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It has been a while since we had a post celebrating all things Gothic. Last week’s post about the Yellow Emperor has reminded me of the unsettling relationship which we all have with mirrors (which are so lifelife and yet so empty and which always feature our own aging countenances staring at us with mute appeal). I wondered if I could find some beautiful ornamental Gothic mirrors to put up in a little gallery. Boy howdy! There were a lot to chose from. Here is a little sampling:
Of course these mirrors have the beauty of Gothic style, but they lack the disturbing simulacra of life which real mirrors furnish. You will have to imagine your own face in them. Or you could head over to your nearest foreboding manor to see if you can find one of these beauties underneath a big gray dusty sheet. Or I guess you just buy them: they are mostly for sale on the internet, which is maybe the most disturbing thing of all….
Here is an illuminated page from the Da Costa Book of Hours which was illustrated by Flemish master Simon Bening around 1515 AD. Bening was regarded as the last great Flemish illuminator. His illustrations (somewhat like “The Shepheardes Calender“) chart the months of the year through sensitive landscapes filled with hard-working farmers and gardeners. It is a remarkable and rare work in the canon or art in that the workers look like they are actually working, but are neither bumpkinish figures of fun nor beautiful superhumans (although they are brilliantly attired in expensive new garb). The book was made for the Sá family of Portugal (it is a Sephardic surname). This is the illustration for the month of March when winter has not yet left the land, yet the first green shoots are appearing. The gardeners are hard at work laying in the new garden and repairing the trellised avenue as a fur clad nobleman explains what he wants. Note the courtly nobles holding hands on the bridge and the stork nesting on the chimney of the handsome little gothic chateau.
Welcome back to Ferrebeekeeper’s special Halloween series about cities! Obviously, no such effort would be complete without venturing once again into the realms of the Gothic, that ill-defined but very real concept which encompasses literature, history, culture, and architecture in exceedingly different (and yet weirdly unified) ways across a span of 1700 years. My first inclination here was to present some famous Gothic fantasy cities—Minis Tirith, Gotham, Lankhmar, Oldtown, and Ankh-Morpork (sob) but the daunting nature of this project quickly became obvious. Maybe we will revisit these places later (I feel like I have lived in each of them), but right now let us turn to what is arguably the world’s most successful actual extant Gothic city, which is also a place I don’t know nearly as well as those fantasy burgs: the great metropolis of Barcelona!
I have legions of friends who return from Barcelona singing its praises as the world’s greatest party city, and I remember lots of partial factoids from the 1992 Summer Olympics (which were completely amazing: Thanks Barcelona!). Sadly, I don’t know much about the actual city which is too bad–of all of the places on Earth, Barcelona has true claim to being the most Gothic city, not just because of its Gothic quarter (the somber medieval buildings were added to and spruced up at the end of the 19th century) , its ancient Gothic cathedral (the Barcelona Cathedral, seen at the top of the post and immediately above), its new Gothic cathedral (The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família designed by Gaudi, which is immediately below), or its many other Gothic architectural wonders, but instead because of its history.
Barcelona has two foundation myths, both of which are amazing. According to legend it was either founded by the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca (Hannibal’s dad) or by Hercules himself as he roamed the Mediterranean world during his famous labors. Wow! The truth is only slightly less amazing. The Romans first built Barcelona into a major city, but they built on top of a settlement which was already ancient. Archaeologists have found artifacts/remains which can be dated back to 5000 years ago.
Ancient Roman Burial Ground in Barcelona
As the Roman Empire blew apart (because of climate change, cultural stagnation, and disastrous misrule by corrupt dolts), strange groups of barbaric invaders from the hinterlands marauded through what had once been the most prosperous provinces of the West. Among these tribes were Huns, Franks, Sueves, Vandals, Alans, and Burgundians (goodness help us), but perhaps the most infamous of these groups were the Visigoths, who sacked Rome itself in 410 AD. The Visigoths warred with Rome and its allies for generations while they sought a permanent kingdom (hoping perhaps to become like the Franks, who grabbed up the most beautiful parts of France). For a time it seemed the Visigoths had found a permanent home in what is now southern France, but the tides of War turned against them and they moved southwards.
Thus, in the beginning of the 6th century AD, Barcelona was the capital of the Visigoth Kingdom. In 511 AD, the king of the Visigoths was a nine-year-old child named Amalaric. Amalaric was an Arian Christian, which is to say he was a follower of the nontrinitarian Christological doctrine of Arius, not that he marched around in studded jackets throwing dumb white power fist salutes (although, frankly, he probably did that too). He was married to Chrotilda, the daughter of Clovis I and she was a devout Catholic devoted to the trinity. The two fought ferociously about religion and Amalaric would beat Chrotilda savagely to demonstrate the superiority of his Christological doctrines. At one pointshe even sent a towel stained with her blood to her brother Childebert I to show him the benighted state of her marriage.
