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Since we were thinking about Baroque, um, geologists yesterday, I decided to stay in the same era and present this magnificent harpsichord which was made by Andreas Ruckers in Antwerp in 1643. Just look at this incredible instrument! I really wish we had a sound clip so you could hear the harpsichord’s sweet voice which has apparently staid lovely over all of these years (the resonant soundboard was apparently the true irreducible component of the device). The rest of the instrument though is a bit like the ship of Theseus. The keyboard and action were enlarged and replaced in France in the 19th century which is also when the gold baroque ornaments were added all over the case. Evidently actual baroque harpsichords were more simple and had cleaner lines, but the 19th century owners had little use for the harpsichord as a musical instrument and kept it as a work of art (and so they wanted it to be more ornamental).
The actual artwork on the case is from the 17th century (although it has been retouched) and shows Greco Roman gods and goddesses making music and desporting themselves among melancholy classical ruins. The soundboard itself may be an even finer artwork and is filled with birds, flowers, summer insects, and shrimp.
I still think the prettiest of all the different crowns we have encountered are the Iranian ones. This is the Sunburst tiara of Princess Fatimeh, and, although there is not much to say about it (other than a physical description), it is certainly stunningly beautiful. The centerpiece of the little crown is a 25-carat cushion shaped pink spinel, which is as lovely as any ruby, but you could probably buy the equivalent on ebay for less than a used Jeep. The spinel is surrounded diamond sunbursts which are surmounted by teardrop emeralds (the largest of which is 20 carats).
The dazzling pink, dark green, and white come together perfectly like a magical fountain made of otherworldly spring flowers. The piece is a real triumph (which is good, since I am afraid this post is largely visual, and sadly devoid of meaningful historical context).
Ferrebeekeeper’s love of gardens is well known, but there is an aspect of gardens which I love nearly as much as the gardens themselves. Yet they are not really plants or gardens. They can be found beyond the garden in public squares or in the center of deserts…in preschools or in abandoned palaces. I am speaking, of course, of fountains and I intend to put a lot more images of ornamental water features on this blog. To start with I am featuring this ornate geometric tree fountain from an unknown location in Morocco. I guess if I had a fountain I would want a baroque fountain with lots of river gods and naked nymphs and ogee shapes…but the Islamic conception of sumptuously tiled fountains with beautiful arabesque curves made of filigree might be just as elegant. I will post more pictures of these treasures…and I also need to write about the Lote Tree (I have a suspicion the tree in this fountain might allude to it (but who can say). There is more to follow! Thanks for bearing with me. Sometimes the fountain is a rivulet and sometimes it is a mighty torrent but it is always flowing.
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!
The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple or Thiruvarangam is a colossal temple to the Hindu god Vishnu (or, more specifically, it is dedicated to Ranganātha, a reclining form of Vishnu). Located on an island in the Cauvery river in Tamil Nadu, the temple is one of the most illustrious (and largest) temples in India. The complex includes 21 monumental ornamental towers (including the 72 meter (236 foot) Rajagopuram), 39 pavilions, fifty shrines, all within a 156 acre complex which includes six miles of concentric walls. The shrines, walls, and towers are bedecked in stunning stone statuary painted in all of the brilliant colors of South India.
The story of the temple’s creation is steeped in Hindu myth: Lord Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu completed his devotions to Vishnu by worshiping a mysterious idol. After killing Ravana and returning victorious from Sri Lanka (as detailed in the Ramayana) Rama gave this sacred statue to King Vibhishana. The king planned on taking the statue to Sri Lanka, but when he set it down while resting on an island, it became rooted to the spot.
The temple itself was built by the Chola Dynasty, India’s longest lived dynasty. There is a further legend of the temple’s construction: a Chola king chased a parrot into the deep forest and found the idol overgrown by jungle. He built the complex around the statue and the temple was maintained and expanded by the great dynasties of Southern India–the Chola, Pandya, Hoysala and Vijayanagar dynasties. The oldest parts of the building seem to date back to the 10th century AD, but written sources do not accurately convey the precise chronology. The great temples of South India are themselves primary historical sources, but alas, they are not as particular about dates as historians might like.
It is difficult to even begin to describe the sumptuous beauty and complexity of the ornaments of Sri Ranganathaswamy. The colorful and intricate statues of the figures from Vishnu’s lives and incarnations have an otherworldly and alien beauty not found elsewhere. Nor will I attempt to describe the meaning of Vishnu’s iconography (although if you are as smitten by his reclining beauty as I am you can read about Ananta Shesha, the many headed cobra god which serves as his divine couch).
To celebrate Halloween this week Ferrebeekeeper is exploring dreams and nightmares! Yesterday we introduced the Baku, a dream-eating, long-snouted spirit-beast from East Asia. Today we travel directly to the real of dreams and nightmares itself! Well sort of….Since I am unable to get inside the head of dreamers other than myself (at least with today’s technology) this means going to an almost equally scary place…the bedroom!
I wanted to combine the place where dreams happen with gothic decorative art (a particularly fitting style for Halloween). I therefore asked myself whether anyone had crafted overly-elaborate gothic beds. A quick Google Image search revealed the answer to be “Oh my goodness!” Apparently the world’s bedwrights have been hard at work creating an insane array of magnificent and horrifying beds to cradle the reposing bodies of well-heeled dreamers.
