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It is unknown whether the dog died from its past illness or other natural causes, or if it was killed to bury it alongside the two humans. Killing or sacrifice of dogs alongside human burials is often linked to spiritual, religious, and ritualistic motives, including belief in an afterlife.
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wikipedia
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Bonn–Oberkassel dog
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonn%E2%80%93Oberkassel_dog
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Death
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A right upper molar found in the burial, initially believed to be part of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog, was determined to belong to another dog. The molar was found to be significantly smaller than the size predicted for the main specimen, differed in color from the other teeth, and showed signs of significantly more wear, indicating a smaller and older individual. The tooth was likely used as a grave good.
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wikipedia
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Bonn–Oberkassel dog
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonn%E2%80%93Oberkassel_dog
| 76,641,821 |
Second dog
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On Saturday, May 1, 1920, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves played to a 1–1 tie in 26 innings, the most innings ever played in a single game in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB). The game was played at Braves Field in Boston before a crowd estimated at 4,000. Both Leon Cadore of Brooklyn and Joe Oeschger of Boston pitched complete games, and with 26 innings pitched, jointly hold the record for the longest pitching appearance in MLB history. Their record is considered unbreakable, as modern pitchers rarely pitch even nine innings, and newer baseball rules have made long extra-innings games a rarity.
The day of the game saw rainy weather, and it was uncertain if the game would be played, but the skies cleared enough to allow it to proceed. Brooklyn scored a run in the fifth inning, and Boston in the sixth; thereafter, the pitchers became increasingly dominant. As the game exceeded eighteen innings, the small crowd at Braves Field cheered both pitchers. The last twenty innings were scoreless, and when darkness started to fall, the umpires called a halt after the twenty-sixth inning, as baseball fields did not yet have artificial lighting.
There have been claims that the lengthy pitching appearance ruined the arms of Oeschger and Cadore, but both pitched several more years in the major leagues, and Oeschger won twenty games in 1921. The performance meant that they remained better known than other former major leaguers of that era. Although 25-inning games were played in the major leagues in 1974 and 1984, each team involved used several pitchers, and the records for endurance posted by Oeschger and Cadore were not threatened. No major league pitcher has pitched twenty innings in a game since 1929.
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
| 74,862,862 |
Introduction
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On May 1, 1920, the Brooklyn Dodgers played the Boston Braves at Braves Field in Boston.
The Dodgers, or Robins, as they were then sometimes called after their manager, Wilbert Robinson, had won the National League title in 1916. Although they had fallen to fifth place by 1919, they were well-regarded as the 1920 season began. Leon Cadore was not the ace of Robinson's pitching staff—Burleigh Grimes was—but he had a 14–12 win-loss record in 1919, his best performance to that point. On May 25, 1919, Cadore was involved in a well-known stunt, pulled by Casey Stengel, then a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates who had been traded from the Dodgers. Cadore captured a sparrow and gave it to Stengel, who placed it under his cap. Called to bat, Stengel received mixed boos and cheers from the Brooklyn crowd as a former Dodger and doffed his cap, whereupon the bird flew away to great laughter from the crowd. Stengel later stated of Cadore, who was a roommate while both were with the Dodgers, "Wonderful person, wonderful pitcher with a brilliant mind."
The Braves in 1920 were several years on from their great success, in 1914, when manager George Stallings led the team dubbed the Miracle Braves from last place on the Fourth of July to a sweep of the that year's World Series. The starting pitcher for the Braves on May 1, 1920, Joe Oeschger, had a 15–14 win-loss record in 1917, falling to 6–18 in 1918 and 4–4 in 1919. A year and a day before the May 1 game, Oeschger, then a member of the Philadelphia Phillies, had pitched 20 innings in a 9–9 tie with Brooklyn, with Grimes pitching for the Dodgers. Ties, brought on by adverse weather or the fall of darkness, were common in MLB in the time before night baseball.
Later in 1919, Oeschger had been traded to the New York Giants and then to Boston. Both Oeschger and Cadore were 28-year-old right-handers.
The Dodgers had won eight of their first twelve games going into May 1, and were in second place out of eight in the National League standings, half a game behind the 1919 World Series winners, the Cincinnati Reds. Boston had a 4–5 record and was in fifth place, 31⁄2 games behind the Reds. Earlier in the 1920 season, Oeschger and Cadore had opposed each other in Brooklyn, with Cadore the winning pitcher over Oeschger, 1–0 in 11 innings.
The morning of May 1 saw light rain in Boston; Cadore and his roommate, Les Mann, were expecting a rainout. Hearing no word from their ball club, they reported to Braves Field for the 3:00 pm game, and Cadore learned he would be the starting pitcher if the game was played. Robinson spent his time before the game entertaining the baseball writers with tales of the old Baltimore Orioles, for whom he had played. Stallings, who was deeply superstitious, preferred not to announce his starting pitcher until just before game time. The Boston manager was outraged when a Brooklyn player casually walked by the home dugout, scattering peanuts to attract pigeons. Stallings hated the birds, something well-known in the National League.
By game time, the rain had slowed, and the weather was cold and blustery. Oeschger remembered, "We didn't think the game would be played, but we had to report to the park. It was a Saturday, and I didn't think I would pitch because Manager Stallings usually pitched me on Sundays because I went to church. He always played his hunches." But with Sunday baseball still illegal in Massachusetts, the Braves had no game the following day, and Oeschger was given the Saturday afternoon start. He was glad to hear that Cadore would be starting for Brooklyn, wanting revenge for the extra-inning loss.
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
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Background
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With the weather threatening rain, few believed it would be possible to start the game, let alone finish it. Thus, only 4,000 or so fans went to Braves Field to view the contest. It was drizzling as the game began, with a game time temperature of 49 °F (9 °C).
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
| 74,862,862 |
The game
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In the top of the first inning, although Brooklyn's right fielder, Bernie Neis, reached on a throwing error by the Boston second baseman, Charlie Pick, he was promptly picked off first base by Oeschger. Third baseman Jimmy Johnston singled, and was left at first base when Zack Wheat hit a pop fly to second base. In the bottom of the first, the Boston center fielder, Ray Powell, walked to lead off the inning; Cadore retired the next three batters and Powell got no further than second base. At the end of the first inning, the rain stopped abruptly, leaving a cold wind which blew in from the Charles River slowing many fly balls and converting them to outs.
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
| 74,862,862 |
First nine innings
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Brooklyn center fielder Hy Myers led off the top of the second inning with a single, and advanced to second base on Pick's second error of the game. He could get no further; neither could third baseman Tony Boeckel, who singled for Boston in the bottom of the second. After Brooklyn was retired in order in the top of the third inning, Oeschger doubled to center field to lead off the home half of the inning, and Powell sacrificed him to third base. Cadore, though, retired the side without a run being scored. Wheat walked with one out in the top of the fourth inning. When Myers hit a ground ball, Wheat was ruled out for interference. Myers then stole second and Robinson sent in Wally Hood as a pinch runner (he remained in the game as center fielder). First baseman Ed Konetchy walked, and the shortstop, Chuck Ward, hit a fly ball to left field to retire the side. In the bottom of the fourth, Boeckel singled for Boston with two outs. He was caught stealing to retire the side.
In the top of the fifth, the Brooklyn catcher, Ernie Krueger, walked and Cadore grounded out to advance him to second base. Cadore's hit could have been a double play had not Oeschger bobbled it, leaving him with only the play to first. Second baseman Ivy Olson batted next, and his base hit to shallow left field allowed Krueger to score. The Brooklyn run was scored on what Oeschger remembered as a broken-bat single. Although Olson advanced to second base on an Oeschger wild pitch, he advanced no further as the pitcher struck out Neis and got Johnston to line out to left field to end the Brooklyn fifth with the Dodgers now leading, 1–0. In the bottom of the fifth, shortstop Rabbit Maranville singled and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt from catcher Mickey O'Neil. Oeschger struck out; Powell reached first base on an error by Olson, sending Maranville to third base. Pick hit a fly-ball out to end the threat.
Oeschger allowed a single to Hood, the leadoff hitter in the top of the sixth. The baserunner was picked off first base by a throw from O'Neil. In the bottom of the sixth, right fielder Walton Cruise tripled for Boston against the Braves Field scoreboard in left field with one out. Holke hit a fly ball to shallow left field that Wheat raced in to catch just off the ground; Cruise, thinking the hit might drop, was halfway down the baseline from third base, but made it safely back as no one was covering third base, Johnston had left the base to try to reach the ball that Wheat caught. Wheat, after catching the ball, had raced to third base with it in an attempt to tag Cruise; he was too late but earned applause from the crowd for the attempt. The next batter, Boeckel, singled to tie the game at 1–1. Maranville doubled, and, trying to score, Boeckel was tagged out at home plate for the third out. Krueger, the Brooklyn catcher, made the play after Cadore relayed the ball to him, but was spiked by Boeckel and had to leave the game; he was replaced by Rowdy Elliott.
In the seventh inning, Oeschger retired the Dodgers in order, and Cadore allowed a single to Powell, who advanced to second base on a throwing error by Ward at shortstop before the Brooklyn pitcher retired the side. In the top of the eighth, Oeschger allowed a two-out single to Johnston; in the bottom of the inning, left fielder Les Mann singled, advanced to second on a Cruise sacrifice bunt, and went to third on a groundout by Holke. Boeckel hit a pop fly to shortstop to end the inning.
Oeschger retired the side in order in the top of the ninth. Maranville singled to lead off the bottom of the ninth, and Stallings sent in Lloyd Christenbury to hit for O'Neil; he also singled. Christenbury had attempted a sacrifice; Cadore's throw to first base hit him. Oeschger sacrificed the runners to second and third, and Powell was walked to load the bases with one out. Pick hit into a double play to end the threat and send the game to extra innings. Maranville had appeared to score the winning run, but Powell was ruled out at second base for running out of the baseline, voiding the run.
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
| 74,862,862 |
First nine innings
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Stallings sent Hank Gowdy into the game as catcher, as the manager had pinch-hit for O'Neil. The batters were swinging for the one long hit that might win the game. These swings made it easy for the pitchers to retire them. During the eleventh inning, it started to drizzle again. The pitchers allowed few baserunners as the game lengthened through the first few extra innings: Oeschger retired every batter after the ninth inning until Wheat singled with two outs in the fourteenth. Cadore, after retiring the side in order for the first time in the game in the tenth inning, allowed a two-out single to Gowdy in the eleventh, a two-out walk to Mann in the twelfth, a leadoff single to Holke in the thirteenth and a one-out walk to Powell in the fourteenth. None of these five baserunners was able to advance.
Cruise walked to lead off the bottom of the fifteenth, and Holke attempted a sacrifice but both men were safe, putting runners on first and second with no outs. Consecutive groundouts by Boeckel and Maranville, each forcing a runner at third base, and a fly ball out by Gowdy, sent the game to a sixteenth inning. Although Neis singled for Brooklyn with two outs in the sixteenth, he was left at first base. Boston went in order in the bottom of the inning, though Oeschger nearly won his own game with a long drive to left field that required Wheat to make a leaping catch in front of the wall.
In the top of the seventeenth, Wheat singled and Hood sacrificed him to second. Konetchy singled, sending Wheat to third base with one out. Ward hit the ball to Maranville at shortstop; he threw to third base, hoping to catch Wheat off the bag, but Wheat scrambled back and was safe. With the bases loaded, Elliott grounded to Oeschger, who threw home to Gowdy for the force out. Gowdy threw to first base in an attempt to complete the double play, but his throw was off line, and the best Holke could do is knock it down. Konetchy saw this and tried to score; he was tagged out in front of home plate by Gowdy after Holke threw the ball back to him.
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
| 74,862,862 |
Extra innings
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Oeschger remembered, "I was getting tired by the eighteenth inning, but the players kept telling me: 'Just one inning, Joe, and we'll get a run.' Stallings never did ask me if I wanted to come out. But the batters were griping to stop the game. I didn't want to stop." Stallings did assure Oeschger, "Hold 'em, we'll get 'em next inning"; Cadore later stated that had Robinson tried to remove the Brooklyn pitcher from the game, he would have strangled his own manager. By the nineteenth inning, the crowd was impartially cheering both pitchers, whenever one of them left the pitcher's mound or came to bat. There was only one baserunner in the eighteenth through twenty-first innings, Mann, who singled to lead off the home half of the twentieth inning, and was picked off first base by a throw from catcher Elliott. During the twentieth inning, Robinson offered to relieve Cadore; the Brooklyn pitcher replied, "If that other fellow can go one more inning, I can too." Explained Oeschger, "If a pitcher couldn't go the distance, he soon found himself some other form of occupation."
In the top of the twenty-second inning, Hood walked with two outs and stole second, and was left there as Konetsky grounded out. There were no baserunners in the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth innings. The twenty-fifth inning broke the MLB record for longest game in terms of innings; the previous record of twenty-four was set by the Philadelphia Athletics and Boston Red Sox on September 1, 1905. Several of the unused players on the Brooklyn bench, led by Grimes, asked their manager for the opportunity to play in the history-making marathon game. Robinson stayed with the lineup, and the pitcher, he had.
No one reached base for the Dodgers in the top of the twenty-sixth inning. In the bottom of the inning, Holke got an bunt single with two outs, but could not advance. According to Oeschger, the outfielders were complaining they could not see the ball; there was no artificial light as the game preceded night baseball. After the twenty-sixth inning, the home plate umpire, Barry McCormick, surveyed the increasing darkness on the field and consulted with the two managers. Olson did not wish to stop, wanting the distinction of having played the equivalent of three games that would come with the 27th inning, and asked McCormick to continue. The umpire responded, "Not without a miner's lamp" and ended the game, which finished as a 1–1 tie. Played on the first day of Daylight Savings Time for 1920, the game lasted three hours and fifty minutes. The marginal weather conditions ("dark clouds and mist") resulted in inadequate lighting with almost an hour to go before sunset. The fans booed as the game was called. McCormick later stated that he had been hoping for a tie, and that it would have been a shame for either pitcher to lose the game.
Oeschger stated, "I certainly didn't want it to stop and I'm sure Cadore didn't either." Starting with the eighteenth inning, he had pitched the equivalent of a no hitter, allowing Brooklyn no hits and one walk in the final nine innings. Cadore, after his struggles in the first nine innings, had not allowed a Boston runner to reach third base in extra innings, and only two had reached second base. He stated in the clubhouse, "I found myself growing sleepy at the finish." Wheat quipped, "I carried enough lumber to the plate to build a house today." Only three baseballs were used in the entire contest.
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
| 74,862,862 |
Extra innings
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The game set many records, which still stand as of 2025. The May 1, 1920, game remains MLB's longest in terms of innings. Twice, MLB games have gone 25 innings, in 1974 and 1984. In the 1974 game, the St. Louis Cardinals used seven pitchers in a 4–3 victory over the New York Mets, who used six. Claude Osteen went the longest, pitching 91⁄3 innings. On May 8, 1984, the Chicago White Sox used eight pitchers to defeat the Milwaukee Brewers (who used six), 7–6; Chuck Porter went the longest, pitching 71⁄3 innings. Philip J. Lowry, in his 2010 study of extra inning games, predicted a 50 percent chance that the record of 26 innings played by two teams in one MLB game would be broken in the next 60 years. In 2020, however, MLB instituted a rule that teams start each extra inning with an automatic runner at second base, something that has greatly reduced the number of long extra inning games.
Cadore and Oeschger jointly hold the MLB records for longest pitching appearance and longest complete game. The May 1, 1920, game made Oeschger the only pitcher in MLB history to twice pitch twenty innings in a game, a distinction he still holds. No player has pitched twenty or more innings in an MLB game since 1929. According to Baseball Almanac, neither the record of 26 innings pitched in a game, nor Oeschger's record of two twenty-inning appearances, will ever be broken. Columnist Harry Missildine wrote in 1970, "You know the line, 'Records are made to be broken'. Seems more likely the one shared by Joe Oeschger and Leon Cadore was made to stand forever." In 2007, sports columnist Bill Valyo agreed that the record would never be broken, as the increased use of the relief pitcher made it highly unlikely a pitcher could be called upon to pitch so long. According to Warren Corbett of the Society for American Baseball Research, writing in 2015, "Today a 26-inning complete game seems preposterous, not to mention abusive."
Oeschger also holds the record for consecutive scoreless innings in a single game, with 212⁄3. Cadore faced 96 batters, a record for an MLB game (second is Oeschger with 90). Cadore's twelve assists in an MLB game by a pitcher tied a record set by Nick Altrock of the White Sox in 1908; no one has ever broken it. Charlie Pick is the only player in MLB history to have eleven at bats in a game without getting a hit. No one has ever equaled Holke's record of 42 putouts in a game by a first baseman. Those putouts, together with Holke's assist in the 1–2–3–2 double play in the seventeenth inning, gave him 43 total chances, also an MLB record for a first baseman.