Hmm…We have fallen down a bit of a Medieval history rabbit hole here in describing why Barcelona is a Gothic city. To succinctly recap, it was the capital of the Visigoths and it has whole districts of Gothic buildings which are either Medieval, or made in faux Medieval styles. And what about Amalaric? In the early 530s, he fought the Ostragoth army and was defeated. He fled back to Barcelona but was betrayed and murdered by his own men (perhaps at the command of Theudis, governor of Barcelona. Some say you can still hear Amalaric’s ghost, angrily promulgating Arian doctrines among the midnight bubble disco parties of present-day Barcelona, but to me that sounds like something some disreputable blogger made up to get hits.
Since this has been a busy week, we will keep today’s post short and sweet (hopefully this will also discourage any disastrous copy writing errors: I fully apologize if any have occurred in the recent past). This astonishingly beautiful building is the City Hall of Leuven, the capital of the Flemish province of Brabant in central Belgium. The building is a prime example of Brabantine Gothic, a highly ornate late Gothic style of architecture, which originated in Flanders in the mid fifteenth century. Work began on the Leuven Town Hall in 1439 and proceeded in fits and starts (as various chief architects died) until the building was finished in 1469). The building has survived mostly intact throughout the great wars which devastated Leuven (although a World War II bomb strike on the front facade was not fully repaired until the 1980s).
Although the building is not especially noteworthy in terms of its history, it is is exceedingly pretty. It’s long angular shape and numerous ogee arches are much to my taste and make me want to research further examples of the Brabantine Gothic. In fact I am going to go do that right now!
We are coming up to Halloween time and Ferrebeekeeper always features a special theme week to celebrate the spooky season. Start getting ready for next week’s dark excitement! For today though I want to present a half-spooky, half-beautiful Gothic post (since it has been too long since we visited that category).
One of my favorite things are fountains—the aesthetic (and, usually, the actual) focal point of gardens and town squares. Fountains represent vitality, comfort, and healing—they are the place where people go to quench their spiritual thirst (and, you know, get water).
The most famous fountains tend to be in Baroque, modern, and Greco-Roman styles, but there are also many lovely Gothic fountains throughout Europe. Some of these are almost wholly religious in character, but others are spidery and ornate or feature dragons, monster, and gargoyles.
Here is a little gallery of random Gothic fountains. Most of them are real, but it seems like a couple may have been built by computer programmers to enliven online worlds of magic and fantasy. They are all exciting and interesting and they provide an early taste of Halloween fun (and hopefully quench your need for Gothic hydration).
Today’s post combines the splendor of summer, the loveliness of gardens, and the foreboding beauty of gothic architecture. How can we accomplish such a juxtaposition? By featuring a small gallery of Gothic summerhouses from estate gardens of the great and powerful (mostly in England).
A summerhouse is a garden feature found in grander gardens than mine! It is a sort of folly building: a small open building in a garden or park where someone can sit during the summer time. Of course great aristocrats of yore had a different idea of what constitutes “small” or “open” than I do, so some of the summer houses in European gardens are practically houses in their own right. Looking at certain examples here makes me realize that for an Earl or Duke, summerhouse probably means “surplus house where you can party with a viscount and 20 retainers.” Still some of these houses are actually on the smaller side and could almost be gazeboes, playhouses, or “cots” (as simple huts were sometimes called).
My old roommate Jennifer has decamped to the great Smokey Mountains to work remotely for a month and I am told she is doing all of her work from a splendid summerhouse. I wonder if she has something like these. Unfortunately the lords of Wall Street won’t let me out of the building during summer (which is most wise, since I would undoubtedly wander off or start drawing or gardening if not shackled to my workstation). Still one can dream about these beautiful structures and lazing away the golden months on high summer in such opulent magnificence!
Happy Halloween! This year, I have been working on a new series of artworks centered on flatfish. I suppose flatfish have supplanted toruses as the primary focus of my art. People seem to like flounder better than donuts (the asymmetric fish have more personality…or at least they have faces), however the universe is not shaped like a flatfish (according to current models), so it raises the question of what the flounder means symbolically. Flatfish are regarded as a delicious prey animal by humans, however they are excellent predators in their own right: they are sort of the middle-class of the oceans. Like the middle class, the pleurectiformes are experts at blending in, and they change their color and pattern to match their circumstances. Today’s circumstances, however, are not merely muddy sand flats—the whole world is filled with wild eclectic ambiguity which is hard for anyone to follow (much less a bottom-dwelling fish). My full flounder series thus explore the larger human and natural ecosystems of the late Holocene and early Anthropocene world. Each one lives in a little predatory microcosm where it is hunting and hunted.
The bizarre asymmetry of the flatfish also appeals to me. Since my artwork seemingly concerns topology, this may be significant—although a classical knot theorist would blithely observe that a flatfish is homeomorphic with a torus (assuming one regards the digestive tract as a continuous tube). At any rate it is currently Halloween and the flounder need to blend in with the monsters, goblins, witches, and mummies of the scary season! I made three black and white pen and ink flounders to use as Halloween coloring pages. These are supposed to print out at 8.5 inches x 11 inches, but who knows how wordpress will format them for your device? Let me know if you want me to send you a JPEG.
