Financial Ratios Analysis of IBM 2005-2006 Case Study

Financial Ratios Analysis of IBM 2005-2006 - Case Study Example There was also an inverse increase in current liability of $4,939 ($40,091 - $35,152 million) which adversely affected the company’s liquidity ratio. This decline also reflected in acid test ratio or the ability to settle obligation immediately as it also declined by 13.492. 2. Leverage ratios analysis a. Debt to-total-assets ratio (Total liabilities/total assets) 2005 2006 % of change Total debt $22,682 $22,641 Total assets 105,748 103,234 Ratio .687 .724 5.386 b. Debt-to-equity ratio 2005 2006 % of change Total debt $22,682 $22,641 Total equity 28,506 33,098 Ratio 2.195 2.621 19.40 c. Long-term debt-to-equity ratio 2005 2006 % of change Long-term debt 15,425 $13,780 Total equity 28,506 33,098 Ratio .466 .483 3.648 d. ... Changes in liability decreased minimally but still, the increase in total assets helped drive debt to asset ratio up by 5.386 %. Since debt was almost constant in 2006, debt to equity ratio significantly went up when IBM registered a profit in the previous year, where portions of the net gain were retained as equity. 3. Activity ratio analysis a. Inventory turnover 2005 2006 % of change Net Sales 91,134 91,424 Inventory 2841 2840 Ratio 32.07 32.53 .01 b. Fixed assets turnover 2005 2006 % of change Net Sales 91,340 91,424 Net fixed assets 60,087 58,574 Ratio 1.517 1.561 2.900 c. Total assets turnover 2005 2006 % of change Net Sales $91,340 $91,424 Total Assets 105,748 103,234 Ratio .862 .886 2.784 d. Average collection period Payment terms for inventory and accounts receivable financing generally range from 30 to 90 days (IBM, 2006 pg. 79). With regard to activity ratios, IBM did a good job of maintaining its level of inventory to 2841-2840 million despite the increase in sales in 200 6 ($91,424 million). It only meant that IBM has a very good internal control and monitoring of its inventory. In sum, the activity ratio of IBM increased by 2.784 % which can be mainly attributed to its ability to maintain its inventory despite the increase in sales. With regard to collection period, IBM adopts â€Å"Payment terms for inventory and accounts receivable financing generally range from 30 to 90 days† (IBM, 2006 pg. 79). 4. Profitability ratio analysis a. Gross profit margin 2005 2006 % of change Gross profit margin 36,532 38,295 Net Sales 91,134 91,424 Ratio .401 .419 4.488 b. Operating profit margin Operating profit margin 0.134 0.146 0.012 8.95522388% c. Net profit margin ratio 2005 2006 % of change Net profit after tax 79,940 94,920 Net Sales 91,340

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Essay Example for Free

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Essay WHAT IS FAST MOVING CONSUMER GOODS (FMCG)? FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) is a term that is used to refer to those goods which are sold through retail stores. These goods have a short period of shelf life and as such are used up within days, weeks, or months. TOP 7 FAST MOVING CONSUMER GOODS 1. PROCTOR GAMBLE: Headquartered at Cincinnati in Ohio, United States, Procter and Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational company. It was founded in October 31 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. Its flagship and best selling brand is ARIEL laundry detergent which was launched in 1967. This detergent is available in different variants. The company also manufactures other best selling products that are highly popular around the world. 2. NESTLÉ: Nestle is a Swiss multinational engaged in the production of different food products. It has its presence in more than 100 countries. It produces several top selling products in different food categories. Some of its best selling products are LEAN CUISINE, Maggi, Boost, Kit Kat, Friskies, and Nescafe etc. 3. UNILEVER: Unilever is a multinational engaged in the manufacture of different products like foods, personal grooming products, detergents and beverages etc. This British-Dutch company is the owner of over 400 leading brands in the world out of which 13 are billion dollar brands. One of its top products is  AVIANCE which is a beauty product for women. This product is sold in many countries of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. 4. COCA-COLA: Coca-Cola Company which is based in Atlanta in Georgia manufactures the worlds most popular soft drink COCA COLA. It was Dr. John S. Pemberton who created this drink in 1886. Coca Cola touched base in every part of the US by 1895. The company began its franchisee operations in 1899 and gradually it opened up bottling plants in every corner of the globe. The universal popularity of Coca Cola is undisputed. The Coca Cola syrup mixed with carbonated water created ripples everywhere and today you can get a Coke in any part of the world. 5. PEPSICO: PepsiCo was created out of the amalgamation of two companies named Pepsi Cola and Frito Lay. The company which was formed in 1965 has its headquarters at Purchase in Harrison New York. It is a Fortune 500 company. PepsiCo is engaged in the manufacture of snack foods (grain based), beverages and other similar products. One of its best known brands is the cola beverage PEPSI-COLA. Created in 1893 its former name was Brads Drink. 6. BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO: Another multinational tobacco major is the British American Tobacco company which is the worlds second largest tobacco company. It sells its tobacco products in several top markets across the globe. Many world-famous cigarette brands are manufactured by BAT. One of its top selling cigarette brands is PALL MALL. Some other leading cigarette brands manufactured by the company are Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Vogue. 7 NOKIA: Nokia is a Finnish multinational engaged primarily in the manufacture of  mobile telephones. The company has its headquarters at Keilaniemi, Espoo which is near Helsinki, the capital of Finland. This mobile communication giant is the largest manufacturer of mobile telephones in the world. Its products are sold in every part of the world. Nokia has launched many innovative mobile systems and almost all its products have been hot sellers.