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
| 74,862,862 |
Records set
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In addition to the hometown Boston reporters, only Eddie Murphy of the New York Sun and Tommy Rice of the Brooklyn Eagle had covered the game. As word got out about the marathon game, the writers were deluged with requests for stories and special reports. Since the press box at Braves Field lacked electric lighting, the writers, the official scorer, and the Western Union telegraphist did their postgame work by candle light. Despite their efforts, the game was overshadowed in the headlines because on May 1, Babe Ruth hit his first home run as a member of the New York Yankees.
The day after the game, James C. O'Leary of The Boston Globe deemed it "one of the greatest games ever played", and Cadore's and Oeschger's duel "the most wonderful pitching stunt ever performed, and some classy playing in thrilling situations, such as one sees only once in a lifetime". O'Leary stated that the pitching duel "was a battle of giants, fought until both were practically exhausted, but neither giving a sign of giving up. There was glory enough in it for both, and after the 24th inning it really would have been a pity for either one to be declared the loser."
Also on May 2, National League president John Heydler sent both pitchers congratulatory messages, especially expressing his pleasure that the pitching feat had taken place under baseball's new rules, that banned the spitball. The Dodgers, leaving Cadore behind at their hotel, traveled to Brooklyn that Sunday to play the Phillies and lost in 13 innings. They then returned to Boston and lost to the Braves in 19 innings. Thus, they played 58 innings over 3 days and had only a tie to show for it. Neither pitcher was used again for over a week, Oeschger pleading a leg muscle he had pulled while running the day after the game, and Cadore that his arm was so tired he could not comb his hair for three days, but each soon returned to his place in the pitching rotation. At the time, tie games were replayed if the schedule allowed an opportunity to do so (or if the outcome of the game mattered in the pennant race), and the May 1 game was replayed as the second game of a doubleheader on June 25, Boston winning 4–2. Neither Cadore nor Oeschger pitched in the game, though Cadore was the winning pitcher of the regularly scheduled first game. Brooklyn was the National League champion for 1920; Boston finished seventh. Both Oeschger and Cadore won 15 games in 1920. Cadore pitched twice for the Dodgers in their loss to the Cleveland Indians in the 1920 World Series, compiling a record of 0–1.
O'Leary predicted that Cadore and Oeschger had "undoubtedly established a record which will stand as long as they live". A myth arose, which long persisted in baseball, that both pitchers had ruined their arms in the marathon effort. In fact, both men pitched in the major leagues for several years after the game, Oeschger having the best year of his career in 1921 with 21 wins, and Cadore winning 13 games. Records of the number of pitches they threw on May 1 were not kept; Cadore estimated he had thrown at least 300, and Oeschger put his figure at around 250.
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
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Reaction and aftermath
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Cadore died in 1958 at age 66, having played most of his MLB career with the Dodgers, with brief stints with the Chicago White Sox and New York Giants, compiling a lifetime record of 68–72. He married the daughter of Brooklyn owner Charles H. Ebbets and worked as a stockbroker. That employment ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, after which he held other jobs. During his final hospitalization, his old roommate, Casey Stengel, sent him a telegram, "Hope you catch another sparrow and pitch another 26-inning game." According to his obituary, his 26-inning performance "lifted Cadore from the comparative obscurity of 'an old major leaguer' to fame forever in one of the great pitching feats of all time". Sportswriter Bert Randolph Sugar wrote, "for Cadore and Oeschger, [the May 1 game] would so intertwine their names that they would forever be known in tandem".
Oeschger retired from MLB in 1925 with a lifetime record of 83–116, and was a junior high school physical education teacher in the San Francisco school system for many years. In 1983, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch in Philadelphia during the World Series. He died in Rohnert Park, California, in 1986 at age 94. Throughout his life, Oeschger continued to receive autograph requests for pitching the 26-inning game. He had copies of the box score made and sent them out with his signature.
In 1986, Lowell Reidenbaugh for The Sporting News ranked the May 1 game as the 6th most memorable ever played in MLB; in 1994, Sugar ranked it at number 46. According to the Los Angeles Times, neither pitcher ever seemed too impressed by their feat; as Oeschger put it, "a 1–1 contest that goes 26 innings must have been dull to watch".
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Brooklyn Dodgers 1, Boston Braves 1 (26 innings)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Dodgers_1,_Boston_Braves_1_(26_innings)
| 74,862,862 |
Reaction and aftermath
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Brother Jonathan: or, the New Englanders is an 1825 historical novel by American writer John Neal. The title refers to Brother Jonathan, a popular personification of New England and the broader United States. The story follows protagonist Walter Harwood as he and the nation around him both come of age through the American Revolution. The novel explores cross-cultural relationships and highlights cultural diversity within the Thirteen Colonies, stressing egalitarianism and challenging the conception of a unified American nation. It features mixed-race Anglo-Indigenous characters and depicts them as the inheritors of North America. The book's sexual themes drew negative reactions from contemporary critics. These themes were explicit for the period, addressing female sexual virtue and male guilt for sexual misdeeds.
Literature scholars have praised Brother Jonathan's extensive and early use of realism in depicting American culture and speech. Using phonetic transcriptions, the dialogue documents a wide range of regional accents and colloquialisms. Included in the dialogue is a likely-accurate depiction of American Indian English, and what may be American literature's earliest attempt to express a wide range of emotions using children's natural speech patterns. Neal's characterizations of American character and speech were praised in the UK but derided in the US. The author nevertheless considered them central to developing an American literature distinct from British precedent.
Neal wrote the original manuscript while crossing the Atlantic from Baltimore in early 1824, then revised it in London many times before convincing William Blackwood of Edinburgh to publish it in mid-1825. It is Neal's longest work and possibly the longest single work of American fiction until well into the twentieth century. The editing process was the most laborious of Neal's career and resulted in a number of inconsistencies in the plot. The author fashioned many of the deleted sections into separate works he published later. Considered one of America's top novelists at the time, Neal wrote Brother Jonathan with a British audience in mind in order to boost his reputation internationally. It was a financial failure that received mixed but mostly warm reviews at the time. Twenty-first century readers are generally unaware of the book, and many scholars consider it too complex to be considered good.
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wikipedia
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Introduction
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The storyline begins in 1774 in the Connecticut home of Presbyterian preacher Abraham Harwood. Abraham lives in the fictional community of Gingertown with his son Walter Harwood, his Virginian niece Edith Cummin, and a mysterious figure named Jonathan Peters. The introductory chapters illustrate the individual nature of the characters within the specific cultural context of New England. Walter loves Edith and feels jealous of her relationship with Jonathan. Abraham becomes implicated in a murder that occurred near Abraham's church, but the community turns its attention to Jonathan and drives him out of Gingertown.
Walter becomes restless in his rural surroundings, but his father will not let him leave for New York City. Walter grew up spending time in the forest among Indigenous people, particularly his friend Bald Eagle. When Walter gets caught in a spring flood, Bald Eagle saves him and brings him home. Edith and Walter express love for each other and become engaged.
With his father's consent, Walter takes a stage coach to New York following a send-off from community members exhibiting New England customs. He gets a job in a counting house and moves into a Quaker household, where he learns that his father has been killed and his family home seized by Loyalists.
Walter meets a young man named Harry Flemming who has news concerning Edith. He reports that she is living among high society in Philadelphia and has asked for news of Jonathan. This inquiry reignites Walter's jealousy. Walter ends the engagement and develops relationships with two other women: Mrs. P. and Olive Montgomery. Olive knows Edith from childhood and met Jonathan through Harry.
Walter and Harry get very drunk while observing riotous behavior during Declaration of Independence celebrations. Harry leads Walter to the luxurious home of a courtesan named Emma. She seduces Walter and they sleep together, though he is troubled by thoughts of Edith.
Walter finds a note written by Abraham explaining that Walter's father is not Abraham but, rather, a man named Warwick Savage, whom Abraham murdered upon discovering Warwick's sexual affair with his wife. The note also explains how Jonathan was implicated by his appearance near the murder scene. It also describes the strange likeness between Jonathan and Warwick.
Walter joins the Continental Army and serves under Captain Nathan Hale and Colonel Warwick Savage. Walter is bothered by the colonel's resemblance to Jonathan, then learns from Indigenous friends and from a letter from Edith that Warwick is actually Jonathan using a false identity. Walter learns that Jonathan has sinister reasons for joining the army. Jonathan tries to kill Walter during the Battle of Long Island and Walter wounds him in self defense.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Plot
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}
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Walter is severely wounded during the Battle of Harlem Heights and he returns to his Quaker hosts. He is nursed by the daughter in the household, Ruth Ashley, who has held unrequited romantic feelings for him since he arrived in New York a year earlier. Meanwhile, Walter is haunted by the dreams of Jonathan Peters. Walter recovers and hears that Olive is dying, so he ventures to visit her in an Indigenous settlement outside the city. Along the way, he witnesses Nathan Hale's execution and is nearly executed himself. Bald Eagle liberates Walter from enchantment by an Indigenous witch named Hannah, which had been causing his dreams of Jonathan and related suicidal thoughts. Upon meeting with Olive, Walter learns that her love for him is causing her death. She makes a contradictory statement regarding whether Walter should marry Edith, then dies.
Edith tells Walter that the real Warwick had a brother who is using Warwick's name to escape punishment for committing crimes. It becomes unclear whether Abraham's murder victim was Warwick or the brother. Walter visits Edith where she is staying with Benedict Arnold. He witnesses her in a possibly romantic exchange with Jonathan and leaves without seeking an explanation from either. He rushes to Emma's home, seduces her, sleeps with her, and proposes marriage. Opposed to the institution of marriage, Emma refuses, but offers him advice. Walter sees her as a more upstanding character than before.
Walter learns that Jonathan and Benedict Arnold are collaborating as traitors. Harry pursues them and wounds Jonathan. Emma gives birth to Walter's child. Walter considers marrying Emma until the child dies. Emma advises Walter to return to Edith and he leaves Emma with a letter to deliver to Edith if he should die.
Edith tells Walter more about Warwick and his brother. She tells him to attend a meeting of Indigenous Penobscot leaders to learn more. Walter travels to the Massachusetts District of Maine and sees the results of the Burning of Falmouth. At Indian Island he learns of his distant Penobscot and Mohawk ancestry and meets up with Edith. He finds Warwick/Jonathan, whose real name is Robert Evans. Robert is his real father but thought Walter was Abraham's son and that Walter was responsible for the accidental infant death of Robert's other son. Robert's twin brother George Evans was the man murdered by Abraham. Harry is Walter's cousin, the illegitimate son of Abraham's sister and George. The novel closes: "Walter and Edith were happy: and Warwick Savage – alias, Jonathan Peters – alias, Robert Evans – he, though not happy, was no longer bad, or foolish."
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wikipedia
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Plot
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At more than 1,300 pages across three volumes, Brother Jonathan is John Neal's longest book. Writing in 1958, scholar Lillie Deming Loshe considered it the longest work of early American fiction and possibly longer than any other since. There were no other works of American fiction comparable in scope, length, and complexity until the Littlepage Manuscripts trilogy (1845–1846) by James Fenimore Cooper. Neal published it anonymously, but revealed himself as the author through coded references in his 1830 novel, Authorship.
In Baltimore in 1818, Neal collaborated with fellow Delphian Club cofounder Tobias Watkins to write A History of the American Revolution (published 1819) based on primary sources collected by another Delphian, Paul Allen. In late November 1823, he was at a dinner party with an English friend who quoted Sydney Smith's then-notorious 1820 remark, "in the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?". On December 15, 1823, he left Baltimore on a UK-bound ship. Partly in response to Smith, and drawing on that Revolutionary War research, Neal wrote the first draft of Brother Jonathan while sailing across the Atlantic. The working title was The Yankee, and he intended it to be a major work that would expand his recognition as a significant novelist beyond the US and into the UK. Seventy-Six (1823) had gained him recognition as Cooper's chief rival as America's top novelist. He hoped this new novel would boost his reputation to surpass Cooper's.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Background
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Unlike his previous novels, Neal wrote Brother Jonathan with a British audience in mind. His intention was to make the US, its language, and its customs more broadly recognized in the UK. Soon after arriving in London in February 1824, he brought his manuscript to publishers in that city, but failed to convince any of them to publish it. He approached the publishing company that pirated Seventy-Six and Logan, offering them his other Baltimore-published novels Errata and Randolph, but they refused to publish either. His financial situation was becoming desperate when, in April, William Blackwood of Edinburgh asked Neal to become a regular contributor to Blackwood's Magazine. For the next year and a half, Neal was one of the magazine's most prolific contributors.
While working on the American Writers series and other articles for Blackwood's, Neal rewrote Brother Jonathan with Blackwood in mind as a potential publisher. He sent the manuscript to Edinburgh in October 1824. Blackwood refused to publish, partly on account of the novel's sexual content, saying: "it is not fit for young people to read of seduction, brothels, and the abandonment of the sexes." Based on feedback from both Blackwood and his associate David Macbeth Moir, Neal revised the novel and submitted a second draft in March 1825. Blackwood agreed to publish, but requested one more round of revisions, to which Neal agreed. This process of revision was more laborious than for any other novel Neal published and scholars blame it for many of the plot's inconsistencies. Neal later used sections cut during those revision processes to create other works, including the essay "The Character of the Real Yankees" (The New Monthly Magazine 1826), the fiction series "Sketches from Life" (The Yankee 1828–1829), the fictional fragment "Males and Females" (The Yankee April 9, 1829), the short story "Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" (The Token 1829), and the novella Ruth Elder (Brother Jonathan magazine 1843).
Blackwood published Brother Jonathan in early July 1825 and had 2,000 copies printed by A. and R. Spottiswoode in London. Blackwood paid Neal 200 guineas with the promise to pay 100 more after he sold the first 1,000 copies. Fewer than 500 copies sold before Blackwood deemed the venture a failure and his relationship with Neal broke down the following winter. Neal agreed it was a failure, but claimed it would have been a success had Blackwood allowed him to publish a story closer to the original manuscript. Neal claimed that Cooper's publisher, Charles Wiley, agreed to publish Brother Jonathan in the US but never followed through. No records from Wiley exist to confirm. As late as autumn 1828 and back in his home state of Maine, Neal continued pressuring Blackwood for the additional 100-guinea payment to no avail. Blackwood maintained that fewer than 500 copies had sold by that point.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Background
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Neal dedicated a large proportion of Brother Jonathan to the documentation of the peculiarities of the American people, particularly New Englanders. American studies scholar Winifred Morgan claimed that no other author before him had attempted to craft such a vivid and extensive portrayal in literature. As with much of his other literary work, Neal pursued the American literary nationalist goal of increasing cultural recognition of the US within the anglophone world. To that end, he dedicated a great deal of space to scenes of distinctive American cultural events, customs, accents, colloquialisms, dress, cuisine, and characters. The novel nevertheless presented readers with conflicting ideas about what it means to be an American and a New Englander. The result, according to Morgan, is "the absolute impossibility of knowing anything for certain".
The novel's title refers to the national emblem, Brother Jonathan, exemplified by the novel's protagonist, Walter Harwood. Neal chose the name because it was used by his British contemporaries as a derogatory term for Americans, particularly those from his native New England region. The emblem had been developing for decades as a minor self-referential device in American literature, but saw full development in this novel into the personification of American national character. Though Brother Jonathan was initially considered to personify just the New England states, Neal advocated for Americans to accept him as a representation for the entire country. Uncle Sam replaced Brother Jonathan in this regard later in the nineteenth century.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Depicting Americans
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Among other things, Brother Jonathan is a coming-of-age story about both the protagonist growing into manhood and about the new American nation as it is born in the American Revolution. For Walter, this is exemplified by his transition from a rural upbringing in Connecticut to urban life in New York City. Once in New York, Walter observes with disgust as wealthy city dwellers at his boarding house clean themselves with a common towel and toothbrush, comb their hair with their fingers, and arrange their collars and cravats to hide wear marks and stains. Yet, he is left feeling shame over his own unsophisticated country appearance. On the one hand, exposure in New York to urban sophistication, love interests, and war corrupts his natural naivety. On the other, Neal exalts Walter's provinciality in contrast to the elites, showing him better suited for self-governance.
