This Study Guide ranges from the Italian art primer gesso and its role underneath Renaissance masterpieces to Taipei’s explosive mid‑20th‑century growth and record‑setting Taipei 101, once the world’s tallest skyscraper. Gesso (Italian for gypsum/chalk) underlies many panel paintings and gilded works, while Taipei’s famous night markets and skyline reflect layers of Qing, Japanese, and ROC history. Blarney Castle’s legends explain how “blarney” came to mean flattering talk, Madonna’s 1987 film Who’s That Girl caps her run of 1980s movies, TMNT’s rat sensei Splinter hides a Renaissance nickname, and pitcher Randy Moffitt connects baseball to Billie Jean King’s trailblazing social‑justice career.

All facts and examples below are drawn from art-historical, reference, and news sources cited in each section.

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Study Notes

Question 1: Gesso and art primers

Q1. ART - Liquitex, Golden, Pebeo, and Winsor & Newton are all art supply companies that produce popular lines of what primer used to prepare painting surfaces, whose name comes from an Italian word for “chalk” or “plaster”?

Gesso is a white primer made from a binder plus chalk or gypsum that creates a smooth, absorbent ground on panels, canvas, or other supports; the term comes from the Italian word gesso, meaning gypsum, chalk, or plaster. Modern “acrylic gesso” is a flexible acrylic dispersion ground, popularized in the mid‑20th century and sold by brands such as Liquitex, Golden, Pebeo, and Winsor & Newton for priming surfaces before painting.

In traditional panel painting, gesso was made by mixing animal‑skin glue with gypsum or chalk, then applying multiple coats that were scraped and sanded to an ivory‑smooth white surface ideal for tempera, oil, and gilding. Modern acrylic gesso uses an acrylic polymer binder with calcium carbonate and white pigments to provide tooth and absorbency while remaining flexible enough for canvas.

Connections

  • Hidden under Old Masters: Renaissance panel paintings and early oil works often sit on a gleaming gesso ground; National Gallery and conservation glossaries emphasize how gypsum gesso layers underlie the brilliance of tempera and gilded panels.
  • From rabbit glue to acrylic science: Conservation sources distinguish brittle, glue‑based “true” gesso from modern acrylic “gesso” grounds with synthetic binders, showing how 20th‑century materials science changed centuries‑old preparation methods.
  • Inventing acrylic gesso: Liquitex’s history notes that the company created the first water‑based acrylic gesso in the 1950s, helping shift artists away from slower, toxic oil‑priming systems toward quick, one‑step priming.
  • Everyday art gear: Product lines from Liquitex, Golden, Pebeo, and Winsor & Newton show how “gesso” now covers a family of primers (white, black, clear, colored) marketed for everything from fine art canvases to craft and spray‑on applications.

Sources

Question 2: Taipei’s growth, night markets, and Taipei 101

Q2. GEOGRAPHY - Identify the city that was occupied by the Japanese from 1895 to 1945, became a government seat in 1949, grew rapidly from about 500,000 to over two million residents between 1950 and the mid-1970s, and is famous for its night markets and as a one-time home to the world’s tallest skyscraper?

Taipei is the capital and seat of government of Taiwan (Republic of China), located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan and completely surrounded by New Taipei City. Under Japanese rule (1895–1945) it served as the colonial capital, and after the Nationalist government retreated from mainland China, Taipei was declared the provisional capital of the ROC in December 1949.

Population estimates show Taipei growing from about 551,000 residents in 1950 to 880,000 in 1960, 1.4 million in 1970, and roughly 2.25 million by 1980; both statistical compilations and Britannica note that the city’s population passed one million in the early 1960s and exceeded two million by the mid‑1970s. Taipei is renowned for dense, food‑focused night markets such as Shilin and Raohe Street, and for Taipei 101, a 508‑m skyscraper that held the title of world’s tallest building from 2004 until surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in 2010.

Night markets (yèshì) are large evening street markets where vendors cluster along lanes selling snacks (xiaochi), drinks, and inexpensive goods; in Taipei they evolved from late‑Qing and Japanese‑era street vending into major cultural and tourist attractions. A “special municipality” in Taiwan, like Taipei, is a top‑level administrative division (similar to a directly governed city) that reports directly to the central government rather than to a province.

Connections

  • Urbanization after civil war: After the ROC government moved to Taipei in 1949, the city expanded rapidly, became a special municipality in 1967, and annexed surrounding towns, quadrupling its area and driving the population boom referenced in the question.
  • Colonial architecture and food culture: Japanese rule left buildings like the Presidential Office and National Taiwan Museum and helped seed “cooling‑gathering” street events that fed into modern night market culture.
  • Engineering showcase: Taipei 101 not only set height records but also became a textbook example of seismic and wind engineering, featuring a giant tuned mass damper and being recognized as one of the tallest green buildings after earning LEED Platinum certification.
  • Pop‑culture backdrop: Travel and food media frequently highlight Taipei’s night markets as emblematic of Taiwanese street culture, using them as set pieces to introduce Taiwanese history, migration, and politics to global audiences.

Sources

Question 3: Blarney Castle and the “gift of gab”

Q3. WORLD HIST - Legend dating from the 16th century states that the lord of what Irish castle, through extreme loquacity, avoided acknowledging to a deputy of England’s Queen Elizabeth that the castle’s lands were held as a royal grant from the Queen, and not as a chieftainship?

Blarney Castle, a 15th‑century stronghold near Cork built by the MacCarthy dynasty, is home to the famous Blarney Stone, said to confer eloquence on those who kiss it. The word blarney came to mean flattering or plausibly misleading talk, widely attributed to Queen Elizabeth I’s frustration with a MacCarthy lord of Blarney who, by “fair words and soft speech,” endlessly delayed or sidestepped fully acknowledging English crown demands over his lands.

Legends collected in 19th‑ and 20th‑century accounts describe Cormac Teige MacCarthy in 1602, who agreed by armistice to surrender Blarney Castle to Lord President George Carew but repeatedly postponed the handover with elaborate letters and negotiations; contemporary retellings say Elizabeth’s ministers mocked Carew for being taken in by “Blarney talk.” Over time this story merged with older traditions about a magical stone in the castle that granted persuasive speech, producing today’s tourist ritual of kissing the Blarney Stone to gain the “gift of the gab.”

In this context, “loquacity” simply means excessive talkativeness or fluency in speech. A “chieftainship” refers to hereditary Gaelic leadership over a clan and its lands, contrasting with English legal notions of holding property by royal grant from the monarch.

Connections

  • Language and etymology: Etymological dictionaries trace blarney as English slang for highly complimentary, plausibly deceptive talk, explicitly linking it to the Blarney Stone legend and Elizabeth I’s supposed exclamation that MacCarthy’s promises were “all Blarney.”
  • Tourist myth‑making: The official Blarney Castle site presents multiple competing origin stories for the Stone—Jacob’s pillow, a piece of the Stone of Scone, or a gift from Robert the Bruce—illustrating how heritage sites weave folklore and history into compelling visitor narratives.
  • Political rhetoric: Newspaper features and travel essays use Blarney as shorthand for Irish oratorical skill and political spin, explicitly retelling the MacCarthy–Elizabeth story to explain contemporary “gift of gab” stereotypes.
  • Music and pop culture: Rock band Ween titled a song “The Blarney Stone,” and St. Patrick’s Day teaching materials often explain blarney as “the ability to influence and coax with fair words and soft speech,” showing how the legend filters into classroom culture and modern music alike.

Sources

Question 4: Madonna’s 1987 film Who’s That Girl

Q4. FILM - In the 1980s, Madonna appeared in five wide-release feature films, including Vision Quest, Desperately Seeking Susan, Shanghai Surprise, and Bloodhounds of Broadway. What 1987 film, for which she also recorded the title track, is the fifth?

Who’s That Girl is a 1987 screwball‑style comedy directed by James Foley, starring Madonna as street‑smart parolee Nikki Finn alongside Griffin Dunne. During the decade she appeared in five wide‑release features: a cameo as a club singer in the wrestling drama Vision Quest (1985), lead role in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), starring opposite Sean Penn in Shanghai Surprise (1986), top billing in Who’s That Girl (1987), and an ensemble role in Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989).

Madonna also recorded the film’s title song “Who’s That Girl” for the soundtrack; the single became her sixth number‑one on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first artist to rack up six US number‑ones in the 1980s and the first female solo act with six chart‑toppers at that time. Despite the soundtrack’s success, critics and box‑office returns were poor, and filmographies often group Shanghai Surprise, Who’s That Girl, and Bloodhounds of Broadway as commercial and critical misfires in an otherwise dominant pop career.

Connections

  • From downtown New York to cartoon caper: Madonna’s earlier hit Desperately Seeking Susan captured the early‑’80s Bohemian/new‑wave scene in New York, helping cement her image as a downtown style icon; Who’s That Girl tried to extend that persona into a broader screwball crime caper, with less critical success.
  • Song vs. film reception: The contrast between the flop movie and a chart‑topping title track is a textbook example of soundtrack singles outshining their parent films, a pattern noted in Madonna’s filmography where her music career remained robust even when her acting choices faltered.
  • ’80s multimedia branding: The Who’s That Girl film and soundtrack tied into Madonna’s 1987 Who’s That Girl World Tour, exemplifying how major pop stars used coordinated records, movies, and tours to saturate media in the MTV era.

Sources

Question 5: Lo Scheggia and Master Splinter

Q5. TELEVISION - What is the English translation of the nickname of Renaissance artist Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi, which was used as the name of the mutant rat who was the master of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo (a.k.a. the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)?

Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi (1406–1486), a Florentine painter and younger brother of the renowned artist Masaccio, was nicknamed Lo Scheggia, which translates into English as “the Splinter.” In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles media, Splinter is the mutant rat who serves as the wise adoptive father and ninjutsu master of the four turtles—Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo—hence the show borrowing this evocative English nickname.

Italian dictionaries gloss scheggia as “splinter” or “sliver,” especially of wood or glass, confirming the literal force of Lo Scheggia’s nickname. Renaissance art writers suggest the epithet may have referred either to the painter’s slight build or to his frequent work on wooden objects such as cassoni and birth trays. In the TMNT canon, Splinter is portrayed as a mutant brown rat—either Hamato Yoshi’s pet or Yoshi himself, depending on the version—who names the turtles after Renaissance artists and trains them in ninja arts in the sewers of New York City.

Connections

  • High art in Saturday‑morning cartoons: TMNT’s core joke is that four sewer‑dwelling mutant turtles bear the names of Renaissance masters, while their rat mentor shares an English rendering of a Renaissance painter’s nickname—an unusually erudite layer for an ’80s toy‑driven cartoon.
  • Nicknames and craft: Biographical notes from the Getty and other sources explain that Lo Scheggia’s nickname likely alluded to his association with wood and small portable objects, echoing how “splinter” in English evokes woodwork and fragments.
  • Fusion of East and West: Splinter’s character blends Japanese martial traditions (ninjutsu, Hamato Yoshi backstory) with Italian Renaissance references (his students’ names and his own punning name), mirroring how TMNT as a franchise riffs on American, Japanese, and European pop culture at once.

Sources

Question 6: Randy Moffitt and Billie Jean King

Q6. GAMES/SPORT - Baseball pitcher Randy Moffitt, who had a successful MLB career in the 1970s and early ’80s for the Giants, Astros, and Blue Jays, was nevertheless perhaps better known as the younger brother of what other professional athlete and social justice pioneer? (First name required.)

Randy Moffitt was a right‑handed relief pitcher who spent 12 seasons in Major League Baseball with the San Francisco Giants (1972–81), Houston Astros (1982), and Toronto Blue Jays (1983), posting a 43–52 record with 96 saves in 534 games. He was the younger brother of tennis legend Billie Jean King (born Billie Jean Moffitt), a former world No. 1 who won 39 Grand Slam titles and became one of the most prominent advocates for gender equality and social justice in sports.

Billie Jean King’s activism includes campaigning for equal prize money in tennis, founding the Women’s Tennis Association and the Women’s Sports Foundation, and leading the fight for women’s professional circuits such as the Virginia Slims tour. Her 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” victory over Bobby Riggs is widely cited as a watershed moment for women’s liberation and public conversations about sexism; later honors such as the renaming of the USTA National Tennis Center and the Presidential Medal of Freedom underscore her status as a social‑justice pioneer.

Here “relief pitcher” refers to a pitcher who enters the game after the starter, often in late innings, to protect a lead or keep the game close, while “Grand Slam titles” are championships at the four major tennis tournaments (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open).

Connections

  • Siblings at the top: Biographical notices for both athletes highlight that Moffitt and King grew up in the same Long Beach, California, sports‑oriented family, with King gravitating to tennis and Moffitt to baseball—an oft‑cited example of elite sibling athletes succeeding in different sports.
  • Equality on and off the field: Obituaries and tributes for Moffitt routinely describe King as a “tennis great and equality advocate,” underlining how her fight for equal pay and opportunity in sport forms part of the context in which his own career is remembered.
  • Legacy institutions: King’s name now graces the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and the Billie Jean King Cup (formerly the Fed Cup), signaling how her activism reshaped global tennis institutions, while Moffitt is honored on the San Francisco Giants Wall of Fame.

Sources