Gothic Shoes (Contemporary)

As I was researching medieval Gothic shoes the other day, I kept stumbling across modern Goth shoes for young people who enjoy black clothes and heavy metal flair.  It is worth contrasting these remarkable examples of footwear with the Gothic shoes of yesteryear and enjoying the boundless creativity and energy which humans pour into fashion and self-expression!

 

In addition to black leather and studs/spikes, the Goth shoes are noteworthy for their incredibly thick soles and high heels.  Looking at the pointed Crakow shoes of yesteryear, I marveled that anyone could walk with such long shoes.  Looking at the contemporary Gothic shoes I marvel that anyone could even lift up their feet while wearing them.  As the years go by, styles change enormously, yet it seems that some things never change–like our tendency to take fashion statements to ridiculous extremes in order to score status points (are “crocs” ever actually fashionable though?).

I did however find this one pair of shoes that combines the Medieval AND Modern Gothic sensibilities! Check out these puppies:

 

 

 

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Quetzalcoatl’s Nest by Javier Senosiain

One of life’s lesser disappointments is how boring everything here in America looks.  I am not sure if this is a result of banal & puritanical tastes of home buyers or if the regulatory capture which is such an aspect of life here has allowed developers and zoning boards to prevent everything but prefab ranches and ugly co-ops.  Probably it is a result of a combination of these things (along with a real desire by builders to keep people safe and an equal desire to make things that appeal to everyone). Anyway I am looking forward to a future of wilder and more eclectic buildings and we can already see inklings of such possibilities by looking abroad.

For example this is “Quetzalcoatl’s Nest” a complex of ten different apartments built by renowned Mexican architect Javier Senosiain in Naucalpan, Mexico.  Senosiain is an advocate of organic architecture, which takes its inspiration from a combination of preexisting landscape features and natural forms.  Quetzalcoatl’s Nest is built in a hilly landscape of natural caverns, serpentine ridges and old oak groves.   looking at this landscape, Senosiain saw the shape of a colossal mythological serpent.  He incorporated a large cave into the building as the snake’s head and then set out to build other textures of snake ribs and scales and serpentine patterns into the compound.

 

The fantastical lair includes water gardens, strange modern hideaways, and fantastic stained glass show spaces in a hard-to-describe architectural tour-de-force which spreads over 16,500 square feet.   I have included a selection of pictures here, but you should really find a video somewhere so you can get a better sense of what is going on.  Why couldn’t the Barclay’s Center people hire this guy so that their rattlesnake could look awesome instead of sinister and corporate.

The Diadem of the Stars

Today’s post features a true oddball in the world of royal headpieces.  This strange yet compelling crown is “the diadem of the stars.” It was made in 1863 for Maria Pia of Savoy, wife of King Luís I of Portugal.   Although the piece was made in the mid-19^th century its minimalist lines and weird geometric pentagons have a distinctly modern appearance.

I love space art (a category which I will reluctantly go ahead and put this crown under), but I am not sure I care for the diadem’s look in comparison with more traditional arch-and-cross type crowns.  The white. pink, and yellow diamonds do make me yearn for the stars though (a feeling which I wish more of us would embrace) so maybe the Queen Consort was onto something.

Hollow

Hollow (Katie Paterson, 2016, wood)

A lot of conceptual art strikes me as being perhaps a bit [cough] lazy.  The concept is forced to stand in for the elegance and beauty of masterful craft.  But here is a sculpture where the concept and the craft are both amazing: the work doubles as a lovely artwork and as a story of truly ecumenical breadth.  The synthesis is sublime. This is “Hollow” a 2016 sculpture by the Berlin-based Glaswegian artist Katie Paterson.

“Hollow” is a folly grotto in the historic Royal Fort Gardens of Bristol.  It looks a bit like a wooden megalith from the outside, but inside it becomes a magical proliferation of thousands of rectangular solids made of wood which give the simultaneous effect of a comfortable wooden grotto and an otherworldly scene from religion or abstract mathematics. The rectangular shapes are all wood and all clearly belong together.  Yet the pieces are all different colors, densities and textures because they represents all trees…ever.