Neal used Walter to stand in for the American people as a naturally republican society oppressed by outside British control. According to cultural studies researcher Jörg Thomas Richter, the stage coach that transported Walter to New York also exemplifies this natural American republicanism, as it depicts a curious mix of animals, cargo, and passengers of varying social status, all traveling together. He also argues that the character on the stage coach smoking a pipe dangerously close to a keg of gunpowder suggests that heterogeneous egalitarianism might have explosive consequences for the nation. Pointing to other negative consequences of this egalitarianism, Neal depicts a vulgar display from New Yorkers in a Declaration of Independence celebration and poor discipline among Continental troops.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
National coming of age
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{
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Neal's earlier novel Seventy-Six depicts the Revolutionary War as a moment of national unification, but Brother Jonathan explores the same event as a portrait of the nation's complex cultural diversity. One example is how each novel's protagonist views his father. The father figure in Seventy-Six is a hero, whereas in Brother Jonathan he may be one of two different men, both of whom demonstrate significant character flaws. To illustrate cultural diversity in the Thirteen Colonies, Brother Jonathan features colloquialisms and accents specific to Black Americans, American Indians, Southerners, New Englanders, and others. Neal likely meant this as a challenge to the concept of the United States as a unified nation and to stress the ideal of egalitarianism.
The novel also explores relationships between culturally different characters and features a mixed-race protagonist. The darker side of these cross-cultural interactions is exemplified by the graveyard in Gingertown as a haunting Gothic symbol for "the legacy of the American colonial project ... fertilized and poisoned with the blood of conquered and the conqueror alike", according to literature scholar Matthew Wynn Sivils. However, unlike the mass death scene at the end of Neal's earlier novel Logan, which killed off every major character, Brother Jonathan's ending kills off two Indigenous characters and leaves the two mixed-race characters alive. Historian Matthew Pethers interprets this as Neal's take on the vanishing Indian: the common literary trope that depicts American Indians as a people vanishing to make way for Anglo-Americans as inheritors of the American landscape. In this version, the inheritors are a mixed-race people of both English and Indigenous descent.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Cultural diversity
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{
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As with nearly all of Neal's novels, Brother Jonathan includes scenes much more sexually explicit than its contemporaries. Walter seduces Emma, and like in many of Neal's earlier novels, the male protagonist demonstrates guilt after committing sexual misdeeds. The story explores the consequences of those actions for both men and women. Walter also grows in his views on female sexual virtue after becoming more acquainted with women of varying sexual activity in New York. He comes to dismiss virtuous women and praise the promiscuous as those who "fall, not because of their being worse – but because of their being better, than usual". Publisher William Blackwood warned that "the pictures you give of seduction &c. are such as would make your work a sealed book to nine tenths of ordinary readers". Scholar Fritz Fleischmann acknowledged the historic importance of the novel's treatment of female virtue, male profligacy, and seduction of women by men, but asserted that Neal failed to craft a successful theme on the topic.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Sex
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{
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Most of Neal's novels experimented with American dialects and colloquialisms, but Brother Jonathan is considered by many scholars to be Neal's best and most extensive attempt in this regard. Walter's dialogue in the first volume may be the earliest attempt in American literature to use a child's natural speech patterns to express a wide range of emotion. The novel's portrayal of Walter's transition to more adult language is described by scholar Harold C. Martin as "the oddest transformation ... in all of American literature". The book's dialogue features phonetic transcriptions of speech patterns particular to New Englanders, Appalachian Virginians, rural Americans from the Mid-Atlantic, Indigenous Penobscot, Georgians, Scots, and enslaved Black Americans. Literature scholar and biographer Benjamin Lease found the representation of American Indian English to be likely very accurate, and Martin posited it was likely closer to reality than the work of contemporary novelists like James Fenimore Cooper. Examples of Virginia colloquialisms in the novel include "I reckon", "jest", "mighty bad", and "leave me be". The book's use of English is cited in the definitions of multiple words by the compilers of the Dictionary of American English, The Oxford English Dictionary, and A Dictionary of Americanisms.
In the "Unpublished Preface" to Rachel Dyer (1828), Neal himself claimed the representation of American speech in Brother Jonathan as central to American literary nationalism – a movement that sought to develop an American literature distinct from British precedent. In the novel itself, Neal used dialogue by the character Edith Cummin to express the predominant literary sentiment he opposed: "We all say that which none of us would write". Lease felt his intention was successful: "Neal's adventurous experiments contributed significantly to our colloquial tradition." Those experiments stood at the time in stark and controversial contrast to the broadly accepted literary standard of classical English and to efforts by contemporaries like Noah Webster to downplay regional variation in American English.
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wikipedia
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Style
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{
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"is_intro": false
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Brother Jonathan introduced technical devices for conveying natural speech diction that no author used before Neal and that were not copied by his successors. Martin described it as a "rudimentary ... choppy style, aided by eccentric punctuation". The novel's prolific use of italics and diacritics convey the stresses and rhythm of natural speech and peculiarities of regional accents. The speech of a Connecticut farmer is thus captured for the reader: "In făct – I thoŭght – mȳ tĭme – hăd cŏme – sŭre enŏugh – I guĕss." In many cases, dialogue between multiple characters runs together in a single paragraph to convey passion. This experiment came after Neal played with omitting identifying dialogue tags in Seventy-Six (1823) and before he began omitting quotation marks in Rachel Dyer (1828). Literature scholar Maya Merlob described the novel's less-intelligible examples as "ludicrous dialogue" that Neal concocted to subvert British literary norms and prototype a new literature as distinctly American. Neal may also have been mimicking common speech patterns in order to make his novel appealing to a broader, and less educated, audience.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Style
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{
"word_count": 179,
"char_count": 1148,
"is_intro": false
}
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Critical reception of Brother Jonathan was mixed but mostly warm. Most of the positive criticism was qualified by commentary on the novel's shortcomings, such as what The Ladies' Monthly Museum published: "the striking delineations of New England manners are interesting as well as amusing, notwithstanding their coarseness." Of Neal's previous novels, only Logan and Seventy-Six had been published in the UK. Compared to those, Brother Jonathan received more attention from British critics. The Literary Chronicle and Weekly Review praised the earlier two novels, for instance, but was much more enthusiastic about Brother Jonathan. Almost all critics found the novel puzzling. American critics largely ignored the novel, as did readers in both the US and UK.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Contemporary critique
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Among American readers and critics who were aware of Brother Jonathan, most were angered by its caricatures of American speech and customs. Returning to his native Portland, Maine, two years after publishing the novel, Neal found former friends refusing to meet with him. He received threats, found printed denunciations posted throughout town, and got heckled in the street. The formerly friendly journalist Joseph T. Buckingham of The New-England Galaxy in nearby Boston lambasted the novel's "gross and vulgar caricatures of New-England customs and language". In contrast, Sumner Lincoln Fairfield of the New York Literary Gazette praised the novel as a "great success", particularly in its characterization of Americans.
In stark contrast to the Americans, British critics praised Brother Jonathan's realistic depiction of American language and habits as its chief achievement. The Literary Gazette praised it as "what an American novel should be: American in its scenes, actors, and plot". Dumfries Monthly Magazine said "'Brother Jonathan' is the first publication of the kind that introduces us to anything like an accurate ... acquaintance with the inhabitants of the great continent – aborigines as well as colonists." In a mostly negative review, the British Critic instructed readers to "skip or skim" most of the novel to get to "the vivid and eccentric pictures of American life and character with which it abounds." On the other hand, John Bowring claimed that Jeremy Bentham assailed the novel as "the most execrable stuff that ever fell from mortal pen." Neal, who served as Bentham's secretary for more than a year following the novel's release, claimed Bowring libelously manufactured this quote.
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Depiction of Americans
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{
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}
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Many reviewers decried the novel's sexual content as offensive. The British Critic summarized the novel's contents as "the adventures of profligates, misanthropes, maniacs, liars, and louts". David Macbeth Moir claimed Neal demonstrated "a deficiency of just taste in what is proper for the public palate" and declared the novel "unfit for a circle of female readers". He continued: "Need I allude to such things as elaborate plans for female seduction, or pictures of male profligacy which startle while they astonish, and nauseate while they create interest."
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wikipedia
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Sexual content
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{
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}
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Many critics complained that the story was hard to follow. The New Monthly Magazine in London felt that Brother Jonathan was less excessive than Logan or Seventy-Six, but still disappointingly unrestrained. The British Monthly Review called it a failure, saying "the general character of the style is that of exaggeration". One reviewer for the British Critic described the novel's characters as exaggerated, referring to them as "stalking moody spectres with glaring eyeballs and inflated nostrils, towering above the common height, and exhibiting the play of their muscles and veins through their clothes in the most trivial action". William Hazlitt of the Edinburgh Review felt that the novel tried too hard to amplify mundane aspects of American life: "In the absence of subjects of real interest, men make themselves an interest out of nothing, and magnify mole-hills into mountains." The French Revue encyclopédique praised the narration and dialogue as poetic and eloquent, but also scattered and impossible to understand. Moir predicted commercial failure for the book on the grounds that readers had no patience for such a demanding work, saying that Neal is "too fond of making a great deal of every thing". Neal himself admitted to the novel's excesses, blaming them on his quest for originality: "I, wishing to avoid what is common, am apt to run off into what is not only uncommon, but unnatural, and even absurd."
Despite criticizing the novel's exaggerated style, The New Monthly Magazine admitted it "display[ed] throughout the marks of great intellectual power." The Edinburgh Literary Journal called it "full of vigour and originality". The Literary Gazette claimed "it is a work no one could read through without acknowledging the author's powers." When reviewing a Cooper novel in 1827, the same magazine claimed Logan, Seventy-Six, and Brother Jonathan to be "full of faults, but still full of power" and successful at positioning the author as Cooper's chief competitor. Moir also offered praise: "It is extremely powerful – and, what is more to the purpose, its power is of a kind that is unhackneyed and original." The Literary Chronicle and Weekly Review asserted "there are few novels – few indeed, which display so much talent or possess such a fearful interest as Brother Jonathan. Commenting on both the novel's power and excesses, Peter George Patmore supposed that if Brother Jonathan was the anonymous author's first work, it was "destined to occupy a permanent place in the very foremost rank of his age's literature. .... But if its author has written two or three such works, we almost despair of his ever writing a better."
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Excessive but powerful
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Twenty-first-century readers are generally unaware of Brother Jonathan. Among scholars familiar with the work, many consider it bad or a failure.
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wikipedia
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Modern views
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{
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Scholars who have praised Brother Jonathan often focus on the realism achieved in the novel's depiction of American characters and scenes. Fleischmann felt it was the novel's greatest achievement. Lease and fellow literature scholars Hans-Joachim Lang and Arthur Hobson Quinn claimed that this level of realism was uniquely high for the early nineteenth century. Lease and Lang claimed that "to find a counterpart of the power and subtlety ... it is necessary to turn to the best of Hawthorne and Melville." Biographer Irving T. Richards called it "flat, crass realism, of an excellent sort". Authors of the Literary History of the United States praised the "extraordinary fidelity" of the depiction of American speech.
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wikipedia
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Realism
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Many scholars have judged the novel's plot to be overly complex. Richards referred to it as "a most inharmonious whole" and Fleischmann called it "an ill-designed shambles". The plot was "brilliant yet exasperating" according to biographer Donald A. Sears, while Morgan called it "overstuffed". Sivils called Brother Jonathan a "hodgepodge of a novel" that attempted to combine too many different genres and to document too much about American life.
Richards and Richter both complained of an incongruous mixture of realism and fantastical Gothic devices, which Lease and Lang referred to as "vast quantities of Gothic mystification". Richter and Sears both felt that the narrative shifted abruptly between following Walter Harwood and Jonathan Peters. Fleischmann and Lease contended that Walter's sudden transformation "from a virtuous lad of countrified looks to an elegant profligate" is unwarranted. Fleischmann went on to argue that Walter's jealousy is too intense given the limited interactions between Edith and Jonathan. Martin argued that the plot's excesses and inconsistencies were accentuated by Neal's experiments in diction and syntax. Referring to this mix of style experiments, American realism, Gothic devices, and an excessive plot, scholar Alexander Cowie summarized: "To see unity in the vast conglomeration of Brother Jonathan is impossible."
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Brother Jonathan (novel)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(novel)
| 75,148,855 |
Complexity
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{
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The Caerleon pipe burial is a second-century Roman grave from a cemetery associated with the former legionary fortress and settlement, Isca Augusta, in what is now Caerleon. The main site, including its large amphitheatre, was excavated in the early twentieth century, largely by the archaeologist Tessa Wheeler, but its surrounding cemeteries were mainly known only through casual finds.
In 1927 building works on a site across the River Usk from the fortress led to the discovery of a grave containing a stone-lined tomb. Within the tomb was a lead canister containing cremated bone fragments and a piece of linen bearing traces of frankincense. Also present was a 3.8 cm (1.5 in) broken lead pipe which would originally have reached the surface. This type of burial is rare in Britain and was investigated at the time of its discovery by the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler. He consulted the anatomist Arthur Keith, who determined that the bone fragments belonged to a single adult, findings confirmed at re-examination in 2001 by Alice Roberts.
Tombs with vertical lead or earthenware pipes are found throughout the Roman Empire, and graves featuring other means of partial access from the surface also occur widely. These features are believed to have facilitated sacrifices and other offerings to the departed. In particular, pipe burials are thought to have allowed relatives to pour blood or wine into the container to nourish the soul of the deceased.
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wikipedia
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Caerleon pipe burial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caerleon_pipe_burial
| 79,582,559 |
Introduction
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Caerleon, a town in South Wales, is the site of a Roman legionary fortress and settlement (canaba), named Isca. It was the headquarters for Legio II Augusta from about 75 to 300 AD. The Romans called the site Isca or Isca Augusta after the River Usk (Welsh: Wysg). The name Caerleon may derive from the Welsh for "fortress of the legion"; around 800 AD it was referred to as Cair Legeion guar Uisc ('fortress of the legion on the Usk').
Antiquarian archaeological digs in 1908 and 1909 uncovered Caerleon’s large amphitheatre and other Roman structures, and further progress included the acquisition for the nation and excavation of the amphitheatre in 1926–27. The professional archaeologist Tessa Wheeler expanded the settlement's main excavation site in 1927–28.
Across the river Usk from the excavation site there was a suburb known as Ultra Pontem (beyond the bridge), and a small settlement at nearby Bulmore. Tombstones of legionaries from these districts suggest that they may have been populated by retired soldiers. Cemeteries were located, as Roman law required, outside the legionary fortress and near its approach roads, and several burial grounds are known in the area. Although there are no extant visible traces of the burial sites that lay along the roads leading to the fortress, numerous tombstones and cremation graves have been recovered. There are several cemeteries around Bulmore, particularly above the road to Caerleon, and more graves at Abernant just to the east.
All known burials in the cemeteries are cremations, and most were identified from casual, unplanned finds, although parts of two large cemeteries have undergone professional excavation. These are Abbeyfield to the north of Caerleon, and the Ultra Pontem/Bulmore area, where the two burial sites nearly merge into each other. Building work at the Ultra Pontem site (still so-named at the time) in 1927 uncovered a stone-lined burial chamber, or "cist", containing a lead canister, about 0.76 m (2.5 ft) below the surface. Associated red terra sigillata suggested a second century date for the interment. Tessa Wheeler's husband, the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, was called in; having recorded details of the site, he took the canister to Caerleon Museum for further study.
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wikipedia
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Caerleon pipe burial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caerleon_pipe_burial
| 79,582,559 |
Background
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The burial cist had a base of stone slabs, with another serving as a lid, and contained a cylindrical lead container resting on about 30 cm (12 in) depth of brick, tile and charcoal debris, possibly remnants of a cremation pyre. The lead canister was 47 cm (18.5 in) high and 38 cm (15 in) in diameter, and had three rings of bead and reel pattern. Vertical flat mouldings between the upper two bands divided the surface into three panels. A vertical lead pipe 3.8 cm (1.5 in) wide was attached to the top of the canister. It is 99 cm (39 in) long, with a broken upper end, and would originally have reached the ground surface. It contained 1.3 kg (2.9 lb) of bone fragments from a cremation (grinding the cremation products to a fine powder is a recent practice).
Mortimer Wheeler sent the fragments to the anatomist Arthur Keith, who determined that the cremation was of a single adult male aged at least 35 years. Alice Roberts re-examined the remains in 2001, and confirmed that they belonged to an adult, as age can be estimated by the degree of fusion of the sutures of the skull, but she did not think it was possible to reliably determine the sex of the deceased. Roberts found no pieces of skull or pelvis large enough for a reliable assessment, whereas Keith had based his judgement on the general size of the bone fragments.
Also in the lead container was a 17 cm × 11 cm (6.7 in × 4.3 in) fragment of plain weave linen textile that had originally contained the bone fragments, and which Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy detected still held traces of frankincense from the funeral rituals. Frankincense was an expensive resin used as incense, but also to anoint the corpses of those whose families could afford it, along with similar terpene-containing plant products. These aromatic substances would slow decomposition and hide unpleasant smells. A 2025 study of textile preservation in a cremation suggested that lead leaching from a container may also help preserve fabric.