Teaching Essays Curriculum Development Learning Styles

Teaching Essays Curriculum Development Learning Styles Focus on Curriculum Development Learning Styles Introduction: There are different learning styles that have developed with accompanying tests that helps individuals to understand their learning styles. A learning style is a method that is used to educate which is particular to a specific individual and which is assumed that if used by that individual, it will help them to learn their best. It has been described as that particular style that helps individuals to process the stimuli of their mind which helps them to understand what they are being taught. Though the concept of learning style is relatively young having gained ground in the 1970s, it has become an important process in the modern education especially on matters concerning how teachers use it in the curriculum and how it is used in the development of the curriculum. It has been found out that if teachers understand the learning styles of their pupil, they can help their students to adapt to the needs of their classroom work and hence make the process of learning interesting to them. Therefore it has been found quite important to integrate the various learning styles of students in the curriculum in order to ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of the various students who are taught using the same curriculum. (Wang and Nagy, 2007) This paper looks at different learning styles that have been identified. It will try to relate the learning styles with how they are being in the curriculum. Hence the focus will be on the learning styles and how the curriculum has been developed to cater for the needs of different learning styles. But first let us look at learning styles. Models and theories of learning styles There are more that 80 learning styles that have been proposed but all of them consist of some basic styles. There are three basic learning models that have been identified and that are used by learners. Let us look at these models. Visual learners This is a model where student learn through seeing. It is a method in which ideas, concepts, and other information are closely associated with the images that are represented in a graphical manner. The learner just need to see the body language of the teacher and the facial expression that the teacher in order to understand what they are teaching. This method is mostly used by those students who are able to concentrate for a long time and who prefer to sit in front of their classrooms in order to avoid any distraction to their visual aids. These students may think in pictures and at the same time learn form the visual displays like diagrams, overhead transparencies, videos, flip charts, and other materials which use visual aids to communicate. The learners are usually very much attentive during the classroom lessons and they take notes in order to absorb most of the information that is being given by the teacher. (Lawrence, 1999) Researches have found out that visual learning theory helps students to improve in many education areas including critical thinking where they are likely to link graphics with verbal and visual information and draw understanding from such a relationship, retention where these students are likely to remember most of the information which was visually or verbally represented, comprehension where student can understand new ideas and connect then to their previous experience or knowledge, and organization where the students can actually use diagrams in order to organize large amount of data in a way that it can be easily understood. The base of this learn style lies in the way a student can visualize the data and later interpret it and build literacy along that data. (Sather, 2007) Auditory Learning Style This is a style where students learn through listening. In this style, students learn through verbal lectures which include a variety of discussions, talking and listening. The student who uses this style may not strive to be in front of the classroom but they like staying at a distance where they can get most of what is happening. They are able to interpret the meaning of a speech through interpreting the underlying tone of teacher voice, pitch, speed and other nuances of speech. They may not concentrate on writing what is being said but they are very keen on listening what is being said. They don’t rush to take notes but they take time to write their notes. The learners also can benefit a lot from reading aloud texts and also use a tape recorder. This style is used by about 20 percent of the population. In most instances, when these students are learning, the read but they cannot understand if there is no sound in the background. Therefore most to them will be reading and at the same time listening to music or any other background noise. Some of the students have been found to read when there is noise in the background. These learners focus more on the sound that