an art / history blog i made while drunk

predominantly western art w/ a bias towards medieval art and history

[magictransistor]

Hildegard von Bingen, The Hildegardis-Codex, c. 1151.

[incensed-environment]

For that matter, any female-bodied person living today continually confronts images of themselves in the media that perpetuate sexist and objectifying narratives beyond our control. The accessibility of online networks and their ability to bypass hegemonic systems of power has allowed women control over our own representation. Whether that is communicated through text or .jpg, it is a reaction to an incapacity to manage our own environment in a society that continually defines our bodies for us. As we know, the demand for the female body and the condemnation of it exist simultaneously and our occupation of social media is an utter disaster to the male who has been conditioned to take up space in the offline world. And so, they attempt to diffuse our agency with accusations of a gendered narcissism.

me lol

[incensed-environment]

[incensed-environment]

The (almost) unknown art of Miles Davis 

“I’ve been painting and sketching all my life. Also, for my tailor I used to draw my suits, ‘cause he couldn’t speak English.”

[incensed-environment]

Sanaa Hamid, Ethnographic Selfies (2015)

In this series of gifs, I revisit the archive at Royal Engineers Museum, using the idea of self-representation and the selfie as a means to responding to the oppressive colonialist gaze. Ethnographic studies of “native women”, who became dehumanised and the victim of the white male’s curiosity and desire to document and own, are combined with performative engagements with these images, which result in an interaction between myself and the women of the archive.

[post-terrified]

what’s wrong with me I have a 10 pg paper due tomorrow which I only started today and I’ve just decided to argue for a completely new meta category of public art called the Ambivalent Monument who d I think I am?? Rosalind Krauss????

[incensed-environment]

art history antics

[post-terrified]

[incensed-environment]

Ken Lum is a Vancouver-based artist that heralds from the city's photo conceptual movement. He is known for his use of pairing image and text in a manner reminiscent of commercial billboards to explore notions of the private and the public.

[incensed-environment]

So I’ve decided to take up this blog again but I’ll be moving away from the medieval and focusing more on contemporary works so if anyone’s still following this stay tuned!

[humanpersonface]

Hey, remember when Raphael was painting the Cupid and Psyche frescos at the Villa Farnesina and he decided that his lush and fertile garland frame was too subtle in implying the fruitfulness of sex and romance between the two main figures and so he included a huge penis fruit with pendulous fruit-balls splitting open a very graphically suggestive fig?

Subtlety of a bulldozer.

[bfantechi]

The most common Italian slang for vulva is figa or fica, literally “female fig” (in Italian all nouns are gendered and fig is male). Subtle indeed.

[renaissance-art]

Medieval Depictions of Hell

[johannescassianus-deactivated20]

Oldest surviving image of the Madonna, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, 6th century

[proletarian-palamite]

I have a paper copy of this icon. :D

[mediumaevum]

[medieval-women]

1. Æthelburg, Queen of Wessex (c.673 – 740)

2. Olga of Kiev (c890 - 969)

3. Theophanu, Holy Roman Empress (c955 – 991)

4. Rogneda of Polotsk (962 – 1002)

5. Anna Porphyrogenita (963 – 1011)

6. Judith of Brittany exhumation (982 – 1017)

7. Emma of Normandy (c985 – 1052)

8. …

[jeannepompadour]

Ilustration from De claris mulieribus by Giovanni Boccaccio in an anonymous French translation from Rouen, c. 1440 

[karosen-deactivated20201021]

De mulieribus claris (English: Famous Women or On Famous Women or Of Famous Women) is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, first published in 1374. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature. At the same time as he was writing On Famous Women, Boccaccio also compiled a collection of biographies of famous men, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (On the Fates of Famous Men).

[renaissance-art]

Artist Signatures: Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Durer

[medieval-women]

1. Æthelburg,Queen of Wessex (c.673 – 740)

2. Olga of Kiev (c890 - 969)

3. Theophanu, Holy Roman Empress (c955 – 991)

4. Rogneda of Polotsk (962 – 1002)

5. Anna Porphyrogenita (963 – 1011)

6. Judith of Brittany exhumation (982 – 1017)

7. Emma of Normandy (c985 – 1052)

8. ...

[medieval-women]

Joanna of Flanders (aka Jeanne la Flamme, ‘Fiery Joanna’)

Consort Duchess of Brittany

Born c.1295 – Died 1374

Claim to fame: A heroic woman who spent much of her life defending the Dukedom of Brittany for her husband and son before becoming mentally ill and ending her days in confinement.

Joanna’s husband, John de Monfort, had claimed the title of Duke of Brittany but was contested by Joan of Penthièvre (Joan the Lame) and her husband, Charles of Blois. King Philip VI of France imprisoned John de Montfort and declared Charles and Joan the successful claimants. In response, Joanna announced her infant son as the leader of the Montfortist faction and, from then on, committed herself to upholding her family’s claim to the dukedom.

Joanna’s most famous exploit was her defence of the besieged town of Hennebont. Armed and dressed in armour, she encouraged the people to fight and the women to “cut their skirts and take their safety in their own hands”. She broke out from Hennebont with 300 horseman, burned down Charles’ supplies and tents (hence the nickname “Jeanne la Flamme”) and successfully fought her way to Brest. She returned with 600 additional men, reinforcing the town and eventually forcing Charles to retreat.

In her later life, the war entered a stalemate and Joanna developed an unknown mental illness. She lived to see the final victory of her cause but spent her later years confined in an English castle. Joanna’s Legacy

Joanna showed considerable skill as a military leader in the War of the Breton Succession and was later celebrated for her fiery character and exploits in Breton folklore. She possibly influenced Joan of Arc and was cited as a role-model by Victorian feminists.

Quotes about Joanna

"[She] had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion" ~ Jean Froissart

"The most extraordinary woman of the age" ~ David Hume

"She was unquestionably an extraordinary woman: courageous and personally valiant" ~ Pierce Butler

Wiki; Castlemere.org; Lothene.org