A scanning electron microscope investigation revealed that tin and sulfur were present in the deposits within the canister. The lead canister and its contents are now in the collection of Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales at the National Roman Legion Museum.
It is possible that a sacrificial table (mensa) was associated with the grave; one discovered at Caerleon in the 18th century is now lost.
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wikipedia
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Caerleon pipe burial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caerleon_pipe_burial
| 79,582,559 |
Grave and contents
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Pre-Roman Iron Age burials, whether of corpses or cremated remains, are rare across most of Britain but this changed after the island's incorporation into the Empire, and by the second century cremations were standard throughout the Roman province. A British pipe burial similar to that from Caerleon is known from near Colchester, and the remains of a burial that was found in 1980 near Mancetter, Warwickshire, included a lead pipe and a bluish-green glass jar containing bone fragments, with evidence that the pipe had once had a nailed-on lid of a perishable material. A pipe burial from Chichester connected the funerary urn to the surface, then 42 cm (17 in) above, using pairs of imbrices, semi-cylindrical fired clay tiles. Although they are rare in Britain, there are multiple lead or earthenware pipe burials from across the rest of the Roman Empire. The practice is known from Rome itself, and may have come to Britain through trade.
A Celtic site in Kent had a grave with a hole in the lid large enough to insert a hand, a feature also seen in some dolmens, and which may have served the same purpose of allowing the entry of food. Arthur Evans and Wheeler also mentioned similar permanent entry points in other megalithic tombs as far east as India, and in Ancient Egyptian mastaba.
The second-century Greek geographer Pausanias recorded a custom in his country of pouring blood from an animal sacrifice into a grave through a hole, and the Romans and Celts both incorporated sacrifices or offerings of animals, particularly pigs, in their burial rites. The Romans held funerary feasts by the graveside on the day of the interment, and again nine days later, in which food was left on the grave and wine poured on the soil. Further feasts were held on the deceased's birthday and at certain festivals, and at all of these celebrations a portion of the meal was set aside for the soul of the departed to share. Wine paraphernalia, such as bottles, cups and amphorae, were often left in burial chambers, as were trenchers and cutlery on occasion.
Wheeler gave examples of the practice of pouring libations into a grave from ancient Carthage and Mycenae, and in twentieth-century Africa, India and some Pacific islands, and both he and Roberts believed it to be likely that the pipe graves facilitated the pouring of blood or wine straight into the chamber for the more direct nourishment of the soul of the departed. Roberts also mentioned a custom still extant in Russia of leaving food and drink on the graves of dead relatives. Wheeler ended his discussion of graveside feasting with a reference to the final verse of an old English folk song, Lavender's Blue.
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Caerleon pipe burial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caerleon_pipe_burial
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Burial practices
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Roberts, Alice (2023). Buried: An Alternative History of the First Millennium in Britain. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-3985-1005-0.
Wheeler, Mortimer R. E. (1929). "A Roman Pipe-burial from Caerleon, Monmouthshire" (PDF). Antiquaries Journal. IX (1): 1–7. doi:10.1017/S0003581500012725.
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Caerleon pipe burial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caerleon_pipe_burial
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Cited texts
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The Duffield Memorial is a gravesite monument located in the churchyard of the Church of St Mary in Great Baddow, Essex, England. Designed by Herbert Maryon and installed in 1912, it originally commemorated Marianne Duffield and William Ward Duffield, who died in 1910 and 1912, respectively. A second plaque was added to commemorate their son, William Bartleet Duffield, who died in 1918. In 2022, Historic England designated the work a Grade II listed building, noting it as an unusual example of both Art Nouveau metalwork and churchyard memorial.
The memorial is made of riveted sections of bronze sheet metal and comprises edging and a vertical cross. The edging follows the rectangular perimeter of the grave plot, with short pillars at each corner. Within the plot sits the Celtic wheel cross, decorated in relief with leaflike motifs. A curved shaft connects it to the foot, which, like the four-sided base upon which it is mounted, has curved and splayed sides. The plaques commemorating the Duffields are riveted to the base; a medallion, now lost, was once riveted to the centre of the cross.
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Duffield Memorial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffield_Memorial
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Introduction
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The Duffields were a prominent family in Chelmsford, having settled in Great Baddow by the time of Henry VIII. William Ward Duffield was born on 25 November 1820, one of nine children to James Duffield, a farmer. William Duffield went on to become a successful solicitor, founding two firms: Duffield and Son, in Chelmsford, and Duffield, Bruty and Co., in London. As of 2023, the latter survives as Duffield Harrison LLP; the former, by then known as Duffield Stunt, merged into Backhouse Solicitors in 2015. He also held many public roles, including clerk to the Chelmsford Board of Governors, clerk to the Justices at Chelmsford, registrar of the Chelmsford County Court and Bankruptcy Court, and governor (and later chairman) of the King Edward VI School. His private positions included director and chairman of the Chelmsford and Braintree Gas Companies, the Chelmsford and Blackwater Navigation Company, and the Reliance Life Assurance Company, and chairman of the London Board of the Norwich Union after it acquired Reliance.
William Duffield married Marianne Bartleet on 10 March 1860. The couple had three surviving children: sons William Bartleet (1861–1918) and Arthur Stewart (1867–1930), and daughter Florence Marion. Marianne Duffield died on 22 June 1910, three months after the couple had celebrated their 50th anniversary. She was buried in the churchyard of Church of St Mary in Great Baddow, following a family tradition of several generations. Her husband died two years later, on 7 August 1912, and was buried in the same grave. William Bartleet Duffield died a bachelor six years later in Aix-les-Bains, France, where he had been wintering for his health.
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Duffield Memorial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffield_Memorial
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The Duffields
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At the time of William Ward Duffield's death, Herbert Maryon was 38 years old and a teacher of sculpture at the University of Reading in Reading, Berkshire. One of his colleagues was Walter Geoffrey Duffield, a professor of physics at Reading and the grandson of William Ward Duffield's brother Walter. Maryon had studied at The Slade, Saint Martin's School of Art, and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where his teachers included Alexander Fisher and William Lethaby. He subsequently led the Keswick School of Industrial Art from 1900 to 1904, where he designed numerous Arts and Crafts works, and taught metalwork at the Storey Institute. Maryon taught at Reading from 1907 to 1927, then at Armstrong College until 1939. He designed a number of other memorials while a teacher, including First World War monuments for East Knoyle, Mortimer, and the University of Reading. After the Second World War, Maryon went on a second career as a conservator at the British Museum; his work on the Sutton Hoo ship-burial led to his appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Like the Duffields, the Maryons were native to the area; a family pedigree by Herbert Maryon's brother John Ernest started by declaring that "[t]he Maryon family has been located for centuries in the centre and west of co. Essex, the east of co. Hertford, and the south of co. Cambridge, so that a radius of 20 miles would include nearly every place in which they have held property or resided before the year 1800." This included a branch of the family in Chelmsford. Samuel William Maryon, whose grandfather was likely Herbert Maryon's great-great-grandfather (or the brother thereof), served as the Inspector of Corn Returns for the Chelmsford Corn Exchange Company, of which William Ward Duffield was the Secretary.
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Duffield Memorial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffield_Memorial
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Herbert Maryon
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The memorial is located approximately 75 metres (250 ft) east of the Church of St Mary. It is made of riveted sections of bronze sheet metal and designed in the Art Nouveau style. It consists of edging that follows the rectangular perimeter of the grave, and a vertical cross. Small pillars rise from each of the four corners. The memorial is placed over the grave of the Duffields, which is made of brick.
The Celtic wheel cross sits within the grave plot and surrounding edging, and is connected by a shaft to a four-sided base. The wheel is decorated in relief with leaflike motifs; a medallion, now removed, was once riveted to the centre. The shaft is curved, and meets the curved and splayed edges of the foot. This is mounted atop the base, which features similar lines.
Two copper plaques are riveted to opposite sides of the base. The west-facing one commemorates the elder Duffields, and reads:
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Duffield Memorial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffield_Memorial
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Description
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The memorial was erected around October 1912, within two months of William Duffield's death. Newspapers reported on it on 25 and 26 October, praising it as "very fine" and "admirably executed", and noting that it was "quite unique, at any rate in this neighbourhood". After William Bartleet Duffield died on 3 June 1918, the east-facing plaque was added to the memorial to commemorate him.
On 25 July 2022, Historic England designated the memorial a Grade II listed building, indicative of "special interest". The organisation cited historic and architectural interest, and group value, for listing the memorial. As to historic interest, Historic England termed the work "an unusual example of churchyard memorial design that is also memorial to prominent local citizen William Ward Duffield and his son". Architecturally, the organisation cited the "unusual example of Art Nouveau design in metal work, well detailed and combined with a conventional form of churchyard memorial, a Celtic wheeled cross". For group value, Historic England considered the memorial in conjunction with the Church of St Mary, itself a Grade I listed building (indicative of "exceptional interest").
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Duffield Memorial
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffield_Memorial
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History
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Empire of the Sultans: Ottoman Art of the Khalili Collection was a 1995–2004 touring exhibition displaying objects from the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art. Around two hundred exhibits, including calligraphy, textiles, pottery, weapons, and metalwork, illustrated the art and daily life of six centuries of the Ottoman Empire. Many of the objects had been created for the leaders of the empire, the sultans. Two of the calligraphic pieces were the work of sultans themselves.
In the 1990s, the exhibition was hosted by institutions in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Israel. It visited thirteen cities in the United States from 2000 to 2004, a period when Islam became especially controversial due to the September 11 attacks and the subsequent wars in the Middle East. Critics described the exhibition as wide-ranging and informative. They praised it for showing beautiful art works—naming the calligraphy in particular—and for presenting a fresh view of Islam. Catalogues were published in both English and French.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Introduction
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The Ottoman Empire lasted from the 13th century until 1922 and, at its peak, had territory in three continents: Asia, Europe, and Africa. In 1516 and 1517, it took over Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, the holiest cities of Islam. Although officially an Islamic state, the empire was culturally diverse and multilingual, including Christians and Jews as well as Muslims.
Through the history of the Ottoman Empire, its rulers, the sultans, were patrons of the arts. At the capital Constantinople, they created institutes to train and organise architects and artists, establishing distinctive Ottoman styles of architecture, manuscript illustration, and design. The Ottomans developed distinctive styles of Islamic calligraphy, improving its practice for nearly 500 years. In the 19th century it was routine for the sultans themselves to be trained in calligraphy. The empire reached its greatest extent during the 16th-century reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. Suleiman and his successors used their wealth to build the Topkapı Palace and other buildings in Constantinople, including large mosque complexes decorated inside with architectural inscriptions.
For much of its history, Islamic sacred art has been characterised by aniconism: a prohibition against depictions of living beings. Islamic cultures and time periods differed in how they interpreted this, either as applying narrowly to religious art or to art as a whole. Islamic artists compensated for the restrictions on figurative art by using decorative calligraphy, geometric patterns, and stylised foliage known as arabesque.
Sir Nasser David Khalili is a British-Iranian scholar, collector, and philanthropist who has assembled the world's largest private collection of Islamic art. The Khalili Collection of Islamic Art spans the time period from 700 to 2000 and includes religious art works and decorative objects as well as those with secular purposes. Empire of the Sultans was the first exhibition drawn entirely from this collection and the first major exhibition at the School of Oriental and African Studies' Brunei Gallery. Some of its objects had never before been put on public display.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Background
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The exhibition's curators were J. M. Rogers, the collection's honorary curator; and Nahla Nassar, its acting curator and registrar. More than 200 objects were on display, covering six centuries of the Ottoman Empire. These exhibits fell into four sections. "In the service of God" displayed texts including the Quran as well as furniture and ornaments for decorating mosques. "Sultans, soldiers and scribes" included armour, banners, and documents relating to the administration of the empire. "Arts and crafts" included metalwork, textiles, glass, and ceramics. Finally, "books, paintings and scripts" included manuscript paintings, calligraphic works, tools associated with calligraphy, and book bindings. Most objects in the exhibition bore some form of calligraphy.
Some venues had listening stations that let visitors listen to music from Ottoman Turkey and hear stories in Arabic and English. At Brigham Young University, carpenters recreated facades of Turkish mosques.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Content
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The religious manuscripts included thirty-two calligraphed Qurans or Quran sections. These included the work of notable calligraphers including Ahmed Karahisari, Sheikh Hamdullah, Hâfiz Osman, and Mustafa Izzet Efendi. Other literary works included the Masnavi of Rumi and the Dala'il al-Khayrat, a collection of prayers. Wooden roundels, painted with Quranic quotes or the names of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and of the first caliphs, had been used to decorate mosques. Similar decorative calligraphy was embroidered on silk or satin textiles, including a black satin panel from a covering for the door of the Kaaba. Mosque furnishings on display included candlesticks and decorative door fittings in brass or copper. There were qibla compasses used to find the direction of Mecca for prayer and astrolabe quadrants for telling the time for prayer from the rising of stars.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
| 74,620,427 |
In the service of God
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The armour on display included helmets, chain mail shirts, and a 15th century war mask. These were mainly forged from iron or steel. Some of this armour was for horses: chamfrons which protected their faces and also served an ornamental purpose. A cotton talismanic shirt was decorated with Quranic quotations, prayers, and the 99 names of God. Weapons on display included daggers, swords, and flintlock guns, many with inscriptions and fine decorative patterns created by damascening (inlaying gold and silver wires into a metal surface). The daggers and swords included the earliest surviving example of a curved Islamic sword upon which was engraved the name of Baybars, a 13th-century Mamluk sultan. The Ottomans took this from Egypt and added gold damascening. Military banners bore the names of God and Muhammad along with prayers and invocations. An image distinctive to Ottoman banners was Zulfiqar, the two-bladed sword that Muhammad is said to have taken at the Battle of Badr. A section of one such banner was included in the exhibition.
The documents included grants of land and income. As official proclamations of the sultan, these used highly ornate, stylised calligraphy and incorporated the sultan's tughra, an elaborate monogram that was their official seal. The display included tughras of Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II, Murad III, Ahmed I, Mehmed IV, Abdul Hamid I, and Abdulmecid I. Two manuscripts told histories of the sultans, illustrated with portrait paintings.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Sultans, soldiers and scribes
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The third section included metalwork, pottery, jade, and textiles. The domestic metalwork objects were made of silver, brass, or gilt copper. The textiles, from the 16th and 17th centuries, included rugs and woven silk lampas panels from locations around the Ottoman Empire.
In the late 16th century, the Ottomans used Iznik pottery, with its bold colours on white, to decorate imperial palaces and mosques. Several examples from Iznik were included in the exhibition, including tiles, dishes, and vases. Other pottery on display included fritware dishes from Syria and a set of twelve fritware bowls made in 1860, each inscribed in Arabic with "Imperial Chamber" and "a gift for his excellency Abraham Lincoln". The curators were not able to establish why or where this gift was made for Lincoln, beyond that the inscription suggests they were made in Turkey. A 16th or 17th century tile panel, 207 by 112.5 centimetres (6.79 ft × 3.69 ft), bore two calligraphed statements of faith, suggesting it was made to decorate a mosque.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
| 74,620,427 |
Arts and crafts
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The final section of the exhibition included calligraphic works, manuscript paintings, decorative book bindings, and tools used by calligraphers. The calligraphic works included single panels, albums, and inscriptions on leaves. Among their scribes were notable calligraphers such as Sheikh Hamdullah, Mahmud Celaleddin Efendi, and Mehmed Şevkî Efendi. The exhibition had calligraphy panels by two sultans, Abdulmejid I and Mahmud II. One type of calligraphic work special to Islam is the hilye, a description in words of the qualities of Muhammad or other prophets of Islam. On display were several examples of hilyes. Some of these followed a standard pattern with main text inside a central medallion and additional names and quotations in surrounding panels; others had unconventional layouts or textual inclusions.