they are hearing that what they are learning. When they are spelling, they usually use sounds. In case they meet with individuals, they are likely to forget their faces but remember their names. These students also like to talk a lot. (Kolb, 2003) Tactile or Kinesthetic Learners These can be described as learners who learn by moving, doing or touching. They have been descried as learning best through a hands approach in which they actively explore the physical world around them. Although they may appear like restless students how finds it hard to sit still for long period, they use their restlessness in moving and touching to learns. In this regard, this learning style is said to take place when student carry out the physical learning activity instead of taking their time to listen or watch the demonstration of a learning activity. Student who use this learning styles have been said to the some of the natural discoverers learners as they are able to achieve most of their learning through practical applicability of the theories unlike having thought over something for along time and then initiating the concept. However there is not evidence that has been shown to support the efficacy of the kinesthetic theory of learning. Going by the above learning theories, the visual learners makes up to 30 percent of the population while the auditory learners are around 20 to 25 percent. There fore kinesthetic learners could make up majority of the population in this regard making up to about 45 percent of learners. Kinesthetic learners have been found to be more efficient in the other physical activities at school and in other areas of application. This analysis gives us the three major types of learning styles that are used. This shows diversity that exists in the student population and therefore there is need to understand this diversity in order to be an effective curriculum instructor. This indicates that though a teacher may be having student in the same class, they m ay be having diverse needs than the physical needs that the teacher can actually see in the students. Therefore as was said in the introduction, there is need for the teacher to have full knowledge of the diverse learning styles of each and every student in order to cater for their needs. Without such and understand of the learning styles of students, it would be hard for a teacher to identify students and classify them into their respective learning styles. This would help the teacher to serve them well. Let us now look at how the curriculum is developed in order to cater for the needs of these students. (Fang, 2002) Curriculum Development and Learning Styles Curriculum is used to support the effort of the teacher in education. A curriculum is just a set of program that gives detail on how students should be taught. It acts as guideline that is systematically made to allow learner to understand concepts it stages. It is an important tool not only to the teacher but also to the learners. Educators place so much emphasize on the design of the curriculum since it has impacts on the education of the students. Curriculum and instruction are some of the most important sectors in education. Hence we can say the curriculum is the base of any education process. (McCarthy, 2004) As we have said learning theories are very imprint in the education process. This is because they have an impact on the design of not only the curriculum but also instruction and assessment. Learning theories are considered when coming up with the process since they are important in supporting the education process. Learning theories are important in the curriculum since educator place a lot of emphases on the intuition, feeing, sensing, imagination and other aspects that are important in helping the student understand what they are being taught. In the curriculum learning styles are also important in analyze, reason and the problem solving process. In the instruction, learning theories have an impact in that teachers should come up with their own instruction methods which will help the students understand what they are being taught. Teachers should come up with instruction methods that caters for the needs of the students using the above four learning styles. This means that it will first take the teacher time to understand the kind of learners who are in the class and try to address their needs in the process of teaching. A teacher will use various experiences that have been gained over time. In addition a teacher will be expect to use reflections, conceptualization and experimentations in coming up with the best teaching method that will help the students understand. As instructors of the curriculum, teachers can introduce variety of experiment elements in the classrooms like sound, music, visuals, body movement, verbal lecturing and other methods which will cater for the needs of the students. For a teacher to know whether they are giving needed curriculum and instruction to the student, they are likely to assess the students. This is a part of the curriculum which shows the effective of the design and implementation of the curriculum. In this regard, teachers must understanding the needs and learning styles of different students in order to come up the proper assessment techniques. Because teachers cannot give different assessment tests to different students according to their learning style, they should therefore employ various techniques in the assessment that will help them to develop all the brains in their classroom. In their regard, the assessment tests should be balance such that it addresses all the needs