amandoline

The things I like.

[queenotrera]

History wants so badly for Cleopatra to be beautiful. Like they can’t conceive of Rome being intimidated by anything less

[terpsikeraunos]

because being a linguist, fleet commander, and powerful ruler doesn’t matter, only her looks

[destroymales-deactivated2023032]

Her Arab contemporaries raved about her being very interested and knowledgeable in the sciences.

She completely reformed the system in Alexandria, and Egypt at large; making it much more of a functional powerhouse. 

She did what 300 years of her ancestors couldn’t: Managed to get the support of both the Greek AND Egyptian subjects she ruled.

There is a sculpture that has been identified as her, through comparisons to coins minted under her rule, that proves beyond a doubt that she wasn’t particularly beautiful.

It isn’t that people just happen to believe it by mistake. Rome was fucking terrified of her and painted her as a vapid, scheming, beautiful, sex obsessed queen to discredit her to their people. She was a threat, and that was how they handled it. The unfortunate thing is that that is the most surviving record of her. A smear campaign against one of the smartest, most powerful women in human history. 

[jinxmyride-deactivated20161103]

This is a woman who became her father’s co-ruler at nearly 14 years old in order to train for her actual ascension to the throne, who was forced to marry her own siblings in order to keep her power, and it’s widely believed that she poisoned them so she could rule alone. She’s a Pharaoh who led Egypt into a new era of wealth, who went fearlessly into war to protect her rule and Egypt’s independence from the Roman empire, a woman who took her own life rather than face being raped and tortured by her conquerors, knowing full well that she was leaving her surviving children in their uncertain mercy. Cleopatra is one of the most interesting, morally ambiguous, complexing historical figures we have and the media has turned her into a tantalizing sex object for the male gaze.

Even after Cleopatra died her influence on those around her lived on: her daughter, Cleopatra Selene, was the only child of Cleopatra’s to live to adulthood, and she became queen of Mauretania along with her husband Juba and it’s believed they married for love, which was extremely rare for that time period, especially among nobles/the upper class. Not only did she grow up in the house of her mother’s worst enemy and technical murderer, but she still went on to become a queen who possessed an equal amount of political power as her husband, even having her face minted on coins on the opposite side of his likeness, showing they were equal rulers.

Cleopatra and her influence on history, and her daughter’s legacy, have both been brushed aside in favour of the sexy Cleopatra visage. It’s bullshit. Egyptian mythology is interesting and vivid, and full of powerful women and it’s bullshit that we take some of the most powerful women in Africa’s history and try to turn them into fashion icons or sluts who only ruled through toying with men. 

[luthienmuse]

I LIVE FOR PEOPLE TO KNOW THIS, people still refuse to believe that a woman can/could have achieved anything without beauty or fucking magical powers  

[cheese24k]

Mama cat encourages her kitten to escape

[thotwing-deactivated20190613]

THE MAMA CAT IS SO PROUD OF HER KITTEN

[sosuperawesome]

Heather Mahler on Instagram

[incidentalcomics]

How to Finish

I drew this poster for Jon Acuff and his FINISH book tour. Big thanks to Jon for this collaboration, his book has some great ideas about how to complete creative and life goals.

[calanoida]

Susanna and the Elders, Restored (Left)

Susanna and the Elders, Restored with X-ray (Right)

Kathleen Gilje, 1998

[humanpersonface]

Oooh my gosh this is rad. This is so rad.

For those who don’t know about this painting, the artist was the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi.

Gentileschi was a female painter in a time when it was very largely unheard of for a woman to be an artist. She managed to get the opportunity for training and eventual employment because her father, Orazio, was already a well established master painter who was very adamant that she get artistic training. He apparently saw a high degree of skill in some artwork she did as a hobby in childhood. He was very supportive of her and encouraged her to resist the “traditional attitude and psychological submission to brainwashing and the jealousy of her obvious talents.”  

Gentileschi became extremely well known in her time for painting female figures from the Bible and their suffering. For example, the one seen above depicts the story from the Book of Daniel. Susanna is bathing in her garden when two elders began to spy on her in the nude. As she finishes they stop her and tell her that they will tell everyone that they saw her have an affair with a young man (she’s married so this is an offense punishable by death) unless she has sex with them. She refuses, they tell their tale, and she is going to be put to death when the protagonist of the book (Daniel) stops them.

So that painting above? That was her first major painting. She was SEVENTEEN-YEARS-OLD. For context, here is a painting of the same story by Alessandro Allori made just four years earlier in 1606: 

Wowwwww. That does not look like a woman being threatened with a choice between death or rape. So imagine 17 year old Artemisia trying to approach painting the scene of a woman being assaulted. And she paints what is seen in the x-ray above. A woman in horrifying, grotesque anguish with what appears to be a knife poised in her clenched hand. Damn that shit is real. Who wants to guess that she was advised by, perhaps her father or others, to tone it down. Women can’t look that grotesque. Sexual assault can’t be depicted as that horrifying. And women definitely can’t be seen as having the potential to fight back. Certainly not in artwork. Women need to be soft. They need to wilt from their captors but still look pretty and be a damsel in distress. So she changed it. 