Among the paintings and drawings were portraits from poetry manuscripts, painted within elaborate decorative borders, and two examples of the saz style which combines fantastical foliage and creatures.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Books, paintings and scripts
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{
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The exhibition travelled to a total of sixteen venues in four countries. Some venues put on special events, including performances of Turkish music, film viewings, lectures, and demonstrations of calligraphy.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Venues
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Musée Rath, Geneva, Switzerland, July–September 1995
Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK, July–October 1996
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel, December 1996 – June 1997
Thirteen venues were in the United States, the first time an exhibition from the Khalili Collections had been held in North America.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Venues
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|
Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, February–April 2000
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, July–October 2000
Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 2000 – January 2001
Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, January–April 2001
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, August–October 2001
Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Greenwich, Connecticut, October 2001 – January 2002
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February–April 2002
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina, May–July 2002
Museum of Art, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, August 2002 – January 2003
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, February–April 2003
Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee, May–August 2003
Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, Georgia, August–November 2003
Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 2003 – February 2004
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Venues
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Critics described Empire of the Sultans as broad and informative. Reviewing the Geneva exhibition for the Financial Times, Susan Moore observed that "no other single collection outside Istanbul has the range of material" to put on such a wide-ranging overview of Ottoman culture. She identified its main achievement as showing how the Ottoman world was affected by its conquest of other territories. The Middle East magazine said the Brunei Gallery offered a "beautifully curated" show that "cleverly illustrates how art was an integral part of Ottoman daily life". The Columbian concluded from the Portland exhibition that "Nasser D. Khalili's collection of Islamic art treasures is so extensive it nearly brings the Ottoman Empire to life." The New York Times described "[t]his treasure trove of a show" at the Bruce Museum as having "an impressive sweep".
Critics praised the beauty of the exhibited art works. The Albuquerque Tribune described Empire of the Sultans as a "stunning exhibit of treasures of the Ottoman Empire" whose 225 objects "are simply breathtaking". Reviewing for the San Francisco Chronicle, David Bonetti found all the objects "at least interesting" and the best "gorgeous", naming the carpets and ceramics as highlights. For The Capital Times, Kevin Lynch described the Milwaukee exhibition as a "serenely gorgeous show" and "a must-see for those who want clarity in these troubling times." In his review of the year for 2002, Lynch named Empire of the Sultans as the fourth best visual arts event. Reviewing the London exhibition for The Times, John Russell Taylor found it a pity that some of the most interesting objects shown in Geneva had been excluded from the Brunei Gallery (usually for lack of space), but said that the somewhat reduced display still included "many real gems of significant art".
The calligraphy, in particular, attracted praise. The Associated Press wrote that its beauty could be appreciated even by visitors who do not understand Arabic writing. Alan Riding in The New York Times described the calligraphy from the later years of the Ottoman Empire as "works of extraordinary delicacy". In The Oklahoman, John Brandenburg named the calligraphy section as the strongest part of the exhibition, saying that the "magnificent blend of art and science as well as military and cultural history" may require more than one visit to take in. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution highlighted the "superb" calligraphy as well as "wonderful" miniature paintings.
Empire of the Sultans was described as showing Islam in a way that contrasted with existing prejudices and with current media coverage. Describing the Brigham Young University exhibition as a "[p]art decorative art extravaganza, part cultural history lesson", The Salt Lake Tribune praised it for sharing the artistic culture of the Islamic world at a time when news mentions of Islam were dominated by war in the Middle East. The US senator John Edwards said of the North Carolina exhibition in 2002, "Since Sept. 11, Americans have been asking more questions [...] about Islam and Islamic cultures in general. The Museum of Art's exhibition offers opportunities to enhance our understanding of Islam's rich and varied cultural history, as well as the events happening today." The New Statesman recommended "an unmissable exhibition" that showed Ottoman culture on its own terms rather than following Western preconceptions. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette saw the exhibition as an alternative both to the way Islam was being portrayed in news reports and to a romanticised view of the Arabic world as mysterious and distant.
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Empire of the Sultans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sultans
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Reception and legacy
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Freedom: The Regine Velasquez-Alcasid Digital Concert was a livestream concert by the Filipino recording artist Regine Velasquez. The concert was produced and broadcast by ABS-CBN Events through four live streaming platforms at 8:00 p.m. Philippine Standard Time on February 28, 2021. The concert's premise was "freedom of singing", stemming from Velasquez's desire to sing songs from several music genres and create a live experience on a stream for her fans longing for a sense of human connection. The set list included renditions of songs from artists such as Elton John, Chris Isaak, George Michael, Sara Bareilles, Dua Lipa, and Billie Eilish. Bamboo Mañalac performed as a special guest.
Freedom was filmed at ABS-CBN Studios in Manila, with musicians, background vocalists, and dancers on set. Initially scheduled for Valentine's Day, Freedom was postponed due to potential COVID-19 exposure among the production team, in line with strict quarantine guidelines affecting the city. The concert received positive reviews, praise centering on Velasquez's stage presence and performance. Commercially, ticket sales exceeded ₱1 million (US$20,000) within twelve hours after they were made available for purchase. There was a reshowing of the livestream, broadcast exclusively via Stageit on April 4, 2021.
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wikipedia
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Freedom (concert)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(concert)
| 73,075,082 |
Introduction
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The development of Freedom began after Regine Velasquez curated online benefit concerts in support of relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. She performed One Night with Regine to benefit the Bantay Bata Foundation's COVID-19 response fund in April 2020. Two months later, she collaborated with Jollibee Foods Corporation on Regine: Joy From Home, which raised money in support of the brand's food aid program.
Freedom was officially announced on December 15, 2020, through ABS-CBNnews.com and Velasquez's social media accounts. A co-production between ABS-CBN Events and iMusic Entertainment, the show was scheduled to be livestreamed on February 14, 2021, via the web-based platform KTX. The promotional poster depicted a portrait of Velasquez's head shot in grayscale. Tickets for Freedom went on sale worldwide on January 8, 2021, for ₱1,200; VIP tickets were priced at ₱2,500. KTX reported that ticket sales grossed ₱500,000 within ten minutes of availability; all VIP tickets sold out after twelve hours, by which time the gross had exceeded ₱1 million (US$20,000). Additional VIP tickets were sold because of high demand.
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Freedom (concert)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(concert)
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Background and development
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Velasquez stated that the concert's name and concept were based on her desire to have "freedom of singing" anything she wanted, seeking to perform new material from several music genres and viewing it as an opportunity to challenge herself. With Freedom, Velasquez wielded more creative control, heavily involved in its planning and production, and she claimed the project fueled her artistic growth and maturity. Velasquez took her fans into consideration; she, like them, had wished for a sense of connection and freedom in light of pandemic lockdown protocols. Her main objective was to perform the songs with "an exciting twist", though she felt pressure with continuing to surprise her audience with her showmanship because they had set the bar high for her.
Freedom was filmed at ABS-CBN Studios in Manila using a full concert set-up, with live musicians, background vocalists, and dancers. The Philippine Star reported the show had a total of 20 production numbers and a running time of two hours, writing that it was one of the singer's "biggest online concerts". Raul Mitra was the music director, and Paolo Valenciano was the stage director.
On February 9, 2021, Velasquez and her team announced through social media that Freedom was postponed due to potential COVID-19 exposure within the production team. As a precaution to prevent any unexpected circumstances, she underwent self-quarantine following guidance on isolation and social restrictions that affected Manila. Five days later, after Velasquez tested negative for COVID-19, the concert was rescheduled to February 28 at 8:00 p.m. Philippine Standard Time (PST). The show was broadcast on additional platforms via iWantTFC, TFC IPTV, and Sky Pay-per-view. Freedom was made available to stream again on Stageit at 10:00 a.m. PST on April 4, 2021.
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Freedom (concert)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(concert)
| 73,075,082 |
Background and development
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The concert was divided into four acts and opened with a short video introduction narrated by Velasquez. Its set featured a large LED screen as a backdrop and geometric structures of birds hanging from the ceiling. Velasquez, in a red dress with a long cape, made her way to an elevated platform to perform George Michael's "Freedom!" (1990). She descended the podium and went straight into her rendition of "Brave" (2013) by Sara Bareilles, accompanied by female dancers performing a lyrical dance routine. The singer continued into a slower number, an a capella cover of Billie Eilish's "When the Party's Over" (2018), before transitioning into Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" (1989). The next song was an English, stripped-down version of K-pop group Twice's 2017 single "Heart Shaker". For "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (1973) by Elton John, she performed with piano accompaniment from Mitra.
In the second act, Velasquez changed into a black lace bodysuit and performed Dua Lipa's "Levitating" (2020) while doing a choreography with her dancers. She put on a long coat for her own songs "Bukas Sana" (2001) and "Tanging Mahal" (2001); the Juans's "Istorya" (2017) and Ben&Ben's "Leaves" (2017), two songs from Filipino bands, were also part of the set list. To begin the third act, Bamboo Mañalac went onstage for a performance of his 2004 single "Masaya", before Velasquez, in a white silk suit, joined him for a duet of "Himala" (1996). Shortly after was Velasquez's cover of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" (2010), which interpolated "In the End" (2001) by Linkin Park. Then, Velasquez spoke briefly about the 2021 documentary film Framing Britney Spears, which she watched while under quarantine, and hoped Spears could eventually achieve freedom from her conservatorship. To honor her, Velasquez sang "...Baby One More Time", Spears's 1998 debut single. She ended the segment with a duet with a holographic version of herself, performing "On the Wings of Love" (1982).
For the final act, Velasquez donned a yellow off-the-shoulder dress and began with Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love" (1997) and Madonna's "Crazy for You" (1985), which she dedicated to her son and husband. Patti Austin's "I Will Remember You" (1991) was performed for an in memoriam segment that paid tribute to individuals in the Philippine entertainment industry, including those who had died from COVID-19. Velasquez, joined by her female dancers, performed a medley of songs that had gone viral on the online video platform TikTok. Freedom closed with an encore performance of Tears for Fears's "Mad World" (1982). VIP-ticket holders got to attend a virtual meet-and-greet and after party, apart from witnessing behind the scenes footage from Freedom's rehearsals.
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Freedom (concert)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(concert)
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Concert synopsis
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Freedom was met with positive reviews from critics. A review by the Philippine Entertainment Portal argued the show's production and vocal performances were benchmarks against which other Philippine online concerts could be measured. It wrote that Velasquez was "in her element" as she performed unforgettable and appealing songs one after another. In Rappler, Bea Cupin called the show "surprisingly intimate and edgy", praising Velasquez's relaxed demeanor and humor in spite of the virtual setting and lack of a large crowd: "If it was awkward at all for the singer, whose career has been defined by sold-out shows, to be surrounded only by her team, that certainly didn't show." Cupin concluded, "The music icon outdoes herself with an online concert that fans both old and new are sure to remember for years to come." A music critic from the Manila Standard remarked on the show's "intimate yet explosive live performance", making reference to her covers of "When the Party Is Over", "Baby One More Time", and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" that "bared Regine's beautiful range and exceptional artistry".
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Freedom (concert)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(concert)
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Critical reception
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This set list is adapted from ABS-CBNnews.com, and from the streaming concert itself.
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Freedom (concert)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(concert)
| 73,075,082 |
Set list
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"Get Him Back!" (stylized in all lowercase) is a song by American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo from her second studio album, Guts (2023). Rodrigo wrote the song with its producer, Dan Nigro. EMI Records released it as the album's third single on September 15, 2023. A rap rock, pop rap, and pop-punk song with influences of pop rock, "Get Him Back!" explores Rodrigo's desire to exact revenge on her ex-partner while simultaneously wanting to reconcile with him; the titular phrase conveys this through its double meaning.
Music critics described "Get Him Back!" as a highlight on Guts, praised the humorous lyricism and chorus, and also commented on Rodrigo's rapping. It was included on several year-end lists of the best songs of 2023. The track reached the top 10 in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom as well as the top 20 in Canada, Greece, Norway, Singapore, and the United States. It received a 2× platinum certification in Australia and platinum in Brazil and Canada.
Jack Begert directed the music video for "Get Him Back!" entirely on an iPhone 15 Pro Max. It depicts clones of Rodrigo as they destroy her ex-partner's house, throwing around knives and household objects. She performed the song on The Today Show and at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards; the latter was positively received. Rodrigo included it as the last song on the set list of her 2024–2025 concert tour, the Guts World Tour, as part of an encore.
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Get Him Back!
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Him_Back!
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Introduction
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Olivia Rodrigo's debut studio album, Sour, was released in May 2021, following which she took a break from songwriting for six months. She conceived the follow-up album, Guts (2023), at the age of 19, while experiencing "lots of confusion, mistakes, awkwardness & good old fashioned teen angst". Sour's producer, Dan Nigro, returned to produce every track on it. They wrote over 100 songs and included the more rock-oriented tracks on the album because they drew a bigger reaction from her audiences during live shows.
In a studio session for Guts at the Electric Lady Studios, Nigro wanted to create a track using just two chords after his father said that the best songs generally possessed three chords. Rodrigo and Nigro wrote a song she was dissatisfied with, which made her doubt her songwriting abilities. After taking a brief recess, they ended up creating "Get Him Back!". The song was inspired by the compulsion Rodrigo felt to conform to people's expectations, which led her to make questionable decisions and date people she should not have. Though they used more than two chords in it, Nigro believed that "we failed [...] But we ended up writing something that we really liked with three chords." Rodrigo stated that "Get Him Back!" was very enjoyable to write and became one of her favorite songs. She felt its chorus was catchy and suitable for a crowd to sing along to.
Rodrigo announced the album title on June 26, 2023, and its lead single, "Vampire", was released four days later. On August 1, 2023, she revealed Guts' tracklist, which featured "Get Him Back!" as the eighth track. A teaser clip released alongside the tracklist included letters addressed to "258 get him back drive". The song became available for digital download on the album, which was released on September 8, 2023. EMI Records sent it for radio airplay in Italy seven days later, and Geffen Records promoted it to contemporary hit radio stations in the United States. "Get Him Back!" was featured in the first trailer for the 2024 film adaptation of the 2017 musical Mean Girls, prompting criticism from reviewers who believed original music would have been better suited. The song was also included in the video game Fortnite Festival.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Him_Back!
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Background and release
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"Get Him Back!" is 3 minutes and 31 seconds long. Nigro produced the song and provided vocal production, and he handled engineering with its co-producers, Alexander 23 and Ian Kirkpatrick. He played acoustic guitar, electric guitar, percussion, piano, bass, synthesizer, and programmed drums; Alexander 23 played drums, slide guitar, bass, and synthesizer; Kirkpatrick played synthesizer and programmed drums; and Sterling Laws played drums. Mitch McCarthy mixed the song at Amusement Studios in Los Angeles, where it was also recorded, and Randy Merrill mastered it.
"Get Him Back!" is a rap rock, pop rap, and pop-punk song with influences of pop rock in its chorus. It has been likened to 1990s and 2000s rock music. The song has a "quiet-loud dynamic" according to Pitchfork's Arielle Gordon, as Rodrigo raps the verses in a swaddled tone but chants the choruses in an energetic way. She uses the sprechgesang technique, which was compared to the music of Wet Leg by Alexis Petridis of The Guardian. "Get Him Back!" has a three-chord melody and a heavy and offbeat rhythm. In the song's whispered bridge, Rodrigo sniggers with chanted vocals and jagged guitars in the backdrop, representing an increase in her rage; this "sends the frenetic peak of the song's last chorus into orbit" in Gordon's view.
The synchronized shouted vocals in the chorus recall Taylor Swift's 2012 single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" according to some critics, while the melody received comparisons to Len's 1999 single "Steal My Sunshine". Stereogum's Chris DeVille described the song as "half 'So What'cha Want' and half 'Steal My Sunshine'". Lisa Wright of DIY likened the melody to Charli XCX's 2014 album Sucker, and Puja Patel of Pitchfork compared its "stadium stomp" quality to the song "Boom Clap" (2014) from the album. Patel believed "Get Him Back!" contained elements from several songs and musicians—Bleachers' "I Wanna Get Better" (2014), "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", Sleigh Bells, Kreayshawn's song "Gucci Gucci" (2011), and the Beastie Boys. Critics also compared it to songs like Beck's "Loser" (1993), Butthole Surfers' "Pepper" (1996), Sum 41's "Fat Lip" (2001), Weezer's "Beverly Hills" (2005), and the music of Avril Lavigne.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Him_Back!
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Music and production
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The lyrics of "Get Him Back!" explore Rodrigo's desire to exact revenge towards her ex-partner while simultaneously wanting to reconcile with him; the titular phrase conveys this through its double meaning. The song's verses consist of personal details about the relationship. In the first one, she declares it commenced during summertime and concluded by spring. Rodrigo derides the ex-partner, describing him as egotistical and short-tempered, and she claims he lied about being six feet and two inches tall. She recalls both the positive and negative experiences they had together: calling him "so much fun" and reminiscing about parties and trips to France, while also noting his habit of making sexual advances toward her friends.