of students without giving undue advantage to others. The curriculum is made up of the above mentioned three aspects. That means that there is the curriculum content, there must be defined was in which the curriculum shall be instructed to the students, and it must provide means of assessment for the contents of the curriculum. Therefore the provision of the curriculum must be based on the learning style as had been illustrate above. Consideration of the learning styles is very crucial in the learning environment since it dictates the way the curriculum is developed. In developing the curriculum, there must be effort to address the needs of each and every student. As we have seen from our analysis, the biggest percentage among the student population perhaps the kinesthetic learner who constitute about 45 percent of the population. Therefore the curriculum must take into consideration this proportion of the population in order to have relevant and effective contents. The content of the curriculum must give specific details which ensure that the deliver of the contents will have more practical work than theoretic work. This is in order to work with the percentage of the population that is high in the population. Unfortunately many curriculums that have been designed have not kept to the issue of learning theories in the population. This makes many of the curriculums unable to meet their expectation. The expectation of any curriculum is to impart knowledge to the students in the simplest manner possible. This will help them to gain knowledge easily. Therefore if the curriculum is to meet its goals, it must be designed in a way that it addressed the needs of each and every learner in the population. In this regard the curriculum may be having the contents that take care of the learners but the instructors may fail to implement these provisions. This makes learning ineffective and student underperforms. Conclusion As we have seen there are various learning styles that are used by students. These learning styles are important since they help each and every student to understand the contents of the curriculum in the simplest way possible. Teachers as the instructors of the curriculum must understand the learning style of their students in order to give them the best instructions that they need in their learning process. The design of the curriculum must also take care of the needs of each and every student. Therefore the curriculum should be developed in a way that its content, instruction and the assessment guides must give each and every student an advantage. This means that teachers as the instructors of the curriculum have a role to play to ensure that the needs of each and every student is met. Reference Fang, A. (2002). Utilization of learning styles in curriculum development. New York State Kolb, D. (2003). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. New York: Wiley Lawrence, G. (1999). Practical Guide to Learning Styles; Oxford University McCarthy, B. (2004). Teaching to Learning Styles; London: Routledge Sather, A. (2007). The benefit of principals and teaching of supporting youth engagement in school; NASSP Bulletin December 2007 Wang, N. Nagy, J. (2007): The alternate route teacher transition to the class. NASSP Bulletin, March 2007

American Flag :: essays research papers

The United States Flag is the third oldest of the National Standards of the world; older than the Union Jack of Britain or the Tricolor of France. The flag was first authorized by Congress June 14, 1777. This date is now observed as Flag Day throughout America. The flag was first flown from Fort Stanwix, on the site of the present city of Rome, New York, on August 3, 1777. It was first under fire for three days later in the Battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777. It was first decreed that there should be a star and a stripe for each state, making thirteen of both; for the states at the time had just been erected from the original thirteen colonies. The colors of the Flag may be thus explained: The red is for valor, zeal and fervency; the white for hope purity, cleanliness of life, and rectitude of conduct; the blue, the color of heaven, for reverence to God, loyalty, sincerity, justice and truth. The star (an ancient symbol of India, Persia and Egypt) symbolized dominion and sovereignty, as well as lofty aspirations. The constellation of the stars within the union, one star for each state, is emblematic of our Federal Constitution, which reserves to the States their individual sovereignty except as to rights delegated by them to the Federal Government. The symbolism of the Flag was thus interpreted by Washington: â€Å"We take the stars from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing Liberty.† In 1791, Vermont, and in 1792, Kentucky were admitted to the Union and the number of stars and stripes was raised to fifteen in correspondence. As other states came into the Union it became evident there would be too many stripes. So in 1818 Congress enacted that the number of stripes be reduced and restricted henceforth to thirteen representing the thirteen original states; while a star should be added for each succeeding state. That law is the law of today. The name â€Å"Old Glory† was given to our National Flag August 10, 1831, by Captain William Driver of the brig Charles Doggett. The Flag was first carried in battle at the Brandywine, September 11, 1777. It first flew over foreign territory January 28, 1778, at Nassau, Bahama Islands; Fort Nassau having been captured by the American in the course of the war for independence.