Paterson traveled the world gathering more than 10,000 samples of every known species—from trees young and old; from taxa alive and those long extinct.  There are petrified remnants of the first forests which sprang up 390 million years old, and bits of the horsetails which preceded those. There are slivers of genera long gone, which now exist only as rare museum specimens.  There are pieces of historically significant trees like “Methusela” the oldest known Bristlecone pine…and from clonal colony giants like Pando.  There are also hunks of historically meaningful trees like a surviving gingko from Hiroshima, the Fortingall Yew, and suchlike.   There are human stories aplenty, but they are dwarfed and transcended by the majesty of arboreal diversity and development through the ages.

The piece is indeed hollow and it is illuminated only by the Earth’s sun, as is entirely proper for a piece about trees (which live even more in tandem with our star, than other life forms—though each living thing depends on it).  We humans come from an arboreal order, and the worship of trees is nearly universal (sacred trees sprout up up even in hardnosed monotheistic faiths like Islam and Christianity) yet trees are so much older than us…or even than mammals.  The full story of trees exists in deep time which is difficult to comprehend in a meaningful way. “Hollow” is a microcosmic sculpture which endeavors to present a sliver of this complexity.  The work succeeds in enshrining both the abstruse sacred quality of trees and the real nature of their diversity and long history here on Earth.

English Eggs?

OK, Last week was egg week here at Ferrebeekeeper where we looked at home-made egg-art and astonishing primordial mythology.  Unfortunately, due to budget constraints and temporal vicissitudes, egg week only had 4 posts—yet we also need to keep moving on.  Today’s post is therefore somewhat egg-themed….even if the real theme is more about the changing nature of language.  It is a bridge from past to future—but a humorous one which has eggs at its center.

Here is a story from the late 15^th century, when English was changing from Middle English to Modern English.  The author, William Caxton, was a merchant, diplomat, and writer…and probably England’s first printer.  He wrote this story in 1490 to marvel at how quickly the language was changing (indeed he relates how he can’t understand truly old English which seems like a completely foreign tongue).  I have transcribed the story, as best I could, from the Gothic black letter manuscript (try reading some of the beautiful—but incomprehensible–Gothic calligraphy and I think you will appreciate my effort).

The story is a vignette about how language changes, seemingly on its own.  This point is particularly poignant to modern readers who don’t speak with quite the same idiom and usage as the upstanding William Caxton!  The story is about some merchants from the north who say eggs in the Norse fashion “eggys” as opposed to the South English way of saying it “eyren.”  Misunderstanding ensues.  It is interesting to note that contemporary English speakers talk about “eggs.”  If I went to the C-town and asked for “eyren” they would probably look at me funny (or tell me where to get an iron or Irish whiskey).  The Norse word for “eggs” clearly won out over the old Anglo-Saxon word when English went global.  Anyway, here is my transcription of the story.  Kindly help me out if you can figure it out better and enjoy the eyreny…err…the irony of Caxton’s words:

Fayn wolde I satysfye every man, and so to doo toke an olde boke and redde therin and certaynly the englysshe was so rude and brood that I could not wele understande it.
And altho my lord abbot of Westmynster ded do shewe to me late certain evydences wryton in olde englysshe for to reduce it in to our englysshe now usid.
And certainly it was wrton in suche wyse that it was more lyke to dutche than englysshe.
I could not reduce ne brynge it to be understonden.
And certaynly our language now used Uaryeth ferre from that. Which was used and spoken whan I was borne.
For we englysshe men ken borne under the domynacyon of the mone.
Which is neuer stedfaste, but ever waverynge wexynge one season and waneth & dycreaseth another season
And that comyn englysshe that is spoken in one Shyre varyeth from a nother.
In so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a ship in tamyse for to have sayled over the see into zeland
and for lacke of wynde they taryed atte Forrlonth, and wente to lanthe for to refreshe them
And one of them named Sheffelde a mercer cam in to an hous and axed(!!) for mete, and specyally he axyd after eggys.
And the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no frenche.
And the marchant was angry for he also could speak no Frenche but wolde have egges and she understode hym not.
And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde have eyren then the good wyf sayd that she understood hym wel
Loo (?) What sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte egges or eyren, Certaynly it is harde to playse every man that is in any
reputacyon in his contre. Wyll utter his comynycacyon and maters in suche maners & terms that fewe men shall understonde theym…

 

 

 

The Shamrock

A Shamrock is a bright green spring clover–the species is unclear….but probably common clover (Trifolium dubium) or white clover (Trifolium repens), just like your garden variety pony eats. The shamrock has been an instantly recognizable symbol of Ireland for a long time…or maybe not. Anecdotally Saint Patrick utilized the humble plant in order to explain the nature of the trinity to his nascent flock in the fifth century AD (in which case they were the only people to ever understand the incomprehensible mystical unity-yet-separation of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost).

