GUENON (from the French, = one who grimaces, hence an ape), the name applied by naturalists to the monkeys of the African genus Cercopithecus, the Ethiopian representative of the Asiatic macaques, from which they differ by the absence of a posterior heel to the last molar in the lower jaw.
GUÉRET, a town of central France, capital of the department
of Creuse, situated on a mountain declivity 48 m. N.E. of Limoges
on the Orleans railway. Pop. (1906), town, 6042; commune
(including troops, &c.), 8058. Apart from the Hôtel des Monneyroux
(used as prefecture), a picturesque mansion of the 15th
and 16th centuries, with mansard roofs and mullioned windows,
Guéret has little architectural interest. It is the seat of a
prefect and a court of assizes, and has a tribunal of first instance,
a chamber of commerce and lycées and training colleges, for
both sexes. The industries include brewing, saw-milling,
leather-making and the manufacture of basket-work and
wooden shoes, and there is trade in agricultural produce and
cattle. Guéret grew up round an abbey founded in the 7th
century, and in later times became the capital of the district of
Marche.
GUEREZA, the native name of a long-tailed, black and white
Abyssinian monkey, Colobus guereza (or C. abyssinicus), characterized
by the white hairs forming a long pendent mantle.
Other east African monkeys with a similar type of colouring,
which, together with the wholly black west African C. satanas,
collectively constitute the subgenus Guereza, may be included
under the same title; and the name may be further extended
to embrace all the African thumbless monkeys of the genus
Colobus. These monkeys are the African representatives of
the Indo-Malay langurs (Semnopithecus), with which they agree
in their slender build, long limbs and tail, and complex stomachs,
although differing by the rudimentary thumb. The members
of the subgenus Guereza present a transition from a wholly
black animal (C. satanas) to one (C. caudatus) in which the sides
of the face are white, and the whole flanks, as well as the tail,
clothed with a long fringe of pure white hairs.
GUERICKE, HEINRICH ERNST FERDINAND (1803–1878),
German theologian, was born at Wettin in Saxony on the 25th
of February 1803 and studied theology at Halle, where he was
appointed professor in 1829. He greatly disliked the union
between the Lutheran and the Reformed churches, which had
been accomplished by the Prussian government in 1817, and in
1833 he definitely threw in his lot with the Old Lutherans. In
1835 he lost his professorship, but he regained it in 1840. Among
his works were a Life of August Hermann Francke (1827, Eng.
trans. 1837), Church History (1833, Eng. trans. by W. T. Shedd,
New York, 1857–1863), Allgemeine christliche Symbolik (1839).
In 1840 he helped to found the Zeitschrift für die gesammte
lutherische Theologie und Kirche, and he died at Halle on the
4th of February 1878.
GUERICKE, OTTO VON (1602–1686), German experimental
philosopher, was born at Magdeburg, in Prussian Saxony, on
the 20th of November 1602. Having studied law at Leipzig,
Helmstadt and Jena, and mathematics, especially geometry
and mechanics, at Leiden, he visited France and England, and
in 1636 became engineer-in-chief at Erfurt. In 1627 he was
elected alderman of Magdeburg, and in 1646 mayor of that city
and a magistrate of Brandenburg. His leisure was devoted to
scientific pursuits, especially in pneumatics. Incited by the
discoveries of Galileo, Pascal and Torricelli, he attempted the
creation of a vacuum. He began by experimenting with a pump
on water placed in a barrel, but found that when the water
was drawn off the air permeated the wood. He then took a
globe of copper fitted with pump and stopcock, and discovered
that he could pump out air as well as water. Thus he became
the inventor of the air-pump (1650). He illustrated his discovery
before the emperor Ferdinand III. at the imperial diet which
assembled at Regensburg in 1654, by the experiment of the
“Magdeburg hemispheres.” Taking two hollow hemispheres
of copper, the edges of which fitted nicely together, he exhausted
the air from between them by means of his pump, and it is
recorded that thirty horses, fifteen back to back, were unable
to pull them asunder until the air was readmitted. Besides
investigating other phenomena connected with a vacuum, he
constructed an electrical machine which depended on the excitation
of a rotating ball of sulphur; and he made successful
researches in astronomy, predicting the periodicity of the return
of comets. In 1681 he gave up office, and retired to Hamburg,
where he died on the 11th of May 1686.
His principal observations are given in his work, Experimenta nova, ut vocant, Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio (Amsterdam, 1672). He is also the author of a Geschichte der Belagerung und Eroberung von Magdeburg. See F. W. Hoffmann, Otto von Guericke (Magdeburg, 1874).
GUÉRIDON, a small table to hold a lamp or vase, supported
by a tall column or a human or mythological figure. This piece
of furniture, often very graceful and elegant, originated in France
towards the middle of the 17th century. In the beginning the
table was supported by a negro or other exotic figure, and there
is some reason to believe that it took its name from the generic
appellation of the young African groom or “tiger,” who was
generally called “Guéridon,” or as we should say in English
“Sambo.” The swarthy figure and brilliant costume of the
“Moor” when reproduced in wood and picked out in colours
produced a very striking effect, and when a small table was
supported on the head by the upraised hands the idea of passive
service was suggested with completeness. The guéridon is still
occasionally seen in something approaching its original form;
but it had no sooner been introduced than the artistic instinct
of the French designer and artificer converted it into a far
worthier object. By the death of Louis XIV. there were several
hundreds of them at Versailles, and within a generation or two
they had taken an infinity of forms—columns, tripods, termini
and mythological figures. Some of the simpler and more artistic
forms were of wood carved with familiar decorative motives and
gilded. Silver, enamel, and indeed almost any material from
which furniture can be made, have been used for their construction.
A variety of small “occasional” tables are now
called in French guéridons.
GUÉRIN, JEAN BAPTISTE PAULIN (1783–1855), French
painter, was born at Toulon, on the 25th of March 1783, of poor
parents. He learnt, as a lad, his father’s trade of a locksmith,
whilst at the same time he followed the classes of the free school
of art. Having sold some copies to a local amateur, Guérin
started for Paris, where he came under the notice of Vincent,
whose counsels were of material service. In 1810 Guérin made
his first appearance at the Salon with some portraits, which had
a certain success. In 1812 he exhibited “Cain after the murder
of Abel” (formerly in Luxembourg), and, on the return of the
Bourbons, was much employed in works of restoration and decoration
at Versailles. His “Dead Christ” (Cathedral, Baltimore)
obtained a medal in 1817, and this success was followed up by
a long series of works, of which the following are the more noteworthy:
“Christ on the knees of the Virgin” (1819); “Anchises
and Venus” (1822) (formerly in Luxembourg); “Ulysses and
Minerva” (1824) (Musée de Rennes); “the Holy Family” (1829)
(Cathedral, Toulon); and “Saint Catherine” (1838) (St Roch).
In his treatment of subject, Guérin attempted to realize rococo
graces of conception, the liveliness of which was lost in the
strenuous effort to be correct. His chief successes were attained
by portraits, and those of Charles Nodier and the Abbé Lamennais
became widely popular. He died on the 19th of January
1855.
GUÉRIN, PIERRE NARCISSE, Baron (1774–1833), French
painter, was born at Paris on the 13th of May 1774. Becoming
a pupil of Jean Baptiste Regnault, he carried off one of the three
“grands prix” offered in 1796, in consequence of the competition
not having taken place since 1793. The pension was not indeed
re-established, but Guérin fulfilled at Paris the conditions imposed
upon a pensionnaire, and produced various works, one of which
brought him prominently before the public. This work, “Marcus
Sextus” (Louvre), exhibited at the Salon of 1799, excited wild
enthusiasm, partly due to the subject,—a victim of Sulla’s
proscription returning to Rome to find his wife dead and his
house in mourning—in which an allusion was found to the actual