“Oh my…”
Here is a gallery filled with crazy and extravagant gothic beds (a fitting companion to past galleries of gothic clocks, lamps, gates, and houses). Behold the magnificent dark canopies, strange gargoyles, and haunting grotesques…along with every sort of flange, post, tower, buttress, arch, and bracket that imagination can conceive.
It’s difficult to believe that people sleep in such dark slendor…anyway, hopefully this range of bedframes will inspire your Halloween dreams (assuming that the baku does not get them first). Sleep well!
A ramshackle Russian dacha
This week the G8 shrank down to the G7. The other powerful nations threw Russia out of the club due to its extremely naughty behavior. This was a good choice: you would never see, say, Canada behaving in such a fashion. In fact, if Canada found Crimea just lying around–on a park bench or in a bathroom lavatory or something—Canada would probably take the wayward peninsula to lost and found (I won’t speak about France, Great Britain, or the United States: we can have sticky fingers sometimes). Anyway, now that Russia is no longer in the club, I have been reminiscing about all the Russian things which we will miss: ineffable literature, banyas, the unsafe (but vibrant) space program, and Russian architecture—particularly dachas, which are among the prettiest of all the world’s cottages.
An ornate dacha
A dacha is a country vacation house. They are usually located in the exurbs just outside of towns and major cities on tiny 600 square meter [0.15 acre] land plots, where the Russian middle class plants little gardens and enjoys playing at country simplicity. Originally dachas were gifts from the tsars to loyal or interesting Russian subjects. In fact the word dacha (да́ча) meant “something given”. These tsarist-era dachas were country estates which could be princely chalets or manor houses. After the civil war, the era of landed country estates was over and having a dacha could get a person sent to Siberia or killed (although, of course party luminaries had magnificent dachas, like Stalin’s great green hall). During the later Soviet era, however, dachas made a comeback among urban professionals. The concept was changed though: the little vacation houses could only have a tiny amount of living space and plot sizes were similarly regulated by central authority. This meant that clever dacha-owners had to push the boundaries with mansard roofs, architectural flourishes, and elegance (as opposed to sheer size).
Stalin’s Dacha at Kuntsevo (by Gordon Abben)
After the fall of communism, the rules all went in the scrap bin. Oligarchs began to build huge whimsical monstrosities (below is a contemporary dacha with one of the oligarch’s toys parked beside it).
Dachas have actually come to New York with the recent wave of Russian immigration. A number of Russian-born Brooklynites have pretty Russian-style dachas in the forests and mountains upstate. Although I am not Russian, I love ornate little cottages in the forest and I have been enviously looking over these fretwork masterpieces. Unfortunately I do not currently have a Soviet level of personal prosperity, so my project to build a dacha back in my native mountains may have to be put on hold until I learn to manipulate the system and ruthlessly crush my enemies.
In the mean time here is a gallery of lovely dachas for you to enjoy. Maybe it will inspire you to put some onion domes and scrollwork on your own vacation cottage. It has been a long rough winter and we could use some fru-fru ornamentation, some bright colors, and some time out of the city…
It has been a long time since Ferrebeekeeper added a new post to the gothic category. In order to remedy that deficit (and perhaps to focus somewhat on the strange & troubling nature of time itself) here is a gallery of gothic clocks. Something about the ornate yet solemn gothic style seems particularly suited to instruments which measure the passing of time. Until recently, clocks were precious and expensive items and it was very appropriate to dress them up in stylish little reliquary-style cases. Additionally, like churches or crypts (which were frequently constructed in the same style), clocks betoken a world which transcends human understanding or control. Nineteenth century clockmakers particularly relished the gothic aesthetic so most of the clocks below are gothic-revival era objects from England, France, or Germany. However clock makers from before the 19th century also looked to medieval sacred conventions when crafting their timepieces (as can be seen in the ancient sconce clock from 16th century Germany). Perhaps even more strangely, modern clock-makers also frequently refer back to the gothic tradition. At the bottom of my gallery I have included some startling resin clocks made by contemporary manufacturers. The modern timepieces might have jumped from “gothic” to “goth” but they still resemble little shrines to the omnipresent and ineluctable force of time.
Gothic Clock (Germany, 16th century AD)
Antique French Gilt Brass Boudoir Clock (Jarrot Freres)
Oak Case Gothic Revival Bracket Clock, Barraud & Lunds, Cornhill, London, c. 1838-1842
Vienna Regulator. Gothic style, probably from around 1865
Japy Freres Brass Mantel Clock (Gothic Griffons Nouveau)
Libert Gothic Cathedral Clock (French, 19th Century)
Antique Waterbury Steeple Gothic Clock (19th century)
Mahogany Gothic Double Fusee Bracket Clock by Webster Cornhill (English, 1890)
Neo-Gothic Style Partial Gilt Clock (French, 19th Century)
Oak Fussee Gothic Bracket Clock (Tiffany & Co.)
Antique Bronze Gothic Mantle Clock (Austrian, late 19th Century)
Walter Durfree 9-tube clock with Hersbhepe works and Gothic mahogany carved case.
Bielefeld Clock (the pattern is available at http://www.finescrollsaw.com)
Contemporary Resin Gothic Dragon Clock (from Dragon Artwork)
Grim Reaper Gothic Wall Clock (Contemporary, resin)
On Borrowed Time Gothic Clock (Contemporary, resin)
Contemporary Gothic Resin Clock
Contemporary Wall Clock
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 