The Hawke Labor Government :: essays research papers

Affect of the Ideology of the Hawke Labor Government on Interactions with Business and Society Since the Second World War, the Australian state has adopted a distinct approach in its dealings with society and business. This approach has been characterised by government intervention in the activities of business and a comprehensive welfare system serving the vulnerable segments of society. Often, government intervenes in the activities of business to force industries to assume a social welfare capacity. Successive governmental actions have been influenced by the ideologies of the incumbent party. These ideologies have not merely made sense of social or economic realities, they acted as guides for government policy. Through the critical use of supporting evidence, the affect of the Hawke Labor government upon relations with business and society will be examined. The Hawke and later Keating governments were often accused by the Socialist left of subverting or ignoring Labor’s traditional egalitarian ideology. While its ideology may be the filter through which Labor saw social and economic realities, it was constrained by international competition and lagging economic growth to adopt a more pragmatic approach under some circumstances. Economic contraction coupled with high unemployment and interest rates meant Labor needed to adopt a measure of economic liberalism, in the same way as Social Democrat European governments are compelled to presently. Hawke’s Labor championed the ‘disadvantaged’, however defined, and altered Australian society by acting upon its ideology of egalitarianism. Socialism has consistently been associated with the welfare of an oppressed class (Heywood 1997, p. 50). Following the second world war, the Labor movement had been at the forefront of the campaign for granting aboriginal Australia voting rights. Consistent with that association, the Hawke government continued Labor’s special protection of aborigines with the ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act’ of 1990. That special protection was granted upon the aboriginal is in keeping with Labor’s Socialist ethos - that of equal outcomes, not necessarily equal opportunity, and the belief that economic differences are due to differing social environments. Bauman explains the intention of the ‘inventors of the welfare state’, and the theory that previous deprivation made special protection necessary: "What they had in mind was getting rid of the deprivation which made collective care or positive discrimination necessary in the first place: to compensate for the inequality of chances and thus make chance equal." (Bauman 1998, p. 61) Upon critical assessment, Labor’s recent treatment of aboriginal Australia could be interpreted as being in contradiction with its ideology.

Women in The Birthmark Essay -- Birthmark Essays

â€Å"The Birthmark† – Women  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Everything he has to say is related, finally, to ‘that inward sphere.’ For the heart is the meeting-place of all the forces – spiritual and physical, light and dark, that compete for dominance in man’s nature. . . .† (McPherson 68-69). McPherson’s â€Å"heart† is the key to understanding the role of women in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale, â€Å"The Birthmark.†    Only imperfection is what nearsighted Aylmer sees in the birthmark on Georgiana’s cheek. But he is unfortunately oblivious to   the virtue in her soul, the deep beauty contained in the depth of her love for him. The wife’s virtue leads her onward and upward; the husband’s lack thereof and inability to appreciate virtue in his Georgiana leads him downward and downward.    The concept of women is established in the very opening paragraph of â€Å"The Birthmark.† The narrator introduces Aylmer as a scientist who found â€Å"a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one,† referring to his love for Georgiana. She is portrayed as having meaning in Aylmer’s life – not in first place, but in second place to his scientific interests.    Even after Aylmer has â€Å"persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife,† he is not capable of loving her properly, unselfishly, because he â€Å"had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion.† The narrator seeks to justify this error or lack in Aylmer by explaining that â€Å"it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy.† Already at the outset of the tale, the reader perceives that Georgiana is going to be shortchanged in this marriage. She is exposed to the problem initial... ...el . The Birthmark Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HawBirt.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1    McPherson, Hugo. â€Å"Hawthorne’s Use of Mythology.† In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.    Stewart, Randall. â€Å"Hawthorne’s Female Characters.† In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.    Swisher, Clarice. â€Å"Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography.† In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.    Williams, Stanley T. â€Å"Hawthorne’s Puritan Mind.† In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.

