You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘jeweled’ tag.
Idolatrous Floundering (Wayne Ferrebee, 2019) Wood with polymer figures and panel paintings
The art of the middle ages was meant to be viewed the way motion pictures are in the modern world. By painstakingly combining different disciplines (sculpting, painting, jewelsmithing, architecture, and calligraphy), medieval artists created emotionally fraught works which told an ever-changing story. The hidden figures, complex allusions, and frame-by-frame narrative progression invited extended contemplation.
Idolatrous Floundering (detail)
The sculpture “Idolatrous Floundering” is crafted to mimic these epic devotional artworks. Yet, whereas medieval art was meant to highlight the centrality of hierarchical religion in people’s lives, this sculpture apes such forms in order to examine the ways in which society uses emotional hooks to manipulate people for political or economic reasons. There is no sacred miracle at the heart of the hooked fish, just a dangerous trap. The strange addled worshipers and the natural world itself all stand in peril from this deadly devotion to false idols.
Idolatrous Flounder (detail)
Like the artisans of yesteryear, I carefully sawed, carved, sanded, and engraved the elaborate frame (and using a lathe to turn the finials). Then I painted the panels and hand-sculpted (and baked) all of the little polymer figures. Hopefully the jewel-like work possesses some of the troubling power of devotional artwork, but I also hope it won’t serve as a reliquary for a world ruined and used up by desperate adulation of coercive seductions.
Happy April Fools Day—or Happy April Fish! (as it is known in France). This is a special day for several reasons.
Most importantly today is the anniversary of Ferrebeekeeper which came into existence 7 years ago today! Since then, there have been lots of snakes, Goths, catfish, and colorful stories. I have gotten some things completely and utterly wrong, but I have always tried to do my best and be honest and keep the content coming, even when I was tired or sick or sad at heart. This is the one thousand five hundred and twelfth post! That’s a lot of clams and crowns! To celebrate, I am putting up three flounder-themed artworks (literal poissons d’Avril) and I am also announcing the rollout of a bizarre and compelling new online toy to appear here soon. I won’t tell you what it is (although I guess a prophet could tell you) but I will drop hints during next week’s blog posts.
Unless you are a Dagon-worshiper or a Micronesian, April Fish is one of the few fish-themed holidays on the calendar and so it is very precious for me, as a fish-themed artist. Additionally, today celebrates being careful in the face of obviously fake news stories. Now lately there have been lots of weird propaganda statements and transparent lies issuing from certain albescent domiciles in Washington DC, so the waters are even more muddied than usual (almost as if antagonists to the east are deliberately throwing up lots of lies and fake stories to make the real news seem suspect to people who are not very good at reading), but it is wise to be eternally on guard. Getting to the bottom of things is difficult, but a good rule of thumb is that real news is messy and complicated and offers more questions than answers (and lots of seeming contradictions), whereas self-serving puffery is generally gloriously simple and shifts all blame onto some third party (like Freemasons, foreigners, witches, or journalists).
Thank you all so much for reading. I treasure your attention and your patience. Forgive me for being so tardy in responding to comments and kindly pardon my errors or mistakes in judgement. Keep reading and looking and I will keep on writing, drawing, and floundering. There are glorious things ahead for all of us.
Here is a mid 14th century crown which was “found in Hungary” (if there are exquisite gold and ruby medieval crowns just lying around there, perhaps I am in the wrong place). The crown was probably made by French jewelers who, then as now, were among the best in the world. The crown consists of eight ornamental lily segments held together by hinges (pinned with twining vine-leaf ornaments).
The internet feels that this is the crown of Elizabeth Kotromanic of Bosnia. Elizabeth was a classic “Game of Thrones” style noblewoman who wedded King Louis I of Hungary and then also became Queen of Poland when Louis’ uncle died. Initially a powerless consort, she surrounded herself with ambitious nobles and worked her way into such a position that, upon her husband’s death, she became the queen regent of Poland, Hungary, and Croatia (and de-facto ruler of southern Italy, Bosnia, Serbia, Wallachia, and Moldavia!). Alas, Elizabeth was good at pitting nobles against each other, but she failed to rule well or carefully and she was captured and strangled by her many enemies.
This crown was seemingly donated in her name to the shrine of St. Simeon shrine in Zadar (so it wasn’t exactly lying in a truck stop bathroom or a forest glade, like I made it sound in the first sentence). Whether this crown was hers or not, it is certainly a winsome and beautiful piece, but, like all crowns, it looks a little cursed to me. Maybe it is better if Saint Simeon hangs on to it.