The top flounder is a classical Halloween artwork of haunted houses bats, witches, pumpkins, and mummies. In the center, mortality and the devil grasp for the human soul. The mood of the second artwork is more elusive and elegiac: dark fungi grow upon the sole as an underling hauls a dead gladiator away in the depths. Serpent monsters fill up the sky and our lady of the flowers blesses a corpse. The final pen and ink drawing is unfinished (so you can add your own monster) but it centers around a haunted jack-in-the-box and a ruined windmill. A bog monster, scarecrow and lady ghost haunt the doomed landscape.
I also threw in three little colored Halloween flounder at the bottom–as a teaser for my Instagram page. You should check it out for your daily flounder (free of commentary and text, as is increasingly the way of our digital age). I hope you enjoy these colorful treats and have a wonderful holiday!
This is Las Lajas sanctuary in Colombia. It was built on a bridge 50 metres (160 ft) tall which crosses the Guáitara River not far from the Ecuador border. This beautiful sanctuary, a gothic revival mini cathedral, was completed between 1916 and 1949, but previous chapels have existed at the site for a long time. According to folklore, the Virgin Mary appeared to a woman, Maria Mueces, and her deaf-mute daughter, Rosa, at the site in 1754. The two were passing by the Guaitara River when a storm broke out. They sought shelter by a waterfall coming from the canyon wall. Suddenly Rosa began shouting to her mother that the Virgin was calling to her and the pair witnessed the goddess above the gorge. Later when Rosa unexpectedly died, Maria went back to the canyon to pray, whereupon her daughter was restored to life. The modern church also features its own “miracle”: there is a fresco of the Virgin mother behind the altar…and nobody knows who painted it! To an artists, this latter miracle seems a little less like a miracle and more like an improperly executed PR plan. Also look at the Virgin’s enormous crown!
Ferrebeekeeper has a longstanding obsession with Gothic concepts and forms. We have explored the long strange historical roots of the Goths (which stretched back to the time of the Roman Empire and the northern corners of Europe), and looked at Gothic aesthetics ranging from clocks, to beds, to gates, to houses, to alphabets, to cathedrals. Today’s Gothic-themed post straddles the divide between literature and architecture. We already saw such a two discipline dynamic at work with the beginning of the Gothic revival, an aesthetic movement which grew up out of a popular novel The Castle of Otranto.
The term “Steamboat Gothic” is sort of a reverse case. In 1952, Frances Parkinson Keyes published “Steamboat Gothic” a long-winded romantic novel about the lives and loves of a riverboat gambler and his progeny as they pursue their fortunes over generations beside the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. After the novel came out the great 19th century wedding cake mansions of columns and porches which stood along these rivers came to be known as “steamboat gothic.” This beautiful filigree style was thought to resemble the many tiered decks of great southern steamboats from the belle epoque of river travel.
Many different Victorian design trends come together in “steamboat gothic”–the Italianate, Gothic revival, and Carpenter’s Gothic mix together with style trends like Greek revival and “nautical.” The mixture simultaneously evokes the beauties of classical antiquity, the ante-bellum south, and 19th century middle America.
Look at these beautiful porches and porticoes. I wish I were on the veranda of one of these beauties sipping lemonade and looking out over the river (although really I would probably be being bitten by mosquitoes as I desperately painted yet another layer of snow white paint on a big empty house).
My apologies! I usually try to write a blog post every workday (and answer comments the day…or at least the week…that you all leave them), however, unfortunately my poor computer became overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of the modern world and died unexpectedly. It was one of those classic heartbreaking electronic death scenes: I was watching the emotional climax of a movie on Netflix when suddenly there was a loud diminishing power-down noise (poink! BZZzzzzfffft) and the image collapsed into a jagged phosphorescent line and suddenly my only computer was as dead as bipartisan compromise in America.
It is shocking how much is on a computer. I don’t just use it to write and communicate with friends around the world. It is also my graphic resource, my stereo, my document archive, my financial records, and my cookbook. Let this tale serve as a cautionary reminder to back things up on those cheap little portable hard drives!
Anyway, thanks to a heroic intercession by my friend the IT manager (who swooped in like Apollo on a cloud in French Neoclassical theatre) I am back in business with no lasting harm done. The whole scary episode has led me to reflect on the central place of computers in our lives…and yet they are all utilitarian gray and black boxes. If I designed a computer, it would look like a glowing ball of energy in a bell jar suspended on cabriolet legs—not like a flat screen connected to a miniature metal utility shed. I wondered if somebody had spent some time to jazz up computers with gothic stylings (a favorite aesthetic of mine) and I found these images which I have used to illustrate this post. These are so cool! Why can’t we have prettier computers? People of the future are going to look at our metal rectangles and conclude that we were primitives….although I guess if one’s fancy computer that looks like a Gothic cathedral just suddenly died it would be even more crushing than otherwise.
Anyway, i am sorry for the blog interruption. I will try to answer everyone’s excellent comments tomorrow! In the mean time, it’s good to be back on the internet!