In the chorus, Rodrigo repeats the titular lyric: "I wanna get him back", articulating her desire to make him envious and being unhappy because she misses him in the alternate lines. She confesses to writing letters for him and not sending them, and missing his kisses and humor, in the second verse. Rodrigo also states that she writes text messages but refrains from sending them because it would disappoint her friends, which The New York Times' Jon Caramanica believed symbolized that her relationships with her friends were "the real casualties" documented in the song. Despite the ex-partner's shortcomings, she believes that "I am my father's daughter, so maybe I can fix him?", a reference to her father being a therapist. In the bridge, Rodrigo sings about her conflicting thoughts, wanting to damage his car, hurt him emotionally, and then heal the pain she caused all at the same time. In its final line, Rodrigo states she wants to meet his mother to say that "her son sucks", which Caramanica thought might be a double entendre. Lindsay Zoladz of The New York Times believed the self-contradictory "do-I-love-them-or-wish-they-were-dead" theme of "Get Him Back!" recalled early 2000s emo music of bands like Saves the Day, Taking Back Sunday, and Nigro's own As Tall As Lions.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Him_Back!
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Lyrical interpretation
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"Get Him Back!" received positive reviews from music critics, who described it as a highlight on Guts and one of the most potential commercial hits. Variety's Chris Willman thought the song was among the most charismatic ones on the album, and Billboard's Jason Lipshutz considered it the best track and an "older-sister version" of "Drivers License" (2021). Charles Lyons-Burt of Slant Magazine believed its conflicted essence unveils a new attitude or emotion with every play.
Some critics believed the lyricism of "Get Him Back!" was clever and exemplified Rodrigo's growth as a songwriter. Wright said the song displayed "winking lyrical smarts". Gordon and Lyons-Burt thought its messiness mirrored breakups in most relationships, and the latter believed it encapsulated the progression of her formula. Reviewers described "Get Him Back!" as one of Rodrigo's funnier songs, and some called the lyricism age-suitably immature, scathing, and "squishy". GQ's Jessie Atkinson included the line about her wanting to meet the ex-partner's mother in her list of the album's standout and "gutsiest" lyrics, and Nylon's Steffanee Wang included it alongside the reference to Rodrigo's father in her list of Guts' impeccable lyrics. Celia Almeida of Miami New Times named the latter among Rodrigo's most "scathing" lyrics.
Critics like DeVille and the Los Angeles Times' Mikael Wood believed Rodrigo's rap flow was well synchronized with the beat of "Get Him Back!". On the other hand, John Murphy of MusicOMH thought it "falls a bit flat". Writing for The Independent, Helen Brown believed she matched the "rhythmic spirit" of Debbie Harry in "One Way or Another" (1979) on it. According to Gordon, Rodrigo's vocal cadence embodied a "school bully" during the verses and a cheerleader during the choruses, while Wood said "Get Him Back!" benefited from her background as an actress, displaying "pitch-perfect line readings that shift between comic registers on a dime — from naturalistic to screwball, faux-earnest to deadpan".
The chorus of "Get Him Back!" was also the subject of praise; critics described it as massive, glorious, rousing, and brain-devouring. Pitchfork's Cat Zhang believed the chorus deserved to be screamed in every location, and Paste's Rachel Saywitz thought it "drives the point home". "Get Him Back!" was included on critical lists of the best songs of 2023 at number four by DeVille, number five by Pitchfork, number seven by Rolling Stone, number nine by Billboard, number 41 by Slant Magazine, and unranked by Billboard Philippines and USA Today. Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield ranked it as Rodrigo's third-best song in September 2023; he compared the line about her wanting to meet the ex-partner's mother to the lyricism of Joni Mitchell and picked his favorite lyric: "I wanna key his car, I wanna make him lunch."
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Critical reception
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"Get Him Back!" debuted and peaked just outside of the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian Hot 100's top ten, both at number 11 for the charts dated September 23, 2023. The song was certified platinum by Music Canada. It entered the UK Singles Chart at number seven and became Rodrigo's seventh top-10 single. "Get Him Back!" received a gold certification in the United Kingdom from the British Phonographic Industry, and the Official Charts Company declared it her 14th-biggest song in the country in February 2024.
In Australia, "Get Him Back!" debuted at number six and became Rodrigo's seventh top-10 single. The song was certified 2× platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association for selling 140,000 equivalent units. It entered at number five in New Zealand and became her ninth top-10 song. "Get Him Back!" received a gold certification from Recorded Music NZ. The song charted at number seven on the Billboard Global 200. It also reached the top 40 at number 5 in Ireland, number 13 in Singapore, number 18 in Greece, number 19 in Norway, number 28 in Sweden, number 31 in Portugal, and number 37 in the Netherlands. "Get Him Back!" received a platinum certification in Brazil and gold in Mexico.
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Commercial performance
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Jack Begert directed the music video for "Get Him Back!" entirely on an iPhone 15 Pro Max in Los Angeles. This followed Rodrigo's 2021 "Brutal" music video, which was filmed on an iPad. Xiao Liu, the photography director, achieved the former video's quick shots using crash zoom on the device's 5x Telephoto camera. It was released on September 12, 2023, a few hours after Apple Inc. announced the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
In the video, eight identical versions of Rodrigo join to destroy her ex-partner's house. While one of them bakes cupcakes, the others throw around knives and household objects. Rodrigo then walks a traffic jammed street, where the clones smash car windows and sing along. DIY's Daisy Carter believed the inclusion of the clones encapsulated the "dual mentality" expressed by the song's titular phrase, and Consequence's Abby Jones thought they were "each representing one of the contradicting voices in Rodrigo's head telling her to key [her ex's] car". Savannah Salazar of Vulture believed the video upstaged the device to become the most enthralling thing unveiled on its release day. It was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Him_Back!
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Music video
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Rodrigo performed "Get Him Back!" live for the first time on The Today Show on September 8, 2023. Four days later, she gave a performance of "Vampire" and "Get Him Back!" at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, the creative direction of which was inspired by the songs' music videos. Rodrigo began by singing the former in white knee-high leg warmers along with a red sports bra and skirt. After the forest set was destroyed by fireworks, she was rushed off the stage by a staffer as a glitched version of her single "Good 4 U" (2021) played. The camera focused on Selena Gomez and the crowd, who appeared concerned, not realizing it was a recreation of the "Vampire" music video. Rodrigo returned to perform "Get Him Back!" in front of a curtain, accompanied by brunette dancers in identical pink outfits who referenced the clones in the music video. The performance was positively received by critics like Parade's Devon Forward, who thought Rodrigo gave it her all, and Rolling Stone's Angie Martoccio and Tomás Mier, who believed it heralded "Get Him Back!"'s real arrival to the stage despite being preceded by the Today Show performance. Stephen Daw of Billboard called it memorable, and The New York Times declared it the most unforgettable fake-out in their list of five memorable moments from the show.
Rodrigo reprised "Get Him Back!" with background singers at BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge on October 2, 2023. She sang the song at the Ace Hotel Los Angeles seven days later, in a concert exclusively for American Express cardholders. On December 1, 2023, Rodrigo reprised it at the KIIS-FM Jingle Ball. On December 18, she uploaded a Vevo Live performance of "Get Him Back!", in which she performed with a band in a faintly lit gritty basement amid grungy posters and exposed pipes. American Songwriter's Clayton Edwards believed the aesthetic choices did not upstage Rodrigo's contagious energy. The song is included as the last one on the set list of Rodrigo's 2024–2025 concert tour, the Guts World Tour, as part of an encore. It is part of a set of rock-oriented songs, alongside "Brutal", "Obsessed" (2024), "All-American Bitch" (2023), and "Good 4 U", which together recalls 1990s rock artists like Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani according to Chicago Sun-Times' Selena Fragassi. During the performance, she sings the first verse through a megaphone, clad in glittering shorts and a midriff-baring top which bears phrases such as "and just like that", "Carrie Bradshaw AF", or "Never Se(a)ttle". Rodrigo later walks into the crowd as star-shaped confetti falls down. The Tennessean's Audrey Gibbs believed she belted, stomped, and leapt with intense energy during the encore, which she included in her standout moments of the show. Rodrigo closed her Lollapalooza Chile set with "Get Him Back!" in March 2025.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Him_Back!
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Live performances
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Dan Nigro – producer, songwriter, engineer, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, percussion, piano, vocal producer, bass, synthesizer, drum programming, background vocals
Olivia Rodrigo – vocals, background vocals, songwriter
Alexander 23 – co-producer, drums, engineer, slide guitar, bass, synthesizer, background vocals
Ian Kirkpatrick – co-producer, engineer, synthesizer, drum programming
Sterling Laws – drums
Chappell Roan – background vocals
Randy Merrill – mastering
Mitch McCarthy – mixing
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Him_Back!
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Credits and personnel
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Guandimiao (Chinese: 关帝庙遗址; pinyin: Guāndìmiào yízhǐ; lit. 'Guandi temple ruins') is a Chinese archaeological site 18 km (11 miles) south of the Yellow River in Xingyang, Henan. It is the site of a small Late Shang village that was inhabited from roughly 1250 to 1100 BCE. Located 200 km (120 miles) from the site of the Shang dynasty capital at Yinxu in Anyang, the site was first studied as a part of excavations undertaken between 2006 and 2008 in preparation for the nearby South–North Water Transfer Project. Excavation and study at Guandimiao has significantly broadened scholars' understanding of rural Shang economies and rituals, as well as the layout of rural villages, which had received comparatively little attention compared to urban centers like Yinxu and Huanbei.
Calculations derived from the number of graves and pit-houses at Guandimiao suggest a maximum population of around 100 individuals at the site's peak during the early 12th century BCE. The presence of 23 kilns suggests large-scale regional exports of ceramics from the village. Residents used bone tools, including many that were locally produced, as well as sophisticated arrowheads and hairpins likely imported from Anyang, where facilities produced them en masse. Local ritual practice is evidenced by the presence of locally produced oracle bones used in pyromancy and large sacrificial pits where mainly cattle had been buried, alongside a smaller number of pigs and (rarely) humans. Over 200 graves were found at the site. Apart from an almost complete absence of grave goods beyond occasional cowrie shells and sacrificed dogs, they generally resemble shaft tombs found elsewhere in ancient China.
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Guandimiao
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
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Introduction
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Before the 20th century, the ancient Shang dynasty (c. 1600 – c. 1046 BCE) of China was known only from much later accounts such as Sima Qian's Shiji, compiled in the 1st century BCE. Modern scholars reanalyzed traditional historiography in the early 20th century. Archaeological interest in the Shang was spurred on by the discovery of the dynasty's oracle-bone inscriptions, which bore the names of kings largely matching family trees in the Shiji. During the 1920s and 1930s, excavations in Anyang, Henan, revealed Yinxu, the site of the Shang capital under the Late Shang culture. This period is also known as the Anyang period. However, despite surveys having revealed the existence of many smaller Shang-era sites, archaeological understanding of the Late Shang was limited to the Shang cities, especially in the heartland around Anyang. Contemporary archaeological and historical study of the Shang within China generally focuses on elite settlements and tombs, often through the lens of Marxist historiography.
While the influence of Late Shang material culture across the North China Plain is evident, the precise extent of their political power in the region is unknown. It was weaker than the state of the earlier Erligang culture (c. 1600 – c. 1400 BCE), which has been controversially identified with the early Shang by Chinese archaeologists. The Late Shang state was unable to achieve full political and military dominance over the surrounding regional states, and instead procured tribute and trade goods without governing them directly. Small statelets likely emerged within the Shang's territory.
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Guandimiao
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
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Background and historiography
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The Guandimiao site was excavated from 2006 to 2008 as part of preparations for the South–North Water Transfer Project. A large scale excavation of the site unearthed an area of 2.03 ha (5 acres), revealing an unusually detailed ancient village layout. The site was named one of the top ten archaeological discoveries of 2007 by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, as well as one of the top six discoveries of the year by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Approximately three quarters of the village has been excavated.
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Guandimiao
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
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Excavation
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Guandimiao is around 18 km (11 miles) south of the Yellow River, in what is now Xingyang, Zhengzhou, Henan. It lies about 200 km (120 miles) from Yinxu. During its period of occupation, the site was around 6 km (4 miles) away from the nearest river. It lies within the Xingyang Basin, south of a low mountain, Mount Tan (檀山).
During the Erligang period, two major urban centers were nearby in what is now Zhengzhou and Yanshi. By the Anyang period, the region around Zhengzhou, including Guandimiao, was a network of smaller settlements on the periphery of the Shang's core territory. Although possibly part of the outlying demesne of the Shang kings, the village was likely part of a group of settlements near Zhengzhou under the influence of a local lord.
The site primarily dates to the Anyang period, stretching from the subperiods of Anyang I to III (c. 1250 – c. 1100 BCE). This is attested from changes in pottery over time, reflecting those found at Yinxu. Human use during other periods is also attested at the site, including the presence of artifacts from the earlier Yangshao culture (c. 5000 – c. 3000 BCE). During the Anyang I subperiod, mainly the western portion of the village was occupied. The majority of Late Shang remains date to the Anyang II subperiod. A narrow trench was dug around the site, enclosing the village into an area of around 2.5 ha (6 acres). However, during Anyang III, the village began to spread beyond the encircling ditch.
The village was occupied for roughly 150 years; assuming a generation length of 20 years, this was around seven generations. The 228 Late Shang tombs found at the site suggest a population of over 30 villagers per generation, with a maximum concurrent population estimated around 100 people in the early 12th century BCE (corresponding to the Anyang II subperiod). This is similar to figures estimated from house distribution, which range from 48 to 100 inhabitants at any given time. Limited later human activity at Guandimiao is attested from the Zhou (1046–256 BCE), Han (202 BCE – 220 CE) Tang (618–907), Song (960–1279), and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
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Site
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The layout of the Guandimiao village was described by researchers as "basic, if informal". Most houses and around half of the village's kilns are in the northwestern portion of the excavation. Graves, kilns, and sacrificial pits are scattered across the village. A cluster of kilns sits adjacent to a large cemetery in the northeast of the site, while another cluster of tombs and sacrificial pits are in a possible sacrificial area in the southwest. Over a thousand pits were dug at the site, mainly for storage and waste disposal, although some were likely used for clay preparation and sacrifice.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
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Structures
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Residences at Guandimiao took the form of pit-houses. There were 23 in total, all built around small rectangular or circular pits, ranging from 5–7 m2 (50–80 sq ft) in area, each with a central hearth in the form of a sunken fire pit. Their extremely small size restricted them to around five inhabitants, likely restricted to only cooking meals, eating and sleeping within the cramped houses. The southern side of each dwelling had a stairway or ramp structure leading up to ground level. No information on the composition of the roof or superstructural elements was found, although some houses contained rows of postholes. Most of the pit-houses' floors were so damaged as to render it impossible to verify whether they originally contained postholes.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
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Houses
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Researchers identified 23 kilns at Guandimiao. Due to the presence of about as many kilns as there are houses, it is possible that each family unit managed their own kiln. Each kiln used a chamber separated from a subterranean firebox by a grate, each featuring between 4 and 8 rectangular vents arranged around a central circular vent. One well-preserved specimen features a chamber with a diameter of 1.56 m (5.1 ft) above an oblong firebox. Large pits that were likely used for clay preparation were dug near each kiln. The distribution of ceramic shards around kiln sites suggests that different clusters of kilns were used to fire sand-tempered and untempered ceramics.
Due to the sheer volume of ceramic production in comparison to what the village would likely require, Guandimiao likely specialized in manufacturing ceramics for export across the surrounding region. This practice possibly began as early as the Longshan period (c. 3000 – c. 1900 BCE). The nature of the rural economy during the Shang is uncertain: The pottery may have been traded locally, integrated into a centralized trade network, or transported long distances by traveling merchants. Due to the differences in the pottery and the significant distance, it is unlikely that pottery was exported to Anyang.
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wikipedia
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Guandimiao
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
| 76,781,542 |
Kilns
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As the site was relatively far—around 6 km (4 miles)—from any known rivers, it is likely that the residents, livestock, and pottery industry of Guandimiao relied on water from wells. The 32 wells excavated at the site have been classified into one of two types. One type of well features deep, narrow shafts and is associated with residential usage due to similarities with other wells in North China. The other type of well is much larger and features a wide opening connected to an even wider cistern-like structure below. One well of the latter type was 5 m (16 ft) deep, with an opening measuring 3.27 m × 2.63 m (10.7 ft × 8.6 ft).
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wikipedia
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Guandimiao
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
| 76,781,542 |
Wells
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Various crafts and tools have been found at Guandimiao. Stone implements typical to the Late Shang have been found at the site, including sickles, adzes, chisels, and grinding stones. Some sickles and spades were fashioned from seashells. Various bone tools, including hairpins, arrowheads, awls, spatulas, knives, and spades have also been recovered from the site. Some of the awls are especially crude, showing very little modification, and were likely made hastily by unskilled labor. Many of the other tools bear modifications requiring specialized tools, such as drilling, and may have been made by a more specialized craftsperson. Many uninscribed oracle bones were found at the site, likely requiring large amounts of labor and skill to create; these were likely created by a local pyromancer. Some bone hairpins and arrowheads show a great deal of professional craftsmanship and specialized tooling, and were likely mass produced. These were likely imported from workshops at Anyang, possibly from the excavated bone workshop of Tiesanlu, which had produced practically identical pins and arrowheads.