The Precious Night Turkey (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, Mixed Media)
Longtime readers know that one of my favorite animals is the turkey. I am not alone. We Americans have a whole month dedicated to devotions of the magnificent bird: the turkey is literally at the center of our third (or second?) most important festival. However there is a distinctly Aztec aspect to the turkey’s key role in the holiday. The fowl is not just a sacred animal of autumn—it is a sacred sacrifice of the dying year.
I love turkeys. I love their appearance. I love their personalities. I love their furtive mastery of the eastern woodlands. I…uh…I love their flavor. A lot. This strikes me as a noteworthy juxtaposition of its own: a troubling aspect not of turkeys, but of humankind. Our kindness is always streaked through with appetite. Our admiration is dark and terrible.
Anyway, I figured I had better make an artwork to capture some of these mixed feelings (and as a personal devotion to the consecrated bird). Here is a picture of Chalchiuhtotolin, the jeweled night turkey of the Aztecs. You can revisit the post here—the deity is a trickster, a sacrifice, a shapeshifter. I made it with paper cutouts, markers, colored pencils, and rhinestones—in the artistic style of an alimentary schoolchild, er, I mean an “elementary” schoolchild. I wanted it to be like a Faberge jeweled egg, glistening in the purple night, but perhaps I should have made it more Aztec instead of Rococo.
Ominously, as I was pasting it all together I accidentally tore off the head (you can see the seam of where I glued it back if you blow up the work). It was an artistic mistake—but it works perfectly to capture the true ritualistic nature of November’s spirit animal.
New York’s San Gennaro Festival (Photo: Joe Buglewicz)
New York’s annual Feast of San Gennaro festival is celebrated every autumn in Manhattan’s “Little Italy” district. This year’s festival will be the 89th occurrence of this religious holiday which originated in Naples and came to New York with the great wave of Italian immigrants who migrated to the Big Apple in the 19th century (and who give the city so much of its character). In 2015 the celebration begins on Thursday, September 10th. [Mock Gasp!] Hey, that’s today!
San Gennaro’s golden Bishop’s mitre made of 3,300 diamonds 164 rubies and 198 emeralds
To celebrate San Gennaro, here is the ceremonial miter worn by the saint’s statue in the original festival which has been a major part of life in Naples since the 14th century (at least). According to folklore, the saint was originally a Roman martyr named Januarius killed during the Diocletian persecutions. He occasionally intercedes to prevent Vesuvius from destroying Naples (or to otherwise help out the city which is under his care). Since the middle ages, various monarchs, nobles, popes, and sundry bigwigs have donated jewelry to the saint—who has accumulated a tremendous collection which is (probably incorrectly) said to rival the English crown jewels in value.
San Genaro’s jewelry is housed in a vault in the Museum of the Treasure of St. Gennaro, itself located beneath the arcade of the Cathedral of St. Gennaro. The most famous and important pieces are the necklace (with a jeweled cross from Napoleon) and the ampule (whatever that is), but this blog is concerned with crowns–and this fantastically jeweled miter has a reasonable claim to such status since it is “decorated with 3,964 diamonds, rubies and emeralds.”
Phoenix crown worn by Emperor Wanli’ s Empress Xiaoduan, Wanli period (1573-1620), Ming Dynasty.
In Dynastic China the most important ceremonial objects around which the Emperor’s power was focused was not a crown but rather the imperial seals. However that does not mean that ornate jeweled crowns were not a part of court life. Phoenix crowns were worn by the empress and other exalted noblewomen on ceremonial occasions. These headdresses were adorned with intricate sculptures of dragons, phoenixes, and pheasants made from precious materials. The crowns were highly ornamental and were literally encrusted with gold, turquoise, kingfisher feathers, pearls, and gemstones.
The 6-dragon-3-phoenix crown of a Ming dynasty Empress (3 of the dragons are at the back of the crown)
First crafted in the Tang Dynasty, phoenix crowns changed many times in accordance with Chinese fashion but they found their greatest era of popularity in the Ming dynasty when the wearer’s status was indicated by the number of dragons, phoenixes and pheasants on her crown. The empress was allowed to wear a crown with 12 dragons and 9 phoenixes, but a less-favored concubine or minor princess might be forced to endure a mere 7 pheasants.
Wu Zetian (624-705 AD) the only de facto ruling Empress of China, shown wearing a Phoenix Crown in the Tang Era
A Phoenix Crown adorning a Song Dynasty Empress (from a Song portrait painting)
Phoenix Crown by 张雅涵
Phoenix crowns—or similarly elaborate jeweled crowns are also associated with weddings and the juxtaposition of the bride’s red robes (red is the super magic happy lucky color of China) against the bright blue of the turquoise and kingfisher feathers makes for a bold visual presentation.
Traditional Chinese Wedding Garb
Traditional Chinese Wedding
ferrebeekeeper 