What’s interesting to note is that she eventually painted and stuck with some of her own, less traditional depictions of women. However, that is more interesting with some context.  

(Warning for reference to rape, torture, and images of paintings which show violence and blood.)

So, Gentileschi’s story continues in the very next year, 1611, when her father hires Agostino Tassi, an artist, to privately tutor her. It was in this time when Tassi raped her. He then proceeded to promise that he would marry her. He pointed out that if it got out that she had lost her virginity to a man she wasn’t going to marry then it would ruin her. Using this, he emotionally manipulated her into continuing a sexual relationship with him. However, he then proceeded to marry someone else. Horrified at this turn of events she went to her father. Orazio was having none of this shit and took Tassi to court. At that time, rape wasn’t technically an offense to warrant a trial, but the fact that he had taken her virginity (and therefore technically “damaged Orazio’s property”. ugh.) meant that the trial went along. It lasted for 7 months. During this time, to prove the truth of her words, Artemisia was given invasive gynecological examinations and was even questioned while being subjected to torture via thumb screws. It was also discovered during the trial that Tassi was planning to kill his current wife, have an affair with her sister, and steal a number of Orazio’s paintings. Tassi was found guilty and was given a prison sentence of…. ONE. YEAR……. Which he never even served because the verdict was annulled.

During this time and a bit after (1611-1612), Artemisia painted her most famous work of Judith Slaying Holofernes. This bible story involved Holofernes, an Assyrian general, leading troops to invade and destroy Bethulia, the home of Judith. Judith decides to deal with this issue by coming to him, flirting with him to get his guard down, and then plying him with food and lots of wine. When he passed out, Judith and her handmaiden took his sword and cut his head off. Issue averted. The subject was a very popular one for art at the time. Here is a version of the scene painted in 1598-99 by Carivaggio, whom was a great stylistic influence on Artemisia:

This depiction is a pretty good example of how this scene was typically depicted. Artists usually went out of their way to show Judith committing the act (or having committed it) while trying to detach her from the actual violence of it. In this way, they could avoid her losing the morality of her character and also avoid showing a woman committing such aggression. So here we see a young, rather delicate looking Judith in a pure white dress. She is daintily holding down this massive man and looks rather disgusted and upset at having to do this. Now, here is Artemisia’s:

Damn. Thats a whole different scene. Here Holofernes looks less like he’s simply surprised by the goings ons and more like a man choking on his own blood and struggling fruitlessly against his captors. The blood here is less of a bright red than in Carrivaggio’s but is somehow more sickening. It feels more real, and gushes in a much less stylized way than Carrivaggio’s. Not to mention, Judith here is far from removed from the violence. She is putting her physical weight into this act. Her hands (much stronger looking than most depictions of women’s hands in early artwork) are working hard. Her face, as well, is completely different. She doesn’t look upset, necessarily, but more determined. 

It’s also worth note that the handmaiden is now involved in the action. It’s worth note because, during her rape trial, Artemisia stated that she had cried for help during the initial rape. Specifically she had called for Tassi’s female tenant in the building, Tuzia. Tuzia not only ignored her cries for help, but she also denied the whole happening. Tuzia had been a friend of Artemisia’s and in fact was one of her only female friends. Artemisia felt extremely betrayed, but rather than turning her against her own gender, this event instilled in her the deep importance of female relationships and solidarity among women. This can be seen in some of her artwork, and I believe in the one above, as well, with the inclusion of the handmaiden in the act.

So, I just added a million words worth of information dump on a post when no one asked me, but there we go. I could talk for ages about Artemisia as a person and her depictions of women (even beyond what I wrote above. Don’t get me started on her depictions of female nudes in comparison to how male artists painted nude women at the time.) 

To sum up: Artemisia Gentileschi is rad as hell. This x-ray is also rad as hell and makes her even radder.

I love art history.

[humanpersonface]

I’m reblogging this again to add something that I also think is important to know about Artemisia Gentileschi. Back in her time and through even to TODAY, there are people who argue that her artworks were greatly aided by her father…. As in he either helped her paint them or just straight up painted them himself. Hell, there are a number of works only recently (past several years or so) that have been officially attributed to Artemisia because people originally saw the signature with “Gentileschi” in it and automatically attributed it to Orazio. So, not only was Artemisia Gentileschi an amazing artist and amazing historical figure, but I don’t want it to be ignored that there are people over 400 years later who still won’t give her the credit she deserves, just because she’s a woman and obviously women can’t paint like she did.