Scant weaponry has been recovered from Guandimiao. The only likely weapons found at the site are four arrowheads (two bone, two bronze) and a single knife. This is a small amount in comparison to the weaponry recovered from Anyang and especially to the massive weapon caches buried alongside many Late Shang nobles. Cutting implements like sickles were fashioned from large bivalve shells and likely imported from afield. Along with a bell found as a grave good, the knife and two bronze arrowheads are the only bronze artifacts found at the site. The residents of Guandimiao probably lacked bronze tools such as saws, limiting their manufacturing abilities.
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wikipedia
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Guandimiao
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
| 76,781,542 |
Artifacts
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The 228 Late Shang-era graves found at the site generally resemble the customs of other Shang shaft tombs. Many are clustered in a cemetery at the northeastern edge of the village, outside the encircling ditch, with the rest scattered across the site, including a cluster around the possible south-western sacrificial area. Most are rectangular pits filled with rammed earth, although a few graves with coffins have been found. Some graves are accompanied by the remains of dog sacrifices. In comparison to shaft tombs at Anyang, an extreme paucity of grave goods has been discovered. Most tombs contained no grave goods whatsoever, but some have a single cowrie shell placed in the mouth or hands of the deceased. The largest tomb at the site contained a human body inside a set of inner and outer coffins, three sacrificial dogs, a bronze arrowhead and bell, and a piece of shell. The general lack of ceramics in the burials (attested in only 3 of the 228) has been considered unusual by archaeologists due to the community's widespread ceramic manufacture.
Archaeologists excavated 17 circular sacrificial pits at Guandimiao, primarily containing the remains of cattle, with smaller numbers of pigs and (rarely) humans. They were mainly filled with soil and covered with ash, although some pits containing oracle bones were filled entirely with ash.
Relatively few animal remains were recovered at the site, around 10% of the number found at the similarly-sized contemporaneous Xiaomintun site in Anyang. Due to this scarcity, the Guandimiao villagers likely ate small quantities of meat in comparison to non-elites within the Shang urban core. The relatively large proportion of cattle remains (associated in the period with sacrifice and elite consumption) among recovered bones suggests they were raised locally and possibly exported for consumption by Shang elites. The remains of older cattle are relatively common at Guandimiao, while (calculated from collected bones) only about 7% of cattle at Xiaomintun died above 4 or 5 years of age. While cattle are often found in sacrificial pits, pig remains are predominant in domestic contexts.
A small amount of sheep and goat remains have been found at the site. Hunting rarely took place at Guandimiao; only about 2% of recovered bones belonged to wild animals. Among this group are several species of wild deer, including sika deer and muntjac. A large volume of dog remains have been found at the site; dogs are also evidenced by gnawing marks on many recovered bones.
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wikipedia
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Guandimiao
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guandimiao
| 76,781,542 |
Burials, sacrifices, and remains
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Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam was an exhibition held at the British Museum in London from 26 January to 15 April 2012. It was the world's first major exhibition telling the story, visually and textually, of the hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca which is one of the five pillars of Islam. Textiles, manuscripts, historical documents, photographs, and art works from many different countries and eras were displayed to illustrate the themes of travel to Mecca, hajj rituals, and the Kaaba. More than two hundred objects were included, drawn from forty public and private collections in a total of fourteen countries. The largest contributor was David Khalili's family trust, which lent many objects that would later be part of the Khalili Collection of Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage.
The exhibition was formally opened by Prince Charles in a ceremony attended by Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah, son of King Abdullah, the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. It was popular both with Muslims and non-Muslims, attracting nearly 120,000 adult visitors and favourable press reviews. This success inspired the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the Arab World Institute in Paris, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, and the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam to stage their own hajj-themed exhibitions with contributions from the Khalili Collection.
An exhibition catalogue with essays about the hajj, edited by Venetia Porter, was published by the British Museum in 2012, along with a shorter illustrated guide to the hajj. An academic conference, linked to the exhibition, resulted in another book about the topic.
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wikipedia
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Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj:_Journey_to_the_Heart_of_Islam
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Introduction
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The hajj (Arabic: حَجّ) is an annual pilgrimage to the sacred city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. It is a mandatory religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and can support their family during their absence. At the time of the exhibition, the journey was being made by three million pilgrims each year.
The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, along with shahadah (confession of faith), salat (prayer), zakat (charity), and sawm (fasting). It is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, and their submission to God (Allah). The word "hajj" means "to attend a journey", which connotes both the outward act of a journey and the inward act of intentions. In the centre of the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca is the Kaaba, a black cubic building known in Islam as the House of God. A hajj consists of several distinct rituals including the tawaf (procession seven times anticlockwise round the Kaaba), wuquf (a vigil at Mount Arafat where Mohammed is said to have preached his last sermon), and ramy al-jamarāt (stoning of the Devil).
Of the five pillars, the hajj is the only one not open to non-Muslims, since Mecca is restricted to Muslims only. Over the centuries, the hajj and its destination the Kaaba have inspired creative works in many media, including literature, folk art, and photography.
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wikipedia
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Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj:_Journey_to_the_Heart_of_Islam
| 71,651,693 |
Background: The Hajj
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There had been no previous major exhibitions devoted to the hajj. The British Museum's planning for its exhibition spanned a two-year period. This included research projects funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The lead curator was Venetia Porter and the project curator was Qaisra Khan, both staff of the British Museum. Curators negotiated for public and private collections to loan objects for display; forty collections from fourteen countries contributed more than two hundred objects. The largest contributor was David Khalili's family trust. Preparation for the event included promotion to Muslim communities. Khan collected photographs, recordings, and souvenirs during her own hajj in 2010, and assisted with community outreach.
The exhibition was presented in partnership with the King Abdulaziz Public Library and with the support of HSBC Amanah. Prince Charles gave a speech to formally open the exhibition on 26 January 2012. Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah travelled from Saudi Arabia to represent his father, the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, at this opening ceremony.
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wikipedia
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Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj:_Journey_to_the_Heart_of_Islam
| 71,651,693 |
Preparation and launch
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The exhibition was held in the circular British Museum Reading Room. To set the mood, visitors entered through a narrow passage where audio recordings of an adhan (call to prayer) were played. The displays were arranged to draw visitors around the circular space, mimicking the tawaf: the anticlockwise walk around the Kaaba that is a core ritual of the hajj. An early section illustrated the preparations traditionally taken before a hajj, which can include settling debts and preparing a will. Before trains and air travel, a hajj pilgrimage could take many months and involve a significant risk of death either from transmissible disease or bandits. Also displayed in this section were examples of ihram clothing: white clothes that mark the spiritual purpose and collective unity of hajj pilgrims.
The bulk of the content was organised around three themes: pilgrimage routes, the rituals of the hajj, and Mecca. The first section described five different pilgrimage routes towards Mecca: the traditional routes through Arabia, North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and Asia, plus the modern route by air from Britain. It thus contrasted the early pilgrims' arduous, risky journey across desert or ocean with the ease of modern travel.
Pilgrimages of past centuries were illustrated by manuscripts of hajj-related literature, including the Anis Al-Hujjaj, the Dala'il al-Khayrat, the Shahnameh, the Futuh al-Haramayn, and the Jami' al-tawarikh. Mansa Musa, king of the Mali Empire, travelled to Mecca in 1324 with 60,000 courtiers as atonement for accidentally killing his mother; he was depicted in a panel from a 14th-century Catalan Atlas. The importance of Mecca to Muslims was illustrated by these ancient maps and diagrams as well as by qibla compasses which help devotees turn towards the city, which they are required to do for prayer.
The stories of individual historical pilgrims were told through diaries and photographs. These included Westerners such as the explorer Richard Francis Burton (a non-Muslim who made the trip in disguise in 1853), intelligence officer Harry St John Philby, and aristocrat Lady Evelyn Cobbold. Philby took part in cleaning the Kaaba on his trip, and the brush and cloth he used were included in the exhibition. Also displayed was the Bugis-language diary of Ahmad as-Salih La Tenritappu, King of Bone, which records requests for travel permits as well as reports on the departures and returns of Hajj pilgrims from what is now part of Indonesia. Other texts included a travelogue by the 19th-century Chinese scholar Ma Fuchu and a 13th-century manuscript of the Maqamat al-Hariri story collection. One of the earliest surviving Qurans was on display: an 8th-century manuscript lacking the decorative calligraphy associated with later versions.
A seven-minute video illustrated the rituals of the hajj. The rituals section also displayed textiles from the holy sites, including sections from kiswahs (ornate textile coverings that had decorated the Kaaba), sitaras (ornamental curtains) from other holy sites and a mahmal (ceremonial litter conveyed by camel from Cairo to Mecca with the pilgrim caravan). Some exhibits were personal items that pilgrims brought or acquired on their journey. These included prayer beads, travel tickets, and flasks for drinking water from the Zamzam Well. Also displayed were hajj certificates, showing that a hajj has been completed, often with illustrations of holy sites. Hajj banknotes can be bought before the journey and exchanged for Saudi currency, protecting the pilgrim from exchange rate fluctuations.
The section on Mecca used past and present photographs and paintings to show how the mosque surrounding the Kaaba (the Masjid al-Haram) has been modernised to make space for much larger numbers of pilgrims, resulting in some ancient buildings being demolished. The 19th-century photographs included some by Muhammad Sadiq of holy sites in Mecca and Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje's portraits of pilgrims.
Towards the end of the exhibition were several pieces of contemporary art, including works by Ahmed Mater, Idris Khan, Walid Siti, Kader Attia, Ayman Yossri, and Abdulnasser Gharem. A final section played audio testimonies of British hajj pilgrims and invited guests to write down their own reflections.
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Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj:_Journey_to_the_Heart_of_Islam
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Content
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The museum's target of 80,000 visitors was quickly exceeded. By the end of the run, 119,948 adult tickets had been sold (children had free entry and were not counted). According to the British Museum's annual report, educational events connected to the exhibition attracted nearly 32,000 participants. Forty-seven percent of visitors were Muslims. Some non-Muslim visitors reported that overhearing Muslim families' conversations or striking up conversations with them, helped them appreciate the spiritual importance of the hajj.
In surveys, 89% of attendees reported emotional or spiritual reactions such as reflection on faith. Steph Berns, a doctoral researcher at the University of Kent, interviewed attendees and found a small minority for whom contemplating the artefacts or personal testimonies induced a sense of closeness to God. The aspects of the exhibition most often remarked on by visitors were the personal accounts of hajj pilgrims in the video, photographs, and textual diaries. The artifacts that attracted the most visitor comments were the textiles and contemporary art pieces. Berns observed that, for most visitors, the exhibition could not fully reproduce the personal and emotional experience of the hajj, which is crucially connected to the specific location of Mecca. She described this as an unavoidable result of presenting the topic within a museum thousands of miles away.
In The Guardian, Jonathan Jones wrote "This is one of the most brilliant exhibitions the British Museum has put on", awarding it five stars out of five. He described its celebration of Islam as "challenging" to non-Muslim Westerners used to negative portrayal of the religion. The Londonist praised an "eye-opening and fascinating" exhibition that demystified an aspect of Islam poorly understood by most of the public. Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard described the exhibition as "of profound cultural importance", praising it as an example of "what multiculturalism should be – information, instruction and understanding, academically rigorous, leaving both cultures (the enquiring and the enquired) intact". For The Diplomat, Amy Foulds described the first part of the exhibition as very interesting but felt that the section about Mecca was anti-climactic, though somewhat redeemed by the contemporary art pieces. Reviewing for The Arts Desk, Fisun Guner awarded four out of five stars to "an exhibition about faith that even an avowed atheist might find rather moving [...] as we read and listen to the words of believers experiencing what must be seen for them not only as an encounter with God but a deep sense of connection with fellow Muslims". For The Independent, Arifa Akbar, who went on hajj in 2006, found it "utterly refreshing" to see a focus on personal experiences of the hajj rather than the politics of Islam and how it is perceived by non-Muslims. She observed that a museum visit is unavoidably dry compared to the intense experience of joining the throng around the Kaaba, but praised the curators' originality and courage in tackling the subject. For Akbar, the highlights included the 8th-century Quran and a sitara. Also in The Independent, Jenny Gilbert found the logistical details of travel – a "dry" topic for those not already interested in manuscript maps – less appealing than the colourful accounts of historical and modern pilgrims.
The journalist and broadcaster Sarfraz Manzoor took his 78-year-old mother to the exhibition since she had long wanted to perform the hajj but was too infirm to make the trip. He contrasted his mother's joyous reaction against his own mixed feelings on the subject matter as a British Muslim. "And yet", he wrote, "the exhibition does illuminate the magnetic appeal of the hajj – of knowing that hundreds of millions have visited the site and completed the same rituals." The scholar of religion Karen Armstrong recommended the exhibition as an antidote to Western stereotypes of Islam that focus on violence and extremism. She described it as an insight into how the vast majority of Muslims view and practise their religion. For the Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak, an exhibition on a topic for which there is relatively little visual material was "heroic" and showed a determination to help visitors understand the world. He drew a parallel with exhibitions of conceptual art; since texts rather than visual art played a crucial role, "so much of the extraordinary story line laid out for us [...] takes place in the mind". Among the visual art, he singled out the textiles as providing "a visceral artistic buzz to the display".
In Newsweek, Jason Goodwin said the exhibition fulfilled the British Museum's purpose of "explain[ing] the world to itself" but said that Saudi influence resulted in "a palpable air of self-congratulation and a tendency to soft-pedal the role of the Ottoman Turks in maintaining the major hajj routes across their empire from the 16th to the 20th centuries." Nick Cohen, in an Observer piece accusing British cultural institutions of "selling their souls" to dictatorships, criticised the exhibition for ignoring aspects of the hajj documented by historians of Islam. He speculated that topics had been excluded so as not to offend the Saudi royal family, including deaths at the hajj (by violence or by incompetent crowd control) and the destruction of buildings in Mecca where Mohammad and his family had lived. The museum responded that the Saudi royal family had not funded the exhibition and had no curatorial control. Jonathan Jones responded to Cohen, defending the five-star review he had given. For Jones, the exhibition was driven not by political or theological goals but by a genuine enthusiasm for the beauty and significance of Islamic culture. That some exhibits had come from Saudi Arabia was, in his view, not significant.
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wikipedia
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Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj:_Journey_to_the_Heart_of_Islam
| 71,651,693 |
Reception and legacy
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The success of Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam prompted museums and art institutions in other countries to inquire about hosting hajj-themed exhibitions. It was not possible for the London exhibition to go on tour; it had involved special loans from 40 different sources, arranged by years of negotiation. Instead, these institutions created exhibitions on the theme of the hajj using items loaned by the Khalili Collection, among other collections. These included the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and the Arab World Institute in Paris. The Doha exhibition was titled Hajj: The Journey Through Art and drew most of its content from Qatari art collections. Since France has many North African immigrants, the Paris exhibition focused on hajj routes from North Africa. A Dutch exhibition titled Longing for Mecca: The Pilgrim's Journey was held in 2013 at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden and in an expanded version at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam from January 2019 to February 2020. This combined objects from Dutch collections with the Khalili Collection objects that had been exhibited in London.
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wikipedia
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Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj:_Journey_to_the_Heart_of_Islam
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Related exhibitions
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"Holidays" is a song by American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor from her fourth major-label studio album and first Christmas album, A Very Trainor Christmas (2020), featuring musical group Earth, Wind & Fire. Trainor wrote the song with Philip Bailey, Eddie Benjamin, Verdine White, Ralph Johnson, and its producer, Mike Sabath. It became available as the album's fifth track on October 30, 2020, when it was released by Honest OG Recording and Epic Records. "Holidays" is influenced by several genres and incorporates trumpets, layered harmonies, and horn bleats in its production.
Music critics were positive about "Holidays" and compared it to Earth, Wind & Fire's signature sound, specifically their 1978 single "September". Commercially, the song debuted at number 10 on the Holiday Digital Song Sales chart and reached number 35 on Canada AC. Sarah McColgan directed its music video, in which Trainor sings with Earth, Wind & Fire on a decorated stage. They performed the song for NBC's Christmas in Rockefeller Center special, and Trainor sang it on television shows The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Today.
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wikipedia
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Holidays (Meghan Trainor song)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_(Meghan_Trainor_song)
| 74,382,459 |
Introduction
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In January 2020, shortly before the release of Meghan Trainor's third major-label studio album, Treat Myself (2020), Billboard announced that she had started writing original Christmas songs, planning to release them later in the year. Three months into the COVID-19 lockdowns, she decided that it was the right time to complete her Christmas album. Trainor's intention with the project was to "spread some joy this year" in contrast to the gloom surrounding the world at the time. She recalled that most of the work for the album was done in July and August, when the weather was hot. Trainor pre-recorded two music videos and fifteen performances five months into her pregnancy, for later use. She wanted the album to feel like "a pop Christmas", something that could be played throughout the year, and decided to include original songs along with covers.
Trainor wrote "Holidays" with Earth, Wind & Fire members Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and Ralph Johnson, along with Eddie Benjamin, and its producer, Mike Sabath. In an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, she announced that the soon-to-be-filmed music video for her Earth, Wind & Fire collaboration would be the first one shot during her pregnancy. In September 2020, Trainor announced the album title as A Very Trainor Christmas, and the following month she revealed the tracklist, which included "Holidays" as the fifth track. Trainor stated: "Earth, Wind & Fire [...] are [one] of my family's all-time favorites. We worship the ground they walk on, so to get them to feature on this album still doesn't feel real. Best Christmas present ever!" The song became available for digital download on A Very Trainor Christmas, which Honest OG Recording and Epic Records released on October 30.
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Holidays (Meghan Trainor song)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_(Meghan_Trainor_song)
| 74,382,459 |
Background
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"Holidays" is 2 minutes and 45 seconds long. Sabath produced and programmed the song. He handled vocal production with Trainor and engineered it with her brother Justin. All three provided background vocals alongside Benjamin, Bailey, Daryl Sabara, Tristan Hurd, Maddie Ziegler, and Philip Doron Bailey. Instruments used in the song are guitar (performed by Benjamin and Morris O'Connor), percussion (Bailey and Johnson), bass (White), trumpet (Hurd), drums (John Paris), trumpet (Rashawn Ross and Will Artope), alto (Gary Bias), tenor saxophones (Bias), trombone (Reginald Young), and horns (Ray Brown). Serban Ghenea mixed the song, and Dale Becker mastered it.
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wikipedia
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Holidays (Meghan Trainor song)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_(Meghan_Trainor_song)
| 74,382,459 |
Composition
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"Holidays" is an uptempo song driven by trumpets, which incorporates layered harmonies and horn bleats. The song's musical style has been described as old-school and funky by the Associated Press's Mark Kennedy, and it demonstrates the links between "'70s R&B/pop and current-day pop" according to Allan Sculley of The Spokesman-Review. Writing for Idolator, Mike Wass stated that the production advanced a few decades compared to the A Very Trainor Christmas track "My Kind of Present".
The lyrics of "Holidays" are about celebrating the festive season and having a party. In the part sung by Earth, Wind & Fire members, they implore listeners to say that they are "rеady for the holiday" and call their families to inform them that they will be there soon. Trainor's lyrics include: "Tryna party 'cause we goin crazy / You can feel it, you can feel it". One of the lyrics repeated throughout the song is "It's a celebration / Get ready for the holi-, holi-, holidays". GQ's Olive Pometsey described it as "a festive boogie".
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Holidays (Meghan Trainor song)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_(Meghan_Trainor_song)
| 74,382,459 |
Composition
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Music critics compared "Holidays" to Earth, Wind & Fire's 1978 single "September" and viewed it as an embodiment of their signature sound. Pometsey thought "Holidays" fused the sound of "September" with "Let's Groove" (1981) and was an apt way to conclude "2020's disco renaissance." Parade's Lauren Ash believed that the song successfully captured "the holiday spirit across decades" and was a good way for listeners to get into a joyous mood. Melissa Ruggieri of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution thought its quality justified Trainor's excitement about the collaboration. Commercially, "Holidays" reached number 35 on the Canada AC chart issue dated December 12, 2020, and debuted at number 10 on the Holiday Digital Song Sales chart issue dated November 14, 2020.
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wikipedia
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Holidays (Meghan Trainor song)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_(Meghan_Trainor_song)
| 74,382,459 |
Reception
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Sarah McColgan directed the music video for "Holidays", which was released on November 24, 2020, following a live chat hosted by Trainor. Trainor was five and a half months pregnant when it was filmed. In the video, she appears with tiny gift bows on her face, and she wears a large ruby red bow over a black evening gown and a white winter dress. Trainor performs the song with Earth, Wind & Fire, dressed in shiny jackets, on a stage decorated with enormous ornaments, disco balls, toy troops, and dancers wearing matching red bows.
Trainor continued wearing bows during her live performances of "Holidays", including at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She wore a sparkling bodysuit with a large green bow while reprising the song with Earth, Wind & Fire for NBC's Christmas in Rockefeller Center special, which aired on December 2, 2020. The bow was noticed by the public on social media; Today's Lindsay Lowe remarked that "oversized bows are quickly becoming a signature holiday accessory for [the] Grammy winner". That same day, Trainor performed the song on Today.
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wikipedia
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Holidays (Meghan Trainor song)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_(Meghan_Trainor_song)
| 74,382,459 |
Music video and promotion
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Credits are adapted from the liner notes of A Very Trainor Christmas.
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wikipedia
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Holidays (Meghan Trainor song)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_(Meghan_Trainor_song)
| 74,382,459 |
Credits and personnel
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Joan (Autumn/Winter 1998) was the twelfth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. Continuing McQueen's dual fascination with religion and violence, it was inspired by imagery of persecution, most significantly the 1431 martyrdom of French Catholic saint Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake. The collection's palette was mainly red, black, and silver; colours which evoked notions of warfare, death, blood, and flames. Many looks referenced ecclesiastical garments and medieval armour, including several items that mimicked chainmail and one ensemble that had actual silver-plated armour pieces.
The runway show was staged on 25 February 1998 at Gatliff Road Warehouse in London. McQueen caused an upset by banning several tabloid journalists, one of whom responded with an angry editorial. Production was handled by McQueen's usual creative team. The set design for Joan was sparse and industrial: a dark room lit by metal lamps suspended over the runway. The 100-foot (30 m) runway was covered in black ashes, and models entered through a black backdrop backlit in red. Ninety-one looks were presented; primarily womenswear with some menswear. The show concluded with model Svetlana wearing a red beaded dress which covered her face, swaying in a circle of flames.
Critical response to the clothing and the runway show for Joan was positive, and it is regarded as one of McQueen's most memorable shows. Academic analysis has focused on interpretation of the styling, the finale, and the meaning of several garments printed with a photograph of children. Several items from Joan have appeared in museum exhibitions, including Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty and Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
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Introduction
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British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was known throughout his nearly twenty-year career for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs. The son of a London taxicab driver and a teacher, he grew up in one of the poorer neighbourhoods in London's East End before joining the fashion industry via a Savile Row apprenticeship. In the early stages of McQueen's career, journalists often framed him as a working-class trespasser in an industry that was seen as upper-class, which he found frustrating. McQueen identified with the persecuted and vulnerable, given his homosexuality and difficult upbringing.
McQueen's personal fixations and interests were a throughline in his career, and he returned to certain ideas and visual motifs repeatedly, especially death and sexuality. His fashion shows were theatrical to the point of being performance art. For example, in Untitled (Spring/Summer 1998), the show preceding Joan, McQueen had his models walk down a runway made of clear water tanks, then drenched them with artificial rain in the second half. Beginning with his graduation collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims (1992), McQueen appropriated photographs and integrated them into his work. He did so again in Dante (Autumn/Winter 1996), a collection that explored religious motivations for warfare. McQueen continued to explore religion until his final collection, Angels and Demons (Autumn/Winter 2010).
McQueen's collections were both historicist, in that he adapted historical narratives and concepts, and self-referential, in that he revisited and reworked ideas between collections. He played with notions of clothing as armour and vice versa, creating high fashion cuirasses sculpted for the female torso. Although McQueen primarily designed womenswear, he had featured some menswear in previous collections including The Hunger (Spring/Summer 1996) and Dante.
From 1996 to October 2001, McQueen was – in addition to his responsibilities for his own label – head designer at French fashion house Givenchy. His time at Givenchy was fraught, primarily because of creative differences between him and the label; his early collections there were poorly received. McQueen resorted to smoking and drug use to deal with the pressure he felt to satisfy Givenchy management and the fashion press. He became overbearing and temperamental towards those around him, causing his friend Simon Costin to stop working with him before the release of Joan.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
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Background
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Joan (Autumn/Winter 1998) was the twelfth collection by McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. It was inspired by imagery of historical persecution, most significantly the 1431 martyrdom of French Catholic saint Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake. During his tenure at Givenchy in Paris, McQueen frequently passed by a gilded statue of Joan on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris and became intrigued by her story. Curator Claire Wilcox suggested that Joan's androgyny and martyrdom "appealed to his sense of drama". Matheson argued that with Joan, McQueen was reflecting the new skills and techniques he was learning in the Givenchy haute couture workshop.
McQueen was also inspired by a 1452 painting of French royal mistress Agnès Sorel, which he used in altered form for the show's invitation. The painting depicts Sorel with pale skin and the artificially-plucked high hairline popular in the medieval period, a look that was echoed in the models' hairstyling in the runway show. Curator Kate Bethune suggested the hairstyles may also have been inspired by the look of the children in the horror film Village of the Damned (1960). Author Andrew Wilson pointed out that both Joan of Arc and Sorel died in service to Charles VII of France.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
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Inspiration
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Some jackets in the collection were printed with a black and white historical photograph of three young girls, using the same process that was employed for photo-printing in Dante. Many critics have suggested that these are images of children from the Russian imperial family, the Romanovs, and there is a widespread belief that the collection is drawing upon the killing of the family in 1918 as inspiration. The jackets actually feature an 1845 daguerreotype of three unnamed girls by German photographer Carl Gustav Oehme. At least two contemporary articles correctly identify the girls as Victorian, including a 1998 interview with i-D in which McQueen discussed the symbolism behind the image. In it, McQueen described one of the men's coats printed with this image as multi-faceted in its references. For him, the clerical style of the coat juxtaposed with the young girls evoked "paedophilia by the church" as well as naivete and anti-authoritarianism; he did not mention the Romanovs.
To a lesser extent, McQueen drew on the 1567 beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots. The red, black, and yellow McQueen clan tartan, which McQueen had first used in the controversial Highland Rape (Autumn/Winter 1995), reappeared in Joan, referencing the history of Scotland.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
| 76,503,097 |
Inspiration
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The collection's palette was mainly red, black, and silver, colours which evoked notions of warfare, death, blood, and flames. Materials with strong textures featured heavily, including raffia cloth, leather, snakeskin, denim, sequins, and beadwork. Slits, sheer fabrics, and short hemlines created a dark sense of eroticism. McQueen's signature tailoring appeared in the form of frock coats and other jackets. Like Dante before it, Joan referenced cuts and fabrics that evoked the medieval period. There were design elements taken from medieval ecclesiastical dress including dresses shaped like monastic cowls and long, cassock-like coats that buttoned all down the front. Author Judith Watt felt that "boned, high-neck chiffon blouses [...] and slim maxi skirts" were references to the Edwardian era.
The clothing imitated armour of the medieval period in several ways, with dresses rendered in moulded leather or in lightweight metal mesh resembling chainmail armour. More literally, silversmith Sarah Harmarnee, who had previously contributed accessories to It's a Jungle Out There (Autumn/Winter 1997), created silver-plated armour pieces for the collection. Look 8 featured a model wearing armour that covered her head, shoulders, arms, and hands. Bethune felt it was a reference to Joan of Arc armoured for battle and possibly a nod to the 1995 Thierry Mugler design "Robot Couture".
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
| 76,503,097 |
Collection
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The runway show for Joan was staged on 25 February 1998 at the Gatliff Road Warehouse in London; it was McQueen's second time presenting there. It was the final collection for London Fashion Week that season. According to Katy England, McQueen's assistant, McQueen and his team had intended to produce a much simpler show following the complicated aquatic set for Untitled. However, McQueen "got a bit carried away", and the show "turned into another huge production". The theatrical effects – custom contacts, wigs, and bald caps for some fifty models, plus pyrotechnics – were not cheap. McQueen later said "it was fucking the most expensive show I ever did", although he was not dissatisfied with the result, adding: "it's kind of good".
Gainsbury & Whiting oversaw production, and England dealt with overall styling. Hair for female models was styled by Guido Palau; Mira Chai Hyde handled male models. Val Garland was responsible for makeup. McQueen had worked with Garland before, but it was Palau's first McQueen show. The show was dedicated to model Annabelle Neilson, a friend and muse of McQueen. Well-known attendees included actress Kate Winslet; models Kate Moss and Shakira Caine; Keith Flint of music group The Prodigy; Meg Mathews, then-wife of musician Noel Gallagher; and Pauline Prescott, wife of then-Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
McQueen banned several media outlets, including The Sun and GMTV, from attending the runway show for Joan, purportedly because they played to "the wrong sort of audience". Irate, Sun columnist Jane Moore accused McQueen of rank hypocrisy, pointing out his working-class origins and complaining that he was "so far up his own bottom, I'm surprised he can still see daylight". Staff from The Dallas Morning News were turned away at the door by McQueen's public relations personnel due to lack of seats. Other fashion journalists also complained of poor treatment. Anna Harvey, deputy editor of British Vogue, and Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue, felt the show was a "complete disgrace" in this respect. Hilary Alexander agreed, calling the show the "nadir" of Fashion Week. She was upset that guests were expected to enter the show via a "small entrance in pitch darkness" and that following the show, bouncers refused to let photographers exit the venue for unexplained reasons. She criticised the "bizarre little episode" but felt she should not have been surprised given McQueen's treatment of GMTV.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
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Production details
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The set design for Joan was sparse and industrial: a dark room lit by metal lamps suspended over the runway as well as by smaller lights in the floor. The 100-foot (30 m) runway was covered in black ashes, and models entered through a black backdrop backlit in red. The sound of fire crackling and burning played over the start of the show, then transitioned into a selection of disco tracks.
Styling for all models, male and female, was deliberately androgynous in a reference to Joan of Arc's cross-dressing. Hair for women was styled in one of two modes. Some models wore blond wigs left loose, sometimes with artificially high hairlines in the medieval style. Others wore bald caps, which were styled partially or fully bald, with or without thin coiled braids. Models wore thick white face make-up that concealed their eyebrows, red contact lenses, and red mascara. Wilcox called the styling "half medieval, half futuristic", while Wilson quoted Garland as calling it "Joan of Arc kidnapped by aliens".
Ninety-one looks were presented; primarily womenswear with some menswear. The show opened with looks primarily in grey and black, with muted burgundy notes. Red began to appear more brightly, and more frequently, as the show progressed; most of the final set of looks were monochromatic red. Look 78 featured a red lace long-sleeved mini dress with a long train; the fabric covered the model's entire face. Debra Shaw appeared in Look 81, a hooded dress of red snakeskin.
For the finale, Svetlana represented Joan of Arc, wearing a red beaded dress which covered her face. She walked to the end of the darkened runway, where a circle of flames came up around her feet and she swayed within them, holding her arms out, until the fire went out and the lights dimmed. Following this, McQueen took his bow alongside stylist Katy England, while the Diana Ross song "Remember Me" played. His close-cropped hair was bleached white-blond, and like the models, he wore red contacts.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
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Catwalk presentation
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Reception to Joan was positive. Summarizing the critical consensus in retrospect, journalist Maureen Callahan reported that the show received a "rapturous reception". Avril Groom at The Scotsman called it the best show of that season's London Fashion Week. She credited the polish to McQueen's experience at Givenchy, as did Jane de Teliga of the Sydney Morning Herald. John Hoerner, chairman of the British Fashion Council, and Hilary Alexander of The Daily Telegraph each wrote that it was McQueen's best work to date. Alexander added that the collection "fairly scorched down the runway". Author Katherine Gleason wrote that "many in the press see signs of a new maturity"; reviewers who remarked in this vein included Suzy Menkes, Robert O'Byrne, and Avril Groom.
Reviewers were broadly positive about the designs from Joan. The tailored pieces drew particular attention as a showcase for McQueen's skills. John Davidson of The Herald wrote that the theme of Joan and her androgyny "allowed McQueen to express his brilliance as a tailor". Suzy Menkes, writing in the International Herald Tribune, felt that the collection had "given a fresh angle" to McQueen's signature items. Constance C. R. White at The New York Times highlighted one particular "bare-back dress [...] high on the neck in the front and scooped down over the shoulders, baring the model's back between two flanges of fabric that stood out like delicate bird's wings". Susannah Frankel, for The Guardian, felt that items in "black denim with red top stitching" were "clever" and would be replicated by other clothing brands. Grace Bradberry of The Times thought the garments printed with the photographs of children were among the highlights of the collection. Menkes felt the photo-printed items were "less assured".
Critics generally felt that McQueen had successfully balanced the medieval references so that they were noticeable but not overexaggerated. Groom appreciated that the clothