medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: Genevra Kornbluth <[log in to unmask]>
> The drapery is of course totally unlike, but did you notice the
treatment of heads and hair?
hair (at least male hair) is a much, much simpler problem to solve than
drapery --and one with many fewer solutions.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stavlokratz/1313781323/in/photostream/lightbox/
especially if the subject cooperates
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stavlokratz/1313781323/in/photostream/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stavlokratz/1277955532/in/photostream/lightbox/
but the drapery on these guys
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stavlokratz/1313781323/in/photostream/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stavlokratz/1298454258/in/photostream/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stavlokratz/1298453238/in/photostream/lightbox/
is merely the "suggestion" of drapery ("ummm...well, gosh, it's kinda made up
of several pieces and's kinda wavy in places, hear and thar...").
but the drapery on the ivories
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/HarrachDipt2.jpg
has at least *some* elements of the "real" thing --the PaulieAndy figure on
the right is at least on the way to having some complex, "rational"
articulation, complete with "omega folds" no less.
however, as i say, perhaps we may presume that ẏmagiers working in stone,
while not necessarily arising from the ranks of simple masons, very likely did
not have the advantages of the same high level of _formation_ in the
discipline of visualizing complex images as did their [perhaps] colleagues who
worked in much more precious media like ivory.
> I hadn't thought of something like the Cathedra Maximiani-- lovely notion.
i know Zit (or less) about ivories --including their usages.
but i think we are safe in saying that they were once *much* more common than
they are (even) now, and took all sorts of forms, some of which have not
survived.
i happened to buy a book at a sale yesterday afternoon which spoke a bit about
Max's chair
http://nlfaculty.dcccd.edu/mcclung/Images/AACCVIB0.jpg
and noted two factoids i wasn't aware of:
1) it was certainly not used as a real "throne" since it has no wooden
armature supporting the ivory panels and thus could not have withstood the
weight of a typically well fed bishop sitting in it; thus, although large
enough, it was purely "symbolic"
b) there is a considerable variation in the color of the panels (not
particularly visible in the shot above, but more so in others) --this is due
to the fact that several of the panels were detached early on and were only
re-assembled at the end of the 19th c. some of these were (over-)bleached in
the 19th c., to suit the dictates of the taste of the times regarding what
ivory "should" look like.
this last point only serves to emphasize as well what an "accident" is is that
the thing survives at all --much less in the (more or less) complete form
which have.
> The windows at San Pedro de la Nave are famously a bit weird. I rather
like this one
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/stavlokratz/1314667100/
yes, i particularly like the deliberate "entasis" of the columns there --a nod
to "classicism" and a very nice one at that.
> and here's another view of the one that caught your attention
>
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Campillo,_Iglesia_de_San_Pedro_de_la_Nave-PM_17901.jpg
so, it looks like that practice of cutting down the sill stones of a window
was not at all an accident, but rather just the way windows were "supposed to
be" --labor intensiveness be hanged.
curious.
> Visigothic ashlar masonry is almost always gorgeous.
again, the treatment of sills (along with other features) puts me in mind of
Inca stonework
http://tinyurl.com/7n5n2y9
for which the elementary term "gorgeous" doesn't begin to do justice.
these guys *loved* to do stuff like cutting down some stones to make other
ones fit.
i mean, it was their THING
http://www.worldisround.com/photos/29/251/379_o.jpg
http://classrooms.cove.k12.or.us/Middle%20School/Teachers/HubbardR/Images/Social%20Studies%20pics/Ancient%20Americas/inca%20stonework1.jpg
and they did it with stone tools, like this
http://www.peru-travel-confidential.com/image-files/incas-tools.jpg
the Vizzies cheated and at least had iron (or maybe good Toledo steel, i don't
know).
but the Inca window sills were relatively straightforward
http://aphs.worldnomads.com/ivan_miral/16462/image97.jpg
http://www.accidentalexplorer.com/uploaded_images/Machu-Picchu-Stonework-755349.jpg
or, at least sometimes they were
http://www.culturefocus.com/peru/pictures/machu-picchu-33small.jpg
ooops, here's one
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-baJkLHaLyGA/TqT1p6Lt9LI/AAAAAAAAAMc/leVPdnCGhaM/s1600/Machu+Picchu+027.JPG
the Inca stuff, generally, is just *Mind Boggling* if looked at with the
mammalian neo-cortex in the ON position
http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/125681/large/C0062498-Inca_stonework,_Sacsayhuaman,_Peru-SPL.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WnI1LeFOjuY/TiSfaC1oYPI/AAAAAAAAA8k/DvL-6ZXU9Mk/s1600/IMG_4215.JPG
i mean, **LOOK** at this
http://www.toogood.com/_/rsrc/1229396087894/solutions/IncaStonework.jpg?height=279&width=420
"gorgeous" can't touch it.
they *flaunted* the idea of "labor intensive"
it's enough to drive one to grasp at off-the-wall explanations like this
http://www.julianjaynes.org/bicameralmind.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Jaynes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29
id. est, there is an "iconography" to the stone work itself, and i'd say that
we're closer to being in the presence of purely psychological phenomena with
this Inca stuff --and with the Vizziegothic bits as well, though perhaps to a
lesser extent in the latter case.
(Alas, Jaynes doesn't deal with the medievils at all, confining himself to the
early cultures of the Near East and the pre-Columbian Americas. unfortunately
Jaynes died shortly after his most famous --and, regrettably, most "popular"--
book was published. my own take is that the middevils were, in Jaynesian
terms, 1.5-cameral --all AlGores, "Close, but no Cigar," betwix and between.)
but, of course, none of that particular New Age nonsense can be "proved," so
we have to ignore --or ridicule-- it.
without even bothering to read Jaynes.
c
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