Cuckoo Clock Research Paper

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The Renaissance was a period of ideological rebirth lasting from the 14th century to the 17th century. Beginning in Florence, Italy, it spread arts, inventions, and creativity all throughout Europe as it began slowly emerging from the Dark Ages. Of course, there had to be a driving force for this movement, and that was an ideological system known as Humanism. Humanism was the belief that a person had full control over who they were, and rejected external control over one’s life. During the Dark Ages, the Roman Catholic Church dictated every aspect of a person’s life, from who they were to what they did. Humanism was against this micro-managing system, and instead freed Renaissance people to do what they wanted. Instead of having to work for …show more content…

From a long line of clockmakers, Ketterer was believed to have been one of the first people to create a physical cuckoo clock, along with several other clockmakers from his home, Black Forest in Germany. The purpose of the cuckoo clock was not only to keep the time, but to let users know whenever an hour passes. This is useful if the owner of the clock is busy and not necessarily looking at the clock. The design of the cuckoo clock is representative of Franz’s home, Black Forest. There were two traditional designs of the cuckoo clock: Station House, and Hunter Piece. The Station House cuckoo clock was made to resemble a guardhouse at a train station, and is the generic cuckoo clock one would think of today. It has a definite geometric shape, with 5 sides forming a house. This is in contrast from the Hunter Piece clock, which was a lot more free form. Decorated with ornate wooden leaves, the Hunter Piece clock had a much more intricate design and was covered in carvings of animals. This clock was heavily based on nature, and was the main cuckoo clock made in Black Forest. As elaborate as the outside designs were, the real intricacy of cuckoo clocks were shown on the