More realistically, however, the association between the Irish and the plant is less clear. English sources from the 16th century mention Irish “shamrocks”– but largely in the context of destitute Irish eating field plants (once again the species in unclear, but it seems like it might have been wood sorrel or watercress). Edmund Spenser, who lived among the Irish (and hated them), wrote approvingly of seeing Irish people starving to death after a failed rebellion left them with no crops, “…they spake like ghosts, crying out of theire graves; they did eat of the carrions …. and if they found a plott of water cresses or shamrockes theyr they flocked as to a feast for the time, yett not able long to contynewe therewithall.” Of course, since Spenser reportedly starved to death himself he might have later found occasion to eat these harsh words (literally and figuratively).

All of this leaves (!) us no closer to understanding how the shamrock became so indelibly affiliated with the Irish. Increasingly it seems like it may be a connection which was made in the early modern era. However, pre-Christian Irish were known to hold the number 3 in greatest esteem. Certain Celtic deities had three aspects and the number 3 was obviously sacred. This is strongly reflected in pre-historic Celtic art. Some of these mystical gyres and whirls do indeed look oddly like shamrocks…so you will have to judge the merit of the little green plant on your own. In the mean time I am going to head down to the great Irish restaurant, McDonalds, and see if I can find a shamrock shake. Usage maketh the myth and by that token there is nothing more Irish than a three-leafed clover.

It should additionally be noted that in the modern world, “shamrock” has become the name of a bright Kelly green color.  You may even see it today reflected in spring foliage, or jaunty banners, or on a furtive leprechaun or two (although, leprechauns traditionally wore red until they became standardized and bowdlerized in the early twentieth century).  Have you ever wondered whether everything you know if blarney made up by marketers less than a lifetime ago?

Wha…? That is clearly a four-leaf clover!  Curse you infernal tricksters!

The Shepheardes Calender: January

Today’s post introduces a completely new feature for Ferrebeekeeper. Every month we are going to spend a day traveling back in time to 16th century England. The method we are using to go back half a millennia to the birthplace of modern English is itself the content of these dozen posts: which is to say we are stealing a poem from Edmund Spenser (ca. 1552 –1599). In fact, arguably we are stealing a whole book of poetry! Yet Edmund Spenser, the great fantasy allegorist, is dead. In taking this poem we are not robbing him or his family. Instead we are giving him all he really cared about—an audience for his poetry (although Spenser scholars may argue that he also cared about money and oppressing Ireland).

Spenser’s first major work The Shepheardes Calender was published in 1579. It consisted of 12 allegorical pastoral poems about the year (and about art, politics, the natural world, and the human heart). Each poem is an eclogue—a pastoral soliloquy by the eponymous shepherd, Colin Cloute. Each month is written in a different form—to reflect the differing months and the changing subjects. The first poem, January, is a lament. The land is bare, wasted by winter. The sheep are mangy and dirty. The poet’s beloved does not return his affection. The poor shepherd breaks his pipe (his only remaining source of joy) and gives in to winter darkness.

As we go through the year with Spenser, we can say more about the larger meaning of The Shepheardes Calender (and more about Spenser, the first major literary figure of modern Enlish), but the despair of winter and of loveless life speak for themselves. So, without more preamble, here is…

The Shepheardes Calender: January

By Edmund Spenser

Januarie. Ægloga prima. ARGVMENT.

 

IN this fyrst Æglogue Colin clout a shepheardes boy complaineth him of his vnfortunate loue, being but newly (as semeth) enamoured of a countrie lasse called Rosalinde: with which strong affection being very sore traueled, he compareth his carefull case to the sadde season of the yeare, to the frostie ground, to the frosen trees, and to his owne winterbeaten flocke. And lastlye, fynding himselfe robbed of all former pleasaunce and delights, hee breaketh his Pipe in peeces, and casteth him selfe to the ground.

COLIN Cloute.

A Shepeheards boye (no better doe him call)

when Winters wastful spight was almost spent,

All in a sunneshine day, as did befall,

Led forth his flock, that had been long ypent.

