala and other countries. The cups are supported by a wire that encircles the tree. This wire incorporates a spring so it can stretch as the tree grows. The latex is led into the cup by a galvanised "spout" knocked into the bark. Tapping normally takes place early in the morning, when the internal pressure of the tree is highest. A good tapper can tap a tree every 20 seconds on a standard half-spiral system, and a common daily "task" size is between 450 and 650 trees. Trees are usually tapped on alternate or third days, although many variations in timing, length and number of cuts are used. The latex, which contains 30–40% dry rubber, is in the bark, so the tapper must avoid cutting right through to the wood, else the growing cambial layer is damaged and the renewing bark becomes deformed, making later tapping difficult. It is usual to tap a pannel at least twice, sometimes three times, during the tree's life. The economic life of the tree depends on how well the tapping is carried out, as the critical factor is bark consumption. A standard in Malaysia for alternate daily tapping is 25 cm (vertical) bark consumption per year. The latex-containing tubes in the bark ascend in a spiral to the right. For this reason, tapping cuts usually ascend to the left to cut more tubes.

text: The trees drip latex for about four hours, stopping as latex coagulates naturally on the tapping cut, thus blocking the latex tubes in the bark. Tappers usually rest and have a meal after finishing their tapping work, then start collecting the liquid "field latex" at about midday.

text: Field coagula[edit]

text: The four types of field coagula are "cuplump", "treelace", "smallholders’ lump" and "earth scrap". Each has significantly different properties.[25] Some trees continue to drip after the collection leading to a small amount of "cup lump" that is collected at the next tapping. The latex that coagulates on the cut is also collected as "tree lace". Tree lace and cup lump together account for 10–20% of the dry rubber produced. Latex that drips onto the ground, "earth scrap", is also collected periodically for processing of low-grade product.

text: Cup lump[edit]

text: Cup lump is the coagulated material found in the collection cup when the tapper next visits the tree to tap it again. It arises from latex clinging to the walls of the cup after the latex was last poured into the bucket, and from late-dripping latex exuded before the latex-carrying vessels of the tree become blocked. It is of higher purity and of greater value than the other three types.

text: Tree lace[edit]

text: Tree lace is the coagulum strip that the tapper peels off the previous cut before making a new cut. It usually has higher copper and manganese contents than cup lump. Both copper and manganese are pro-oxidants and can damage the physical properties of the dry rubber.

text: Smallholders' lump[edit]

text: Smallholders’ lump is produced by smallholders who collect rubber from trees far from the nearest factory. Many Indonesian smallholders, who farm paddies in remote areas, tap dispersed trees on their way to work in the paddy fields and collect the latex (or the coagulated latex) on their way home. As it is often impossible to preserve the latex sufficiently to get it to a factory that processes latex in time for it to be used to make high quality products, and as the latex would anyway have coagulated by the time it reached the factory, the smallholder will coagulate it by any means available, in any container available. Some smallholders use small containers, buckets etc., but often the latex is coagulated in holes in the ground, which are usually lined with plastic sheeting. Acidic materials and fermented fruit juices are used to coagulate the latex — a form of assisted biological coagulation. Little care is taken to exclude twigs, leaves, and even bark from the lumps that are formed, which may also include tree lace.

text: Earth scrap[edit]

text: Earth scrap is material that gathers around the base of the tree. It arises from latex overflowing from the cut and running down the bark, from rain flooding a collection cup containing latex, and from spillage from tappers’ buckets during collection. It contains soil and other contaminants, and has variable rubber content, depending on the amount of contaminants. Earth scrap is collected by field workers two or three times a year and may be cleaned in a scrap-washer to recover the rubber, or sold off to a contractor who cleans it and recovers the rubber. It is of low quality.

text: Processing[edit]

text: Latex coagulates in the cups if kept for long and must be collected before this happens. The collected latex, "field latex", is transferred into coagulation tanks for the preparation of dry rubber or transferred into air-tight containers with sieving for ammoniation. Ammoniation preserves the latex in a colloidal state for longer periods of time.

text: Latex is generally processed into either latex concentrate for manufacture of dipped goods or coagulated under controlled, clean conditions using formic acid. The coagulated latex can then be processed into the higher-grade, technically specified block rubbers such as SVR 3L or SVR CV or used to produce Ribbed Smoke Sheet grades.

