The Jiajing Emperor Traveling to the Ming Dynasty Tombs

Ming week was last week, and, even though there is so much more to say about the Ming Dynasty, I need to wrap up and move on to other topics. Today’s visual post will have to serve as an epilogue.  Here is an epic panoramic painting of the Jiajing Emperor traveling to the Ming Dynasty Tombs with a huge cavalry escort and an elephant-drawn carriage.  The work was completed at some point during the Jiajing reign (1522-1566) but I haven’t been able to pinpoint the date any better than that (it is such a huge painting, that maybe it took the whole forty years to make).  You should really click on the painting above.  It shows up as a little mummy-colored hyphen only because WordPress and I are so computer illiterate.  If you click on it, it is actually a 26 meter (85 ft) long epic scroll showing the enormous imperial entourage progressing towards the beautiful and spooky necropolis of the Ming Emperors.  What could be a more appropriate postscript to the pomp and dark absolutist majesty of that erstwhile time?

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The Basilica of Saint Denis

Apse and northern facade (Felix Benoist, 1861, lithograph)

Saint Denis was a third century Roman Christian who was sent to Roman Gaul by Pope Fabian. Denis was the first bishop of Paris, but when relations between pagans and Christians soured in the era of the Decian persecutions, he was martyred by decapitation upon Montmartre, the highest hill of Paris. According to tradition, after he was beheaded, Denis picked up his head and carried it 10 kilometers (6 miles) north while delivering a stirring ceremony. When the decapitated saint found the right spot (in what are now the suburbs of Paris—but what was then a Gallo-Roman cemetery) he put down his head and expired. In the late 5^th century, St. Genevieve purchased this land and built Saint-Denys de la Chapelle. In the early 7^th century, Dagobert, the king of the Franks chose this site as the location of a great Benedictine monastery the Abbey of Saint Denis. The site became a major center for pilgrimages during the Middle Ages (and the monastery grew even more rich due to a lucrative whaling concession, from the crown), but as the centuries wore on, the Carolingian church started to wear out (and the original sacred complex was not big enough to contain the throngs of worshipers).

West façade of Saint Denis, before the dismantling of the north tower (c. 1844 – 1845)

Thus, in the 12^th century, Abbot Suger, a close friend of the kings of France, began to rebuild the church in a grand new style involving pointed arches, flying buttresses, large windows, high towers, and great interior spaces. This style—an abrupt departure from the Romanesque style, which had dominated architecture–was initially known as the French style. As the political fortunes of the Angevin dynasty waxed, the style spread throughout France, England, the Low Countries, Germany, Spain, northern Italy, and Sicily. The style quickly was renamed Gothic style and it became the dominant architecture of Europe in the late middle ages (and beyond). The Basilica of Saint Denis, the resting place of deceased French kings (did I mention that all but three French kings are buried there? I probably should have said that) was the first great Gothic building–the first high cathedral.

The nave of the Basilica of St. Denis. Shot from the chancel.

 The Choir of the Basilica of Saint Denis

 

 

 

 

Temminck’s Tragopan

Temminck’s tragopan (Tragopan temminckii)

It’s hard for me to tell what you are thinking, but a fair guess is that you are disappointed that this blog hasn’t featured more pheasants.  These splendid Galliforme game birds have barely appeared here (except for the unbearably magnificent golden pheasant which has fascinated me ever since I met a gregarious specimen at the aviary). To remedy this lamentable deficit, allow me to present Temminck’s tragopan (Tragopan temminckii) a medium sized pheasant from the great forests of Southeast Asia.  These tragopans are common in the (once?) great forests of south central China.  They range west into the mountain forests of Arunachal Pradech and can be found in northern parts of Myanmar and Vietnam (and maybe Bhutan).

Temminck’s tragopan (Tragopan temminckii) photo by John Corder

The Temminck’s tragopan is mostly vegetarian and lives on grasses, seeds, vegetables, and fruit.  The birds are experts at surviving in the forests and, even in some of the most populous forests of Earth they are flourishing.

Females are somewhat drab and they lay small clutches of two to four eggs.  The male birds are red orange with bright white spots.  What distinguishes the male birds from other birds–and everything else other than imaginary extraterrestrials–is their bright blue inflatable lappet (with stylish red detailing) and their feathery horns.  When the males are trying to impress the females they inflate their lappets into magnificent op art displays and leap around fantastically like Buster Poindexter with wings on a hotplate!

I’m afraid I can’t really tell you much else about Temminck’s tragopan (for example: who was Temminck?)—so this will perforce be a largely visual post—but what a striking vision!

Gothic Gates

Spider Gate to Hoveton Hall Gardens

There are few images as powerful and straightforward as a door.  Doors represent change and transition —when one steps across the threshold one has literally moved on from one place to another.  This apparently simple purpose of doors has a deeper metaphorical aspect as well: a pauper daily walks by the gates of the palace but they do not open for him; a baby is carried out of the hospital into the world; an inmate is dragged into a prison and is held there by the portcullis.  The most dramatic doors are huge operatic gates which represent significant transition.  These magnificent structures tend to be found outside palaces, parks, insane asylums, and cemeteries, but sometimes they seem to have no purpose at all…

An ornate gate outside St. Petersburg, Russia

As we approach Halloween—the one night of the year when the doors between this world and the next are thrown open (well, according to myth anyway), it is appropriate to celebrate the  foreboding gates in our world. Below is a gallery of magnificent gates–not all are truly gothic (a few images of non-gothic gates were too good to pass up) but they are all affecting and impressive.

University of Chicago: Cobb Gate

Town Gate at Suakin (Anthony Ham)

Gatehouse at Ballysaggartmore

Gate to Chirk Castle, Wales

Crown Hill Cemetery Gate

Forest Hill Cemetery, Boston

Unknown Gate

Private Modern Gate

Gothic gate in old park in Taitsy

Gate Lodge to Annesgrove Gardens

Gate to Fort Canning Green, Singapore

Gate to Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn

Gate to Hood Cemetery, Philadelphia

Neubrandenburg Town Gate

A rich person’s iron gate

Mount Royal Cemetery , Montreal

Unknown Abandoned Gate

Gate at Oxford University

Gate to Walled City of Rothenburg

Stephen King standing at the gate of his house in Bangor Maine

Traverse City Insane Asylum, Michigan