[amarilloo]

I fucking love Artemisia Gentileschi!!

[erikaschnellert]

Stranger Things is an amazing show. I can’t recommend it enough.

This comic isn’t very spoilery but it won’t make a lot of sense until you’ve watched the show. The entire first season is on Netflix. Go check it out!

[saathi1013]

okay but like THERE IS AN ACTUAL CONNECTION:

“When Millie auditioned, she had long brown hair down past her shoulders. But Eleven was written as having hair “buzzed almost to the scalp.” Millie and her parents were understandably hesitant to chop it all off. Would it look ugly? Would it cost her other roles? Fortunately, Mad Max: Fury Road was about to come out, so we pulled out a magazine photograph of Charlize Theron as Furiosa and showed it to Millie. “Charlize looks totally badass, right?” Millie agreed; Charlize looked badass. And that was it: She agreed to buzz it all off.

“When the day of the haircut finally arrived, Millie’s mom brought out a camcorder, while her dad ran away with tears in his eyes, unable to watch. It was a pretty dramatic scene. But also very quick. Within 10 minutes we had shaved it all off and slapped a fake “11” tattoo on Millie’s wrist. Millie looked at herself in the mirror, gave her best Furiosa scream — and Eleven was born.”

(source: ew.com)

I just.  LITTLE GIRLS BEING INSPIRED BY FURIOSA WHILE GROWN MEN CRY.

[gifcraft]

[outrunmyself]

I will never not reblog this. The 2 guys in the back are just ❤❤❤

[running-on-oatmeal]

Always reblog.

[golddsharkk]

people who get hyped up for other people are the greatest people you can have in your life.

[lovemysub-deactivated20250527]

Love their reactions. They aren’t worried about being emasculated, they aren’t insecure, they are just genuinely impressed that she’s lifting like a beast!

[laureola]

this makes me want to 🏋️

❤️ to the fellas in the back

[stephencolbertly]

I lose more hair in the shower in the morning than you have on your whole head.

[latenightseth]

Watch more here: 

[mattfractionblog]

[cheese24k]

[friku]

where the fuck has this been all my life?????????

[kind-cult]

brrp brrrp brrrrp

[demisatyr]

this is the type of content i want to see on tumblr

[howtomusicmajor]

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

[allydsgn]

WOAH THIS SOUNDS HELPFUL. I’M GOING TO TRY THIS IMMEDIATELY. Also, I made a chart for myself, but if anyone else wants it for reference (or if this is wrong and I misread you can tell me) here it is:

[sridevi]

WONDER WOMAN // The Feminum Mystique: Part 2 (1976)

[wilwheaton]

TImely.

[sandandglass]

The Creative Act of Listening to a Talking Frog

Kermit the Frog gives a talk on creativity and creative risk-taking

[fallfeatherspony]

did a puppet just fucking give some of the best advice ever.

[wilwheaton]

I hope you heard this in Kermit’s voice, just like I did.

[gendry-deactivated20190326]

Brienne impressed by fierce little girls from the North

[crappysketches]

I seriously could have done something far more useful with my time…

[xekstrin]

 don’t ever regret the time spent on this

[isei-silva]

too cute

[euclase]

I've been hesitant to send this but I think I have to tell you. I've given up all hope of ever becoming an artist because of you. I used to think I was good but my outlook on life has been getting worse, and it's at a point now where I can't see why I should go on. This is your fault. I worked so hard on my art, but it will never matter because you will always be better, more popular, and no one will know my name. I hope you remember next time you think you're great that you're not. I'm proof.

Ugh no

[brainfuzz]

That’s funny, because when my 14 year old daughter gets frustrated with her art skills not being up to par with her imagination, I point @euclase ‘s art out to her and tell her this person had the same problem, and got better with practice.  I tell her to draw anyway, even if it doesn’t look good, because you can always throw it out if you *really* don’t like it, and then you get to try again, and maybe this time will be the time it looks good to her.

And you know what?  That’s what she does.  She compares her art to her art, and sees that she’s getting better and looks at other people’s art and sees how far they’ve come over the years and knows she’ll be able to improve that much too.

[euclase]

1987 vs 2017

[euclase]

@referencingadvice

30 years this is why you should take “its never too late to start” with a grain of salt to do art as a hobby?  its never to late to start to make it a career??? ehhhhhif your 20 with debt and it takes 30 years (childhood u have more free time so even longer probs but) to be successfulthen thats not realistic to start a career at 50 and most ppl without a cushy family to fall back on should pick another careerbecause eating and paying the bills is important

I take HUGE issue with this.

Listen.

I have an enormously slow learning curve. I never went to school. I was never art educated. I figured everything out on my own. Art was never an assignment or a job for me, so I never had incentive. I did whatever I wanted. I work at a snail’s pace. I have a full-time job that isn’t art.