So faynt they woxe, and feeble in the folde,

That now vnnethes their feete could them vphold.

All as the Sheepe, such was the shepeheards looke,

For pale and wanne he was, (alas the while,)

May seeme he lovd, or els some care he tooke:

Well couth he tune his pipe, and frame his stile.

Tho to a hill his faynting flocke he ledde,

And thus him playnd, the while his shepe there fedde.

Ye gods of loue, that pitie louers payne,

(if any gods the paine of louers pitie:)

Looke from aboue, where you in ioyes remaine,

And bowe your eares vnto my doleful dittie.

And Pan thou shepheards God, that once didst loue,

Pitie the paines, that thou thy selfe didst proue.

Thou barrein ground, whome winters wrath hath wasted,

Art made a myrrhour, to behold my plight:

Whilome thy fresh spring flowrd, and after hasted

Thy sommer prowde with Daffadillies dight.

And now is come thy wynters stormy state,

Thy mantle mard, wherein thou mas-kedst late.

Such rage as winters, reigneth in my heart,

My life bloud friesing wtih vnkindly cold:

Such stormy stoures do breede my balefull smarte,

As if my yeare were wast, and woxen old.

And yet alas, but now my spring begonne,

And yet alas, yt is already donne.

You naked trees, whose shady leaves are lost,

Wherein the byrds were wont to build their bowre:

And now are clothd with mosse and hoary frost,

Instede of bloosmes, wherwith your buds did flowre:

I see your teares, that from your boughes doe raine,

Whose drops in drery ysicles remaine.

All so my lustfull leafe is drye and sere,

My timely buds with wayling all are wasted:

The blossome, which my braunch of youth did beare,

With breathed sighes is blowne away, & blasted,

And from mine eyes the drizling teares descend,

As on your boughes the ysicles depend.

Thou feeble flocke, whose fleece is rough and rent,

Whose knees are weak through fast and evill fare:

Mayst witnesse well by thy ill gouernement,

Thy maysters mind is ouercome with care.

Thou weak, I wanne: thou leabe, I quite forlorne:

With mourning pyne I, you with pyning mourne.

A thousand sithes I curse that carefull hower,

Wherein I longd the neighbour towne to see:

And eke tenne thousand sithes I blesse the stoure,

Wherein I sawe so fayre a sight, as shee.

Yet all for naught: snch [such] sight hath bred my bane.

Ah God, that loue should breede both ioy and payne.

It is not Hobbinol, wherefore I plaine,

Albee my loue he seeke with dayly suit:

His clownish gifts and curtsies I disdaine,

His kiddes, his cracknelles, and his early fruit.

Ah foolish Hobbinol, thy gyfts bene vayne:

Colin them gives to Rosalind againe.

I loue thilke lasse, (alas why doe I loue?)

And am forlorne, (alas why am I lorne?)

Shee deignes not my good will, but doth reproue,

And of my rurall musick holdeth scorne.

Shepheards deuise she hateth as the snake,

And laughes the songes, that Colin Clout doth make.

Wherefore my pype, albee rude Pan thou please,

Yet for thou pleasest not, where most I would:

And thou vnlucky Muse, that wontst to ease

My musing mynd, yet canst not, when thou should:

Both pype and Muse, shall sore the while abye.

So broke his oaten pype, and downe dyd lye.

By that, the welked Phoebus gan availe,

His weary waine, and nowe the frosty Night

Her mantle black through heauen gan overhaile.

Which seene, the pensife boy halfe in despight

Arose, and homeward drove his sonned sheepe,

Whose hanging heads did seeme his carefull case to weepe.

The Funeral Crown of Richard III

An unknown artist’s copy of an original portrait of Richard III (1520, Royal Collection)

Richard III is indelibly remembered as the dark antihero of Shakespeare’s great play, but his real life seems to have been even more complicated and ambiguous. The last king of the House of York of the Plantagenet dynasty was killed during the Battle of Bosworth Field by means of a halberd blow which shaved off the back of his skull.  We suddenly know a great deal about Richard III because his remains were discovered a few years ago under a car park (which had once been the churchyard of the Church of Grey Friars) in suburban England!

A photographic portrait of Richard III ca. present

The discovery of Richard III’s body in 2012 makes for fascinating reading and we learned all sorts of amazing things, but the researchers and archaeologists were left holding a surplus dead medieval king (and a rather sinister one at that). What to do?

