Part of me is wanting to go and yellbellatrysDecember 6 2009, 16:35:55 UTC
at people in the equestrian world about the stupidity and ahistoricality of contemporary attitudes regarding paints, all over again (also have a pic of Shah Jehan iirc somewhere on a similar tobiano hunter) and while the rest of me is wanting to cheer for this otherwise-unknown-to-me queen from history, I have to admit that a significant portion of my brain is simply going "Um, um, that's a very, um, *sheer* bodice, isn't it? Wow, it's as sheer as those Ancient Egyptian fabrics, I wonder if it was imported or local fabric, ok stopping babbling now--"
This is the kind of thing that always makes for amusing moments when reading art books - the somewhat amazing socio-historical implications of various paintings and artifacts often are just completely skipped over, so that you wonder a) do the authors just live in such an academic shell that uncouth remarks like oh hey this is an expensive handmade salad oil cruet in the shape of a widdling monkey wearing a hat I wonder who on earth would have thought this was cute let alone shelling
( ... )
Re: Part of me is wanting to go and yellspiralsheepDecember 7 2009, 14:42:04 UTC
Could you explain this because I think I'm missing the cultural reference (British equestrianism has no history of painting on horses that I know of [jousters hung decoration on their horses, no?], except dyeing them for nefarious purposes, but I vaguely know various other equestrian cultures did):
"at people in the equestrian world about the stupidity and ahistoricality of contemporary attitudes regarding paints".
Um, um, that's a very, um, *sheer* bodice, isn't it?
Indian (Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh) women's clothing in the pre-Mughal and Mughal eras and the representation of women's clothing in pre-Mughal, Mughal, and post-Mughal Indian art is an incredibly complex subject which I know very little about except that women didn't always cover themselves in the ways outsiders to those cultures might assume and the historically in/accurate artistic representations of that are another layer of complexity.
the somewhat amazing socio-historical implications of various paintings and artifacts often are just completely skipped over, so that
( ... )
(sorry, apparently comment notifications are being iffy)bellatrysDecember 9 2009, 00:28:39 UTC
"at people in the equestrian world about the stupidity and ahistoricality of contemporary attitudes regarding paints".Sorry, that was a bit of horsey jargon - and American jargon at that! Back when I was but a horse-crazy kid, devouring all the books I could get my hands on about breed standards and such, one of the things that was going in the old equivalents of flamewars was the argument that Arab horses couldn't be pintos, aka "paints" or paint horses, because the parti-colored coats weren't "authentic" - there was this attitude that they're somehow an American thing, because pintos are most famously known among the mustangs of the Wild West
( ... )
Lolzing 4 ever! I know exactly what you mean. The mental gymnastics UTTERLY OBJECTIVE art n literary critics must go through not to accidentally include dreadfully declasse and OMG SUBJECTIVE sociology in their opinionated output are astonishing, heh.
I just sat there at the desk in my college library's oversize-section (where all the best art books end up) and just - my mind went completely blank for several long moments as I looked at this exquisite 18th century glazed ware taking up the whole page and tried to avoid thinking the words "the stopper - the stopper's in his - that's the spout, his PENIS IS THE SPOUT AND YOU POUR YELLOW SALAD OIL OUT OF IT ON YOUR SALAD" and then I tried to stop sporfling loud enough that anybody'd come round to see--
Then I turned the page over to read what the cultured critic was saying about it and - not a peep. Not. One. Like, I thought at first they'd stuck the wrong caption on, b/c that seemed more likely than Not One Bloody Word about what it would look like when you used this bit of tableware
( ... )
Indian (Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh) women's clothing in the pre-Mughal and Mughal eras and the representation of women's clothing in pre-Mughal, Mughal, and post-Mughal Indian art is an incredibly complex subject which I know very little about except that women didn't always cover themselves in the ways outsiders to those cultures might assume and the historically in/accurate artistic representations of that are another layer of complexity.
I adore the Deccan-style paintings in sooo many ways.
You know, these paintings can't exist.bellatrysDecember 9 2009, 00:36:39 UTC
I mean, *everybody* KNOWS that representational art of people and animals is forbidden in Islam, so obviously this representational picture of people and animals must not exist, because if it existed it would have had to have been made by a Muslim representational artist - QED!
(I got frustrated at a commenter the other day, whose objection to Anna Valarious wasn't that she was a badly-done Action Girl, but that Action Girls in costume pics didn't belong at all and broke the suspension of disbelief (where vampires didn't) because apparently they were unfamiliar with the entire corpus of Trouser Roles in Western European lit and historical record...)
Re: You know, these paintings can't exist.spiralsheepDecember 11 2009, 22:44:08 UTC
if it existed it would have had to have been made by a Muslim representational artist - QED!
If I recall my history correctly, the Mughal court had an atelier of artists attached and at the ready to do the Emperor's artistic bidding (and his portrait), heh.
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This is the kind of thing that always makes for amusing moments when reading art books - the somewhat amazing socio-historical implications of various paintings and artifacts often are just completely skipped over, so that you wonder a) do the authors just live in such an academic shell that uncouth remarks like oh hey this is an expensive handmade salad oil cruet in the shape of a widdling monkey wearing a hat I wonder who on earth would have thought this was cute let alone shelling ( ... )
Reply
"at people in the equestrian world about the stupidity and ahistoricality of contemporary attitudes regarding paints".
Um, um, that's a very, um, *sheer* bodice, isn't it?
Indian (Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh) women's clothing in the pre-Mughal and Mughal eras and the representation of women's clothing in pre-Mughal, Mughal, and post-Mughal Indian art is an incredibly complex subject which I know very little about except that women didn't always cover themselves in the ways outsiders to those cultures might assume and the historically in/accurate artistic representations of that are another layer of complexity.
the somewhat amazing socio-historical implications of various paintings and artifacts often are just completely skipped over, so that ( ... )
Reply
Reply
I just sat there at the desk in my college library's oversize-section (where all the best art books end up) and just - my mind went completely blank for several long moments as I looked at this exquisite 18th century glazed ware taking up the whole page and tried to avoid thinking the words "the stopper - the stopper's in his - that's the spout, his PENIS IS THE SPOUT AND YOU POUR YELLOW SALAD OIL OUT OF IT ON YOUR SALAD" and then I tried to stop sporfling loud enough that anybody'd come round to see--
Then I turned the page over to read what the cultured critic was saying about it and - not a peep. Not. One. Like, I thought at first they'd stuck the wrong caption on, b/c that seemed more likely than Not One Bloody Word about what it would look like when you used this bit of tableware ( ... )
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I adore the Deccan-style paintings in sooo many ways.
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(I got frustrated at a commenter the other day, whose objection to Anna Valarious wasn't that she was a badly-done Action Girl, but that Action Girls in costume pics didn't belong at all and broke the suspension of disbelief (where vampires didn't) because apparently they were unfamiliar with the entire corpus of Trouser Roles in Western European lit and historical record...)
Reply
If I recall my history correctly, the Mughal court had an atelier of artists attached and at the ready to do the Emperor's artistic bidding (and his portrait), heh.
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