So yeah, thirty years? That’s pretty dang good for skills that came entirely by trial and error. I’m proud of that.

But I know (and have tutored) artists who’ve gone from zip to realism in six months. I know artists right now who can show you their art from a year ago, who now HAVE CAREERS, and you won’t believe it’s the same artist.

It’s never too late to start. Fight me.

[laureola]

❤️

[heroes-get-made-deactivated2022]

Unsolved Mysteries

Some interesting reading for a rainy day.

Ambrose Bierce - A famous Civil War-era writer decides to leave his cushy life to go to Mexico, only to disappear forever.

Agent 335 - One of the first U.S. spies was a woman, but who?

Ancestral Puebloans - What happened to the ancient people in the Four Corners region (once called “Anasazi”)? And why is there evidence of cannibalism?

The Axeman of New Orleans - This guy won’t stop coming after people with an axe until everybody plays jazz music.

The Baychimo - When winter strikes, a ship sheds its crew–and then decides to take off without them.

The Canneto di Caronia Fires - Mysterious fires keep popping up in this small Sicilian town.

Çatalhöyük - A 9,500-year-old city in Turkey had everything going for it, and yet it was abandoned.

The Chicago Tylenol Murders - Someone laces Tylenol with poison and descends an entire city into chaos.

The Dancing Plague - People are stricken with the need to dance, some to their deaths.

D. B. Cooper - An unknown man hijacked a plane, extorted hundreds of thousands, and then parachuted to freedom.

The Dyatlov Pass Incident (tw: photo of a dead body) - Several experienced mountain hikers go into a mountain range in Russia and die of unknown causes. [see also]

Elisa Lam - A woman, seemingly pursued by an unseen foe, disappears, only to be found inside her hotel’s water tower two weeks later.

Erdstall - There are thousands of still-standing, ancient tunnels beneath central Europe, but no one knows what they’re for. [see also]

Genghis Khan’s Tomb - One of the greatest and most successful rulers of all time, but no one can find his final resting place.

The Hinterkaifeck Murders - Unexplained noises, missing house keys, and an entire family found dead in rural Germany.

The Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum Theft - Some hacks in police uniforms steal a bunch of priceless art, including a Rembrandt.

Japan’s Ghost Ship Problem (NEW!) - Ships from North Korea keep showing up on Japan’s shores… filled with mutilated corpses.

The Jian Seng (NEW!) - A giant ship is found floating with no crew and no one knows where it came from.

Jimmy Hoffa - A teamster with mob ties disappears, theories abound.

Joseph Newton Chandler III (NEW!) - Is this dead identity thief the Zodiac Killer? And if so, what is his real name?

The Joyita - Crew members abandon a real unsinkable ship, but why?

The Lighthouse Mystery - Several Scottish lighthouse keepers disappear abruptly.

Lori Erica Ruff (NEW!) - An identity thief dies and no one can figure out who she really was.

The Lost Colony (on Roanoke Island) - A bunch of white people decide to try and colonize an island and it doesn’t go well.

The Lost Dutchman Mine - In unforgiving territory lies a lost treasure just waiting to be found–if you don’t die first.

The Lost Nazi Plunder - The nazis stole hoards of important items, including art and cultural artifacts. Where are they now? [see also]

The Mary Celeste - A sailing ship in working order is found, still at sea, without a crew.

Monsieur Chouchani (NEW!) - Who was this mysterious Jewish teacher and mentor of Elie Weisel who dressed like a vagabond?

The Oakville Blobs - Gelatinous blobs of an unknown substance rain from the sky.

The Paris Catacombs - A seemingly infinite series of tunnels filled with bones, artwork, and missing explorers. [see also]

The Phaistos Disc - A mysterious disc, thousands of years old and covered in strange symbols, is found in Crete.

Rongorongo - An undecifered set of glyphs from Easter Island, possibly a completely independent language.

The Tamam Shud Case (tw: photo of a dead body) - A body shows up on a beach in Australia, and how it got there is wrapped in mystery and lies.

Tarrare - A man who couldn’t stop eating, anything and everything.

UVB-76 - A strange radio station in Russia broadcasts a constant buzz, broken only by strange readings of names and numbers.

The Voynich Manuscript - An unbreakable code in an ancient manuscript full of strange drawings–what’s not to like?

The Woman in the Tree (aka Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?) - A body turns up stuffed into a tree trunk, becomes a local rallying cry.

The Wow! Signal - A strong radio signal from space still has researchers stunned and baffled.

(These are the most reliable unsolved stories I could find. There are many others that require more sources to be believed or already have very plausible answers.)

Know a good one that isn’t listed? Let me know!

[v-ahavta]

@lorepodcast

[maradyer]