A modern funeral crown in medieval style for the (second?) funeral of Richard III

For reasons of pomp and tradition, it was decided to reinter Richard’s remains in a fashion befitting an English King—and this required a crown (since such prop is an essential ingredient for royal funerals).  The original medieval crowns of England were lost during the age of the Protectorate (except for the little wedding crown of Richard III’s sister).  The modern crowns of the sovereigns of England are inappropriately anachronistic (not to mention super-valuable)…plus the queen hardly wants some long-dead evil king handling her cool stuff.   Yet there could hardly be a kingly reburial without some sort of crown, so history enthusiasts built their own funeral crown out of copper with gold plating.  The crown featured white enamel roses and cabochon rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and turquoise.  They based the crown on that of Margaret of York, and on descriptions of the open crown which Richard III wore during his last days.

Funeral crowns purpose-built for the exequies of kings were not unknown during the Middle Ages.  Often these crowns were kept at churches or sacred sites near the burial place of the monarch.  Presumably this will be the future for this strange yet beautiful piece of modern medieval jewelry for the strange and disturbing king.

April is poetry month and poetry month is coming to an end.  What better way to celebrate than with a modern poem about flowers…and what blossom could be more renowned in poetry and art than the rose?  I was worried that nobody enjoyed the previous poetry month entry (four interconnected erotic poems by Elizabethan luminary Edmund Spenser) so I asked my roommate, the gifted poet Katie Fowley to name the first poem about flowers she could think of.  Her answer was “The Rose is Obsolete” a poem by William Carlos Williams from his 1923 book Spring and All.  The poem does not utilize the rose in the obvious metaphorical contexts which are familiar from the dawn of writing (perhaps Mr. Williams saw such symbolism as obsolete).  Instead it is a poem about universal thresholds–the liminal transition between the rose and the rest of the universe.   The poem thus has a mathematical sensibility to it–as though it transcends contemplation of things which exist in order to concentrate on higher categories of being.  The reader is thus rapidly transported from the rose–real, sensual, and mundane–to abstract realms of calculus and ontology.  Cosmological truths beckon from the rose’s fractal edge as the physical rose is left behind. I think however you will agree that the poem strikes a wistful note for the obsolete rose.  The reader must decide for themselves what has been left behind–and just where humankind’s new sophistication at cosmological apprehension is leading.

[The poem does not have a title in the original printing so it just starts after the picture]

Supernova Fragments (NASA 2011)

The rose is obsolete
but each petal ends in
an edge, the double facet
cementing the grooved
columns of air–The edge
cuts without cutting
meets–nothing–renews
itself in metal or porcelain–

whither? It ends–

But if it ends
the start is begun
so that to engage roses
becomes a geometry–

Sharper, neater, more cutting
figured in majolica–
the broken plate
glazed with a rose

Somewhere the sense
makes copper roses
steel roses–

The rose carried weight of love
but love is at an end–of roses

It is at the edge of the
petal that love waits

Crisp, worked to defeat
laboredness–fragile
plucked, moist, half-raised
cold, precise, touching

What

The place between the petal’s
edge and the

From the petal’s edge a line starts
that being of steel
infinitely fine, infinitely
rigid penetrates
the Milky Way
without contact–lifting
from it–neither hanging
nor pushing–

The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates space

A Painting by He Jiaying

He Jiaying is a contemporary Chinese painter.  Born in Tianjin in 1957, he is famous for his masterful figures painted with classical Chinese brush painting.  He Jiaying’s favorite subjects tend to be beautiful women lost in contemplation beneath trees or bamboo.  The models in his paintings are either attired in fluid dresses or, more often, in nothing at all. So deft is his style that he miraculously combines European-style hyper realistic portraiture with ancient Chinese style brushwork (which is famed for being free and spontaneous).  Because his paintings are masterpieces in two opposite styles, He Jiaying is widely known  both in China and abroad.

 

Painting by He Jiaying

Here a wistful beauty walks pensively beneath autumn birch trees.  Despite the adroit brushstrokes, the woman’s figure possesses perfect verisimilitude–and the trunks of the trees are likewise simultaneously simple yet perfectly lifelike.  Despite the realism, the composition is anything but Western: the off-center figure, the abstract leaf-litter, and the empty background are all hallmarks of classical Chinese painting.