Modernism, Erich Heckel and Primitive Art Essay

The names Erich Heckel and Die Brucke are inseparable in the world of art. It is not without a fair amount of controversy that this artistic movement is regarded though. Heckel, and others were more interested in the primitive form of art which they thought to be purer than the more modern realistic style that had evolved in Europe at the time. But how did the ‘primitive’ art of Africa and other areas affect the style of this movement during a particularly restless political climate in Europe? We will discuss this with reference to the work of Erich Heckel, one of the artists who contributed to the movement greatly during its short life. Die Brucke (The Bridge) was an artistic movement that congregated before the first World War. It was founded by four architecture students in Dresden. Together with Die Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), Die Brucke represented German Expressionism which later was banned by the Nazi’s as ‘degenerate’ art [1]. It was the national equivalent of the French Fauves who wished to present a more modernistic and free form of art. It was in early Nazi Germany that degenerate art or ‘entartete kunst’ made Die Brucke a ridiculed artistic movement. Some of the artists banned from activity included Marc Chagall, Max Ernst and Wassily Kandinsky who were all particular members of the then German Expressionist movement [2]. The primary reason for this banning had been due to one aspect in its entirety: primitivism. In the case of Marc Chagall, his inspiration came from a certain spirituality that was involved in the process of creating art and primitive symbolism gave him just that link to spirituality he needed to express himself [2]. Chagall, as one of the modernist painters had been born in Russia into a Jewish family and even though he was not German, he was exiled to the United States after Germany occupied France. Paul Klee was another of the German Expressionist who was ridiculed as an artist because of the primitive nature of his work. Klee was a Swiss born artist who was extremely serious about pushing the boundaries of art, something Nazi Germany definitely did not encourage. The primitive symbolism is particularly visible in paintings such as Fish Magic (1925), oil and aquarelle color [4: p 2834]. Klee uses the heavy stylization and cubism to convey an environment that is much more complicated in its meaning than its composition. There is an element of surrealism also conveyed in this piece, where a clock is displayed amidst the floating fish and cubist inspired people. A conjugation of cubism and surrealism is visible but there is also an aspect of Cezanne with the conical vases suspended around the picture. Death and Fire (1940) is another extremely primitive piece and has elements of the South American Indians such as the Inca [4: p 2841]. Franc Marc melded primitive figures with cubism and bright colors. Tower of Blue Horses (1913), revealed a recurring theme in his work. For Marc, the color blue was a deep spiritual color while horses were a Biblical symbol of the apocalypse [5]. As a member of Die Blaue Reiter, his consciousness was fixated on animalistic painting which he believed depicted the organic structure of the world [5: p 2985]. Despite being declined as an artist in Germany, his work is extremely beautiful. Edvard Munch shifted from Norway to Germany but his exhibition was quickly shut down in Berlin. He could be seen as one of the forerunners to primitivism in art and therefore not popular in Germany. Munch’s best known work is possibly The Scream (1893) whose primitive nature is extremely evident not only in the brushstrokes but also in the treatment of the subject itself [6: p 2352]. Some of his work, as opposed to Marc, is not beautiful, but grotesque and indicative of the tormented self. Wassily Kandinsky is possibly the most interesting of the ‘degenerate’ artists. He was not only affected by the Russian revolution, but later also the Nazi invasion. His version of primitivism came in his obsession with geometry, similar to Marc. Composition VIII (1923), is literally a composition of geometric shapes. The colors are bright and dispersed around the entire picture. Some blocks of color are textured, but most of it is matte and smooth color. Erich Heckel, as a founder member of Die Brucke was born in Dobeln in 1883. Most of Heckel’s figures were in fact two dimensional versions of African sculptures. From equatorial Africa, down towards Southern Africa, sculptures was used symbolically most often for religious purposes. Heckel had been very interested in one particular room at the Brucke studio which was filled with cloths, wood-carvings and furniture obtained in Africa and the ‘South Seas’. He began studying at the Museum of Ethnology in Dresden to increase his understanding of the ‘primitive’ art [9]. His woodcut entitled Women (1913), has traditional colors of red, white and black. The chiseled features are geometrically shaped and stylized to give the cut the same angularity of the carvings that originated in Africa. The same print style is visible in cloth artifacts that were also imported from the African areas and so-called primitive countries. Part of the rationale behind the primitivism work was an almost communist stance against the bourgeois sector of society [8]. There had been an increased interest in ‘visual metaphor’, pictures that expressed something from the inside: an innate spirituality. At this stage, modern art became profoundly political, shifting the meaning of art from simple decorative and esthetics to a complex vessel for expounding social interests. The modern world took on a different color during the early 1900’s, which led to the increased darkening of themes and images, but Heckel was a little different. The Expressionists, including Heckel drew inspiration from ‘primitive’ art for various reasons. These reasons included: counter-revolutionary reasons; new found freedom of thought; anti-capitalist protest; seeking the purest, most honest depiction of spirituality; fascination with ‘otherness’; exploration of the spontaneous; external expression of the inner emotion and philosophical creativity. The Art Nouveau movement had taken its expression from the decadent nature of estheticism. It was art for arts sake and had been a depiction of the environment at the time, but Expressionism behaved as a counter-revolutionary protest against the capitalist or ‘bourgeois’ society [10]. The Expressionists felt that materialistic society had degraded spirituality and inner connection in people in general. Together with a new found freedom of expression introduced by the likes of Picasso and Miro, Dali and even Duchamps, the Expressionists now felt that they could express their own opinions via art. As a result, there was an increased need for internal examination that stripped away the ostentatious outer layer of the Baroque and Romantic era. Primitive cultures had been particularly interested in the spiritual and found this spirituality in the simplest forms of art [10]. Arguably, the many layers humanity had added to themselves through material possession and fashion hid the inner emotional volcano the Expressionists wanted to uncover. The ‘primitive’ was largely unaffected by the material practices and therefore appeared to be a more honest way of expressing the suppressed emotion. It was also more based on instinct then on rationality [10]. The other key interest is in the concept of ‘otherness’. The fact that this particular form of art was largely unknown to the ‘civilized’ world was a curious thing for Europeans to acknowledge [10]. It added a freshness or ‘newness’ to the high-browed European art world. Modern artist Shastri Maharaj describes the obsession with primitiveness as being an interest in the bold colors and sharp outlines usually associated with the tools used to form the images. Artists such as Modigliani were particularly interested in Polynesian images, while Heckel was interested in the so-called ‘Bantu’ style of woodcarving. Either way they were both inspired by something that was new and unexplored [11]. Masks such as ‘death masks’ were images used in works that explored the nature of life and death, due in part to their austere beauty and also because they were unafraid of facing the inevitable. At this stage, psychiatry had also made a huge influence on society, with Sigmund Freud’s encouragement to face inner demons that include man’s inherent fear of death. What was termed ‘funerary’ art created a stir around the unknown and facing the unknown [11]. Ancestral worship had been an aspect of primitive art that was also seen as relatively unacceptable to Christian Europe. Robert Goldwater spent his life studying traditional art and the relationship between modern artists and their anthropological fascination with tribal and ancestral art. Even if one was to consider Salvador Dali’s depictions of animals and people with exaggerated limbs, we see an influence that it not unlike the North Eastern sculptures of Africa. Together with the Metropolitan Museum, they created an extensive resource of primitive art. A closer look at ritual art reveals at the Metropolitan Museum reveals that the ancient work was either of stone, wood or precious metals were richly patterned and elaborately colored. The relationship therefore between the modernist painters and the ancient world is visible in the brightly colored depictions of the artists such as Marc and Chagall. That Heckel took his inspiration from the African component of primitive art is evident since the majority of African art was produced in wood and ivory as opposed to the gold that is associated with the South American Indians. Some of the art was also indicative of the caste or rank of the people within the civilization and this proved to be a great difference in the material that was used by the individual artist during that time [12]. Ceremony was an integral part of their belief structure and could not be separated from their daily life in much the same way as the Greeks could not separate their idol-worship from their mere existence. It was this factor of belonging and having a purpose to life that the Expressionists found to be the missing link in European art. This was the factor they believed had distanced them from their own inner glory. As the Metropolitan Museum also reveals there was a heightened collectivity about these primitive artists, that they functioned in some form of hierarchal unity that no longer existed in, for instance, Nazi dominated Europe [12]. Da Vinci had been responsible for exploring the inner functioning of the human body, its bones and muscles, but prior to that, the human body was depicted in much the same way the African sculptures portrayed it to be: relatively shapeless. Women appeared however to always be portrayed as nubile, voluptuous and well-endowed, which is probably the archetype