text: Naturally coagulated rubber (cup lump) is used in the manufacture of TSR10 and TSR20 grade rubbers. Processing for these grades is a size reduction and cleaning process to remove contamination and prepare the material for the final stage of drying.[26]

text: The dried material is then baled and palletized for storage and shipment.

text: Vulcanized rubber[edit]

text: Natural rubber is often vulcanized, a process by which the rubber is heated and sulfur, peroxide or bisphenol are added to improve resistance and elasticity and to prevent it from perishing. Before World War II, carbon black was often used as an additive to rubber to improve its strength, especially in vehicle tires.

text: Transportation[edit]

text: Natural rubber latex is shipped from factories in south-west Asia, South America, and West and Center Africa to destinations around the world. As the cost of natural rubber has risen significantly and rubber products are dense, the shipping methods offer the lowest cost per unit weight are preferred. Depending on destination, warehouse availability, and transportation conditions, some methods are preferred by certain buyers. In international trade, latex rubber is mostly shipped in 20-foot ocean containers. Inside the container, smaller containers are used to store the latex.[27]

text: Uses[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (November 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: Uncured rubber is used for cements;[28] for adhesive, insulating, and friction tapes; and for crepe rubber used in insulating blankets and footwear. Vulcanized rubber has many more applications. Resistance to abrasion makes softer kinds of rubber valuable for the treads of vehicle tires and conveyor belts, and makes hard rubber valuable for pump housings and piping used in the handling of abrasive sludge.

text: The flexibility of rubber is appealing in hoses, tires and rollers for devices ranging from domestic clothes wringers to printing presses; its elasticity makes it suitable for various kinds of shock absorbers and for specialized machinery mountings designed to reduce vibration. Its relative gas impermeability makes it useful in the manufacture of articles such as air hoses, balloons, balls and cushions. The resistance of rubber to water and to the action of most fluid chemicals has led to its use in rainwear, diving gear, and chemical and medicinal tubing, and as a lining for storage tanks, processing equipment and railroad tank cars. Because of their electrical resistance, soft rubber goods are used as insulation and for protective gloves, shoes and blankets; hard rubber is used for articles such as telephone housings, parts for radio sets, meters and other electrical instruments. The coefficient of friction of rubber, which is high on dry surfaces and low on wet surfaces, leads to its use for power-transmission belting and for water-lubricated bearings in deep-well pumps. Indian rubber balls or lacrosse balls are made of rubber.

text: Around 25 million tonnes of rubber are produced each year, of which 30 percent is natural.[29] The remainder is synthetic rubber derived from petrochemical sources. The top end of latex production results in latex products such as surgeons' gloves, condoms, balloons and other relatively high-value products. The mid-range which comes from the technically specified natural rubber materials ends up largely in tires but also in conveyor belts, marine products, windshield wipers and miscellaneous goods. Natural rubber offers good elasticity, while synthetic materials tend to offer better resistance to environmental factors such as oils, temperature, chemicals and ultraviolet light. "Cured rubber" is rubber that has been compounded and subjected to the vulcanisation process to create cross-links within the rubber matrix.

text: Allergic reactions[edit]

text: Some people have a serious latex allergy, and exposure to natural latex rubber products such as latex gloves can cause anaphylactic shock. The antigenic proteins found in Hevea latex may be deliberately reduced (though not eliminated)[30] through processing.

text: Latex from non-Hevea sources, such as Guayule, can be used without allergic reaction by persons with an allergy to Hevea latex.[31]

text: Some allergic reactions are not to the latex itself, but from residues of chemicals used to accelerate the cross-linking process. Although this may be confused with an allergy to latex, it is distinct from it, typically taking the form of Type IV hypersensitivity in the presence of traces of specific processing chemicals.[30][32]

text: Microbial degradation[edit]

text: Natural rubber is susceptible to degradation by a wide range of bacteria[which?].[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. The bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor, Pseudomonas citronellolis, and Nocardia spp. are capable of degrading vulcanized natural rubber.[41]


document_title: Water distribution on Earth

question_text: of the total water on earth what percent is freshwater

text: Water distribution on Earth

text: Distribution of saline and fresh water[edit]

text: The total volume of water on Earth is estimated at 1.386 billion km³ (333 million cubic miles), with 97.5% being salt water and 2.5% being fresh water. Of the fresh water, only 0.3% is in liquid form on the surface.[7][8][9] In addition, the lower mantle of inner earth may hold as much as 5 times more water than all surface water combined (all oceans, all lakes, all rivers).[10]

text:
Source of water
Volume of water
in km³ (cu mi)
% total
water
% salt
water
% fresh
water
% liquid surface
fresh water

Oceans
7018133800000000000♠1,338,000,000 (321,000,000)
96.5
99.0

Pacific Ocean
7017669880000000000♠669,880,000 (160,710,000)
48.3
49.6

Atlantic Ocean
7017310410900000000♠310,410,900 (74,471,500)
22.4
23.0

Indian Ocean
7017264000000000000♠264,000,000 (63,000,000)
19.0
19.5

Southern Ocean
7016718000000000000♠71,800,000 (17,200,000)
5.18
5.31

Arctic Ocean
7016187500000000000♠18,750,000 (4,500,000)
1.35
1.39

Ice and snow
7016243640000000000♠24,364,000 (5,845,000)
1.76

69.6

Glaciers
7016240640000000000♠24,064,000 (5,773,000)
1.74

68.7

Antarctic ice sheet
7016216000000000000♠21,600,000 (5,200,000)
1.56

61.7

Greenland ice sheet
7015234000000000000♠2,340,000 (560,000)
0.17

6.68

Arctic islands
7013835000000000000♠83,500 (20,000)
0.006

0.24

Mountain ranges
7013406000000000000♠40,600 (9,700)
0.003

0.12

Ground ice and permafrost
7014300000000000000♠300,000 (72,000)
0.022

0.86

Groundwater
7016234000000000000♠23,400,000 (5,600,000)
1.69

Saline groundwater
7016128700000000000♠12,870,000 (3,090,000)
0.93
0.95

Fresh groundwater
7016105300000000000♠10,530,000 (2,530,000)
0.76

30.1

Soil moisture
7013165000000000000♠16,500 (4,000)
0.0012

0.047

Lakes
7014176400000000000♠176,400 (42,300)
0.013

Saline lakes
7013854000000000000♠85,400 (20,500)
0.0062
0.0063

Caspian Sea
7013782000000000000♠78,200 (18,800)
0.0056
0.0058

Other saline lakes
7012720000000000000♠7,200 (1,700)
0.00052
0.00053

Fresh water lakes
7013910000000000000♠91,000 (22,000)
0.0066

0.26
87.0

African Great Lakes
7013300700000000000♠30,070 (7,210)
0.0022

0.086
28.8

Lake Baikal
7013236150000000000♠23,615 (5,666)
0.0017

0.067
22.6

North American Great Lakes
7013221150000000000♠22,115 (5,306)
0.0016

0.063
21.1

Other fresh water lakes
7013152000000000000♠15,200 (3,600)
0.0011

0.043
14.5

Atmosphere
7013129000000000000♠12,900 (3,100)
0.00093

0.037

Swamps
7013114700000000000♠11,470 (2,750)
0.00083

0.033
11.0

Rivers
7012212000000000000♠2,120 (510)
0.00015

0.0061
2.03

Biological water
7012112000000000000♠1,120 (270)
0.000081

0.0032

text: Distribution of river water[edit]

text: The total volume of water in rivers is estimated at 2,120 km³ (510 cubic miles), or 2% of the surface fresh water on Earth.[7] Rivers and basins are often compared not according to their static volume, but to their flow of water, or surface runoff. The distribution of river runoff across the Earth's surface is very uneven.

text:
Continent or region
River runoff (km³/year)
Percent of world total

North America
7,800
17.9

South America
12,000
27.6

Europe
2,900
6.7

Middle East and North Africa
140
0.3

Sub-Saharan Africa
4,000
9.2

Asia (excluding Middle East)
13,300
30.6

Australia
440
1.0

Oceania
6,500
14.9

text: There can be huge variations within these regions. For example, as much as a quarter of Australia's limited renewable fresh water supply is found in almost uninhabited Cape York Peninsula.[11] Also, even in well-watered continents, there are areas that are extremely short of water, such as Texas in North America, whose renewable water supply totals only 26 km³/year in an area of 695,622 km², or South Africa, with only 44 km³/year in 1,221,037 km².[11] The areas of greatest concentration of renewable water are:

text:
The Amazon and Orinoco Basins (a total of 6,500 km³/year or 15 percent of global runoff)
East Asia

Yangtze Basin - 1,000 km³/year

South and Southeast Asia, with a total of 8,000 km³/year or 18 percent of global runoff

Brahmaputra Basin - 900 km³/year
Irrawaddy Basin - 500 km³/year
Mekong Basin - 450 km³/year

Canada, with over 10 percent of world's river water and large numbers in lakes

Mackenzie River - over 250 km³/year
Yukon River - over 150 km³/year

Siberia

Yenisey - over 5% of world's fresh water in basin - second largest after the Amazon
Ob River - over 500 km³/year
Lena River - over 450 km³/year

New Guinea

Fly and Sepik Rivers - total over 300 km³/year in only about 150,000 km² of basin area.

text: Area, volume, and depth of the world ocean[edit]

text:
Body of Water
Area (106 km2)
Volume (106 km3)
Mean Depth (m)

Atlantic Ocean
82.4
323.6
3,926

Pacific Ocean
165.2
707.6
4,282

Indian Ocean
73.4
291.0
3,963

All oceans and seas
361
1,370
3,796

text: Variability of water availability[edit]

text: Variability of water availability is important both for the functioning of aquatic species and also for the availability of water for human use: water that is only available in a few wet years must not be considered renewable. Because most global runoff comes from areas of very low climatic variability, the total global runoff is generally of low variability.

text: Indeed, even in most arid zones, there tends to be few problems with variability of runoff because most usable sources of water come from high mountain regions which provide highly reliable glacier melt as the chief source of water, which also comes in the summer peak period of high demand for water. This historically aided the development of many of the great civilizations of ancient history, and even today allows for agriculture in such productive areas as the San Joaquin Valley.

text: However, in Australia and Southern Africa, the story is different. Here, runoff variability is much higher than in other continental regions of the world with similar climates.[12] Typically temperate (Köppen climate classification C) and arid (Köppen climate classification B) climate rivers in Australia and Southern Africa have as much as three times the coefficient of variation of runoff of those in other continental regions.[13] The reason for this is that, whereas all other continents have had their soils largely shaped by Quaternary glaciation and mountain building, soils of Australia and Southern Africa have been largely unaltered since at least the early Cretaceous and generally since the previous ice age in the Carboniferous. Consequently, available nutrient levels in Australian and Southern African soils tend to be orders of magnitude lower than those of similar climates in other continents, and native flora compensate for this through much higher rooting densities (e.g. proteoid roots) to absorb minimal phosphorus and other nutrients. Because these roots absorb so much water, runoff in typical Australian and Southern African rivers does not occur until about 300 mm (12 inches) or more of rainfall has occurred. In other continents, runoff will occur after quite light rainfall due to the low rooting densities.

text:
Climate type (Köppen[14])
Mean annual rainfall
Typical runoff ratio
for Australia and Southern Africa
Typical runoff ratio
for rest of the world

BWh
250 mm (10 inches)
1 percent (2.5 mm)
10 percent (25 mm)

BSh (on Mediterranean fringe)
350 mm (14 inches)
3 percent (12 mm)
20 percent (80 mm)

Csa
500 mm (20 inches)
5 percent (25 mm)
35 percent (175 mm)

Caf
900 mm (36 inches)
15 percent (150 mm)
45 percent (400 mm)

Cb
1100 mm (43 inches)
25 percent (275 mm)
70 percent (770 mm)

text: The consequence of this is that many rivers in Australia and Southern Africa (as compared to extremely few in other continents) are theoretically impossible to regulate because rates of evaporation from dams mean a storage sufficiently large to theoretically regulate the river to a given level would actually allow very little draft to be used. Examples of such rivers include those in the Lake Eyre Basin. Even for other Australian rivers, a storage three times as large is needed to provide a third the supply of a comparable climate in southeastern North America or southern China. It also affects aquatic life, favouring strongly those species able to reproduce rapidly after high floods so that some will survive the next drought.

text: Tropical (Köppen climate classification A) climate rivers in Australia and Southern Africa do not, in contrast, have markedly lower runoff ratios than those of similar climates in other regions of the world. Although soils in tropical Australia and southern Africa are even poorer than those of the arid and temperate parts of these continents, vegetation can use organic phosphorus or phosphate dissolved in rainwater as a source of the nutrient. In cooler and drier climates these two related sources tend to be virtually useless, which is why such specialised means are needed to extract the most minimal phosphorus.

text: There are other isolated areas of high runoff variability, though these are basically due to erratic rainfall rather than different hydrology. These include:[13]

text:
Southwest Asia
The Brazilian Nordeste
The Great Plains of the United States

text: Water in Earth's mantle[edit]

text: It is estimated an additional 1.5 to eleven times the amount of water in the oceans is contained in the Earth's interior,[15] and some scientists have hypothesized that the water in the mantle is part of a "whole-Earth water cycle".[16] The water in the mantle is dissolved in various minerals near the transition zone between Earth's upper and lower mantle. At temperatures of 1,100 °C (2,010 °F) and extreme pressures found deep underground, water breaks down into hydroxyls and oxygen.[17] The existence of water was experimentally predicted in 2002,[18] and direct evidence of the water was found in 2014 based on tests on a sample of ringwoodite.[19] Further evidence for large quantities of water in the mantle was found in observations of melting in the transition zone from the USArray project.[20] Liquid water is not present within the ringwoodite, rather the components of water (hydrogen and oxygen) are held within as hydroxide ions.[19]


document_title: Waves and shallow water

question_text: when waves approach the shore and enter shallow water

text: Waves and shallow water

text: When waves travel into areas of shallow water, they begin to be affected by the ocean bottom. The free orbital motion of the water is disrupted, and water particles in orbital motion no longer return to their original position. As the water becomes shallower, the swell becomes higher and steeper, ultimately assuming the familiar sharp-crested wave shape. After the wave breaks, it becomes a wave of translation and erosion of the ocean bottom intensifies.


document_title: Illuminated manuscript

question_text: during the middle ages who was most likely to own a manuscript or book

text: Illuminated manuscript

text: History[edit]

text: Art historians classify illuminated manuscripts into their historic periods and types, including (but not limited to) Late Antique, Insular, Carolingian manuscripts, Ottonian manuscripts, Romanesque manuscripts, Gothic manuscripts, and Renaissance manuscripts. There are a few examples from later periods. The type of book that was most often heavily and richly illuminated, sometimes known as a "display book", varied between periods. In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells. The Romanesque period saw the creation of many huge illuminated complete Bibles – one in Sweden requires three librarians to lift it. Many Psalters were also heavily illuminated in both this and the Gothic period. Single cards or posters of vellum, leather or paper were in wider circulation with short stories or legends on them about the lives of saints, chivalry knights or other mythological figures, even criminal, social or miraculous occurrences; popular events much freely used by story tellers and itinerant actors to support their plays. Finally, the Book of Hours, very commonly the personal devotional book of a wealthy layperson, was often richly illuminated in the Gothic period. Other books, both liturgical and not, continued to be illuminated at all periods. The Byzantine world also continued to produce manuscripts in its own style, versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas. See Medieval art for other regions, periods and types. Reusing parchments by scraping the surface and reusing them was a common practice; the traces often left behind of the original text are known as palimpsests.

text: The Muslim World and in particular the Iberian Peninsula, with their traditions of literacy uninterrupted by the Middle Ages, were instrumental in delivering ancient classic works to the growing intellectual circles and universities of Western Europe all through the 12th century, as books were produced there in large numbers and on paper for the first time in Europe, and with them full treatises on the sciences, especially astrology and medicine where illumination was required to have profuse and accurate representations with the text.

text: The Gothic period, which generally saw an increase in the production of these beautiful artifacts, also saw more secular works such as chronicles and works of literature illuminated. Wealthy people began to build up personal libraries; Philip the Bold probably had the largest personal library of his time in the mid-15th century, is estimated to have had about 600 illuminated manuscripts, whilst a number of his friends and relations had several dozen.

text: Up to the 12th century, most manuscripts were produced in monasteries in order to add to the library or after receiving a commission from a wealthy patron. Larger monasteries often contained separate areas for the monks who specialized in the production of manuscripts called a scriptorium. Within the walls of a scriptorium were individualized areas where a monk could sit and work on a manuscript without being disturbed by his fellow brethren. If no scriptorium was available, then “separate little rooms were assigned to book copying; they were situated in such a way that each scribe had to himself a window open to the cloister walk.”[2] The separation of these monks from the rest of the cloister indicates just how revered these monks were within their society.

text: By the 14th century, the cloisters of monks writing in the scriptorium had almost fully given way to commercial urban scriptoria, especially in Paris, Rome and the Netherlands.[3] While the process of creating an illuminated manuscript did not change, the move from monasteries to commercial settings was a radical step. Demand for manuscripts grew to an extent that the Monastic libraries were unable to meet with the demand, and began employing secular scribes and illuminators.[4] These individuals often lived close to the monastery and, in certain instances, dressed as monks whenever they entered the monastery, but were allowed to leave at the end of the day. In reality, illuminators were often well known and acclaimed and many of their identities have survived.[5]

text: First, the manuscript was “sent to the rubricator, who added (in red or other colors) the titles, headlines, the initials of chapters and sections, the notes and so on; and then – if the book was to be illustrated – it was sent to the illuminator.”[2] In the case of manuscripts that were sold commercially, the writing would “undoubtedly have been discussed initially between the patron and the scribe (or the scribe’s agent,) but by the time that the written gathering were sent off to the illuminator there was no longer any scope for innovation.”[6]

text: Techniques[edit]

text: Illumination was a complex and frequently costly process. It was usually reserved for special books: an altar Bible, for example. Wealthy people often had richly illuminated "books of hours" made, which set down prayers appropriate for various times in the liturgical day.

text: In the early Middle Ages, most books were produced in monasteries, whether for their own use, for presentation, or for a commission. However, commercial scriptoria grew up in large cities, especially Paris, and in Italy and the Netherlands, and by the late 14th century there was a significant industry producing manuscripts, including agents who would take long-distance commissions, with details of the heraldry of the buyer and the saints of personal interest to him (for the calendar of a Book of hours). By the end of the period, many of the painters were women, perhaps especially in Paris.

text: Text[edit]

text: In the making of an illuminated manuscript, the text was usually written first. Sheets of parchment or vellum, animal hides specially prepared for writing, were cut down to the appropriate size. After the general layout of the page was planned (e.g., initial capital, borders), the page was lightly ruled with a pointed stick, and the scribe went to work with ink-pot and either sharpened quill feather or reed pen.

text: The script depended on local customs and tastes. The sturdy Roman letters of the early Middle Ages gradually gave way to scripts such as Uncial and half-Uncial, especially in the British Isles, where distinctive scripts such as insular majuscule and insular minuscule developed. Stocky, richly textured blackletter was first seen around the 13th century and was particularly popular in the later Middle Ages. Palaeography is the study of historical handwritten scripts, and codicology the related study of other physical aspects of manuscript codexes.

text: One of the most important features in the production of an illuminated manuscript is the amount of time that was spent in the pre-production stages outlining the work. Prior to the days of such careful planning, “A typical black-letter page of these Gothic years would show a page in which the lettering was cramped and crowded into a format dominated by huge ornamented capitals that descended from uncial forms or by illustrations.”[7] To prevent such poorly made manuscripts and illuminations from occurring a script was typically supplied first, “and blank spaces were left for the decoration. This pre-supposes very careful planning by the scribe even before he put pen to parchment.” If the scribe and the illuminator were separate labors the planning period allowed for adequate space to be given to each individual.

text: The process of illumination[edit]

text: The following steps outline the detailed labor involved to create the illuminations of one page of a manuscript:

text:
Silverpoint drawing of the design were executed
Burnished gold dots applied
The application of modulating colors
Continuation of the previous three steps in addition to the outlining of marginal figures
The penning of a rinceaux appearing in the border of a page
The final step, the marginal figures are painted[8]

tag: ol

text: The illumination and decoration was normally planned at the inception of the work, and space reserved for it. However, the text was usually written before illumination began. In the Early Medieval period the text and illumination were often done by the same people, normally monks, but by the High Middle Ages the roles were typically separated, except for routine initials and flourishes, and by at least the 14th century there were secular workshops producing manuscripts, and by the beginning of the 15th century these were producing most of the best work, and were commissioned even by monasteries. When the text was complete, the illustrator set to work. Complex designs were planned out beforehand, probably on wax tablets, the sketch pad of the era. The design was then traced or drawn onto the vellum (possibly with the aid of pinpricks or other markings, as in the case of the Lindisfarne Gospels). Many incomplete manuscripts survive from most periods, giving us a good idea of working methods.

text: At all times, most manuscripts did not have images in them. In the early Middle Ages, manuscripts tend to either be display books with very full illumination, or manuscripts for study with at most a few decorated initials and flourishes. By the Romanesque period many more manuscripts had decorated or historiated initials, and manuscripts essentially for study often contained some images, often not in color. This trend intensified in the Gothic period, when most manuscripts had at least decorative flourishes in places, and a much larger proportion had images of some sort. Display books of the Gothic period in particular had very elaborate decorated borders of foliate patterns, often with small drolleries. A Gothic page might contain several areas and types of decoration: a miniature in a frame, a historiated initial beginning a passage of text, and a border with drolleries. Often different artists worked on the different parts of the decoration.

text: Use of color in illuminated manuscripts[edit]

text: While the use of gold is by far one of the most captivating features of illuminated manuscripts, the bold use of varying colors provided multiple layers of dimension to the illumination. From a religious perspective, "the diverse colors wherewith the book is illustrated, not unworthily represent the multiple grace of heavenly wisdom."[2] While religious authors view themselves as instilling a part of God's vast glory on the work, many illustrations can be linked to "the history of the texts that were required to be illustrated and the needs and tastes of the readers of those manuscripts."[9] Color brought the images on the page to life and captivated the readers. Without color the impact of the image would have been completely lost.

text: Paints[edit]

text: The medieval artist's palette was broad; a partial list of pigments is given below. In addition, unlikely-sounding substances such as urine and earwax were used to prepare pigments.[10]

text:
Color
Source(s)

Red
Insect-based colors, including:

Carmine, also known as cochineal, where carminic acid from the Dactylopius coccus insect is mixed with an aluminum salt to produce the dye;
Crimson, also known as kermes, extracted from the insect Kermes vermilio; and
Lac, a scarlet resinous secretion of a number of species of insects.

Chemical- and mineral-based colors, including:

Red lead, chemically lead tetroxide, Pb3O4, found in nature as the mineral minium, or made by heating white lead;
Vermilion, chemically mercury sulfide, HgS, and found in nature as the mineral cinnabar;
Rust, chemically hydrated ferric oxide, Fe2O3·n H2O, or iron oxide-rich earth compounds.

Yellow
Plant-based colors, such as:

Weld, processed from the Reseda luteola plant;
Turmeric, from the Curcuma longa plant; and
Saffron, rarely due to cost, from the Crocus sativus.

Mineral-based colors, including:

Ochre, an earth pigment that occurs as the mineral limonite; and
Orpiment, chemically arsenic trisulfide, As2S3.

Green

Verdigris, chemically cupric acetate, Cu(OAc)2·(H2O)2, made historically by boiling copper plates in vinegar;
Malachite, a mineral found in nature, chemically basic copper carbonate, Cu2CO3·(OH)2; and
China green, a plant-based pigment extracted from buckthorn (Rhamnus tinctoria, R. utilis) berries.

Blue
Plant-based substances such as:

Woad, produced from the leaves of the plant Isatis tinctoria;
Indigo, derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria; and
Turnsole, also known as folium, a dyestuff prepared from the plant Crozophora tinctoria.

Chemical- and mineral-based colors, including:

Ultramarine, made from the minerals lapis lazuli or azurite; and
Smalt, now known as cobalt blue.

White

White lead, chemically basic lead carbonate, 2PbCO3·Pb(OH)2, and historically made by corroding sheets of lead with vinegar, and covering that with decaying matter, such as dung, to provide the necessary carbon dioxide for the chemical reaction; and
Chalk, chemically calcium carbonate, CaCO3.

Black

Carbon, from sources such as lampblack, charcoal, or burnt bones or ivory;
Sepia, from the ink produced by the cuttlefish, usually for an escape mechanism; and
Iron gall ink, where in medieval times iron nails would be boiled in vinegar; the resulting compound would then be mixed with an extract of oak apple (oak galls).

Gold

Gold leaf, gold hammered extremely thin, or gold powder, bound in gum arabic or egg; the latter is called shell gold.

Silver

Silver, either silver leaf or powdered, as with gold; and
Tin leaf, also as with gold.

text: Gilding[edit]

text: An illuminated manuscript is not considered illuminated unless one or many illuminations contained gold foil or was brushed with gold specks, a process known as burnishing. The inclusion of gold on an illumination alludes to many different possibilities for the text. If the text is of religious nature the gold is a sign of exalting the text. In the early centuries of Christianity, “Gospel manuscripts were sometimes written entirely in gold.”[11] Aside from adding flashy decoration to the text, scribes during the time considered themselves to be praising God with their use of gold. In one particular instance, “The life of Christ executed on gold backgrounds with much greater richness in the midst of innumerable scenes of the chase, tourneys, games and grotesque subjects.”[12] Furthermore, gold was used if a patron who had commissioned a book to be written wished to display the vastness of his riches. Eventually, the addition of gold to manuscripts became so frequent, “that its value as a barometer of status with the manuscript was degraded.”[13] During this time period the price of gold had become so cheap that its inclusion in an illuminated manuscript accounted for only a tenth of the cost of production.[14] By adding richness and depth to the manuscript, the use of gold in illuminations created pieces of art that are still valued today.

text: The application of gold leaf or dust to an illumination is a very detailed process that only the most skilled illuminators can undertake and successfully achieve. The first detail an illuminator considered when dealing with gold was whether to use gold leaf or specks of gold that could be applied with a brush. When working with gold leaf the pieces would be hammered and thinned until they were “thinner than the thinnest paper.”[14] The use of this type of leaf allowed for numerous areas of the text to be outlined in gold. There were several ways of applying gold to an illumination one of the most popular included mixing the gold with stag’s glue and then “pour it into water and dissolve it with your finger.”[15] Once the gold was soft and malleable in the water it was ready to be applied to the page. Illuminators had to be very careful when applying gold leaf to the manuscript for fear ruining the color already placed in the illumination. Gold leaf is able to “adhere to any pigment which had already been laid, ruining the design, and secondly the action of burnishing it is vigorous and runs the risk of smudging any painting already around it.” The careless implementing of gold could ruin the labor already placed in the illumination and thus cause the entire folio to be discarded.

text: Patrons of illumination[edit]

text: Monasteries produced manuscripts for their own use; heavily illuminated ones tended to be reserved for liturgical use in the early period, while the monastery library held plainer texts. In the early period manuscripts were often commissioned by rulers for their own personal use or as diplomatic gifts, and many old manuscripts continued to be given in this way, even into the Early Modern period. Especially after the book of hours became popular, wealthy individuals commissioned works as a sign of status within the community, sometimes including donor portraits or heraldry: "In a scene from the New Testament, Christ would be shown larger than an apostle, who would be bigger than a mere bystander in the picture, while the humble donor of the painting or the artist himself might appear as a tiny figure in the corner."[9][16][17] The calendar was also personalized, recording the feast days of local or family saints. By the end of the Middle Ages many manuscripts were produced for distribution through a network of agents, and blank spaces might be reserved for the appropriate heraldry to be added locally by the buyer.

text: Displaying the amazing detail and richness of a text, the addition of illumination was never an afterthought. The inclusion of illumination is twofold, it added value to the work, but more importantly it provides pictures for the illiterate members of society to "make the reading seem more vivid and perhaps more credible.”[18]

text: Gallery[edit]

text:
The illuminated letter P in the Malmesbury Bible. The script is blackletter, also known as Gothic script.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, in a medieval illuminated manuscript.

A monk-cellarer tasting wine from a barrel while filling a jug. From Li Livres dou Santé by Aldobrandino of Siena (France, late 13th century).

The Book of Dimma, an 8th-century Irish pocket Gospel Book.

Georgian Adysh Gospels, 897

Jewish Illuminated manuscript of the Haggadah for Passover (14th century).

The Pentecost, from an illuminated Catholic liturgical manuscript, c.1310-1320.

text:
The marriage of Girart to Bertha from the Roman de Girart de Roussillon, c. 1450

An illuminated capital letter P in a Bible of 1407, Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England

Armenian manuscript of 1053. Work of Johannes.

15th century Flemish illumination depicting Alexander the Great’s third victory over Darius

Founders' and benefactors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey, early 16th century

The Rochefoucauld Grail, about 1315

Battle of Ménfő, in the Hungarian Chronicon Pictum of 1360

Ethiopian, Illuminated Manuscript, 18th century, Princeton University Art Museum