but not indicative of the average woman. These ‘fertility’ goddesses were presumed to bring good-fortune to child-bearing women and Heckel produced a number of lino and wood cuts bearing the semblance of these fecund women. As it can be perceived, the primitive world was one in which survival of a race, tribe of civilization was dependant on the amount of children born and even then, on how many survived. In modern Europe, the ‘race’ had already been established and the need to breed was not as great as the need to supplicate the need for material wealth. Cultural difference therefore lay in the status of the country at the time and although many of the works that inspired the likes of Heckel are form the Sudanese area, it is also the area of Africa which is still fighting the oldest war in Africa. The survival instinct is still as alive as it had been in ‘primitive’ times. The Indian component of ‘primitive art’ is visible in almost all of the Expressionist work, particularly that of Klee, whose aforementioned piece called Death and Fire, reveals the common obsession with death and the possibility of life thereafter. The Peruvian tribes such as the Moche provided artists with a clear glimpse into their entire grotesque world of death, burial and the afterlife. The Inca too, had profound images of death as well as the most famous sarcophagi of Egypt. The masks were meant to be a motif of the victim, but since the skill of copying the dead person was not quite as practiced as, Gainsborough or Lely, they were heavily stylized. Klee saw no reason to attempt to glamorize the process of death and going to hell in the way that perhaps Blake would have, but instead brought it down to what it really was: a primal fear. Modigliani’s work is well known to have been influenced by the Polynesian realms, and this is also seen not only in his subject matter but also in his cubist approach to the subject matter. A cotemporary of Picasso, he did not quite stylize his subject to the point of pure abstraction but used brightly colored flowers and luscious physical arrangements in a time when that was considered not only ‘kitsch’ but also inappropriate. The question was, did it make any difference when compared to the works of the also ridiculed Goya or even further back to Rubens? No, the problem was no the nude, but the nationality of the nude. The ‘otherness’ of the subject made them appear to be crude, basic and uncivilized to the Western eye, which of course, as they were not understood, could not have been the case. Similarly the work of Munch and Chagall were both based on religious iconography that was exhibited in the same way as perhaps the Bushmen cave paintings of Southern Africa. The pictures were bland except for the raw emotion that obviously courses through the paintings into the viewer. Whether of not you like The Scream or not makes not difference when you look at it because it affects you regardless of whether you see it as a ‘master’ work or not. This was the point of Expressionism and indeed of all Modern Art, the inner connection and ability to feel emotion whether it was anguish, fear, love or lust. These are all very basic emotions and basic feelings. If one looks a step further at the Impressionists, the same volatility of nature was the expressive part of the movement itself. It was beyond the self-obsessed need for fickle and wanton things, it was about capturing something; a time; a place that could never be seen in that way again. If we consider the art of ancient Greece, which could also be termed ‘primitive’, the effects it has had on modern art has been immense. It has not stopped instilling awe and wonder on the modern world, by its sheer ingenuity. Also obsessed with basic emotions, it made them not very different at all to the Aztecs of the Mayan empires, other than that it has been more widely preserved. Apart from the philosophical arguments regarding modern arts fascination with the primitive, it also gives us a sense of preserving what we have been given in knowledge and heritage from whatever angle we approach it. The primitive has always been with us, right down to our involuntary fight-or-flight reaction that we can never ignore. The basis for survival was very different and the means of producing the works we call ‘primitive’ today, was not purely for decorative or entertainment value. It had a specific purpose and part to play. As the modern human has become more in love with its own intelligence and more obsessed with its produce, it has begun to forget why it was put on earth in the first place. Artists, it could be argued are generally of the introverted, self-analyzing type and it could be that what modern art wanted to do, was to free them of the burden of emptiness. No doubt, the primitive instinct we find necessary for basic survival would kick in at some stage, but it doesn’t seem to be inherent anymore. It can be concluded that the ostentatious lifestyles modern man had created over the years for himself had gradually dug him into a pit of artistic stagnation and the meaning of art itself changed completely. Picasso had stood up against the Nazi’s in 1933 at the Paris Universal Exhibition when he painted the anti-Franco/Hitler painting Geurnica (1933) and the sensitive artist suddenly became the political activist. This is why, in art, music, literature, philosophy and even in science, we will always come back to the same conclusion and to the same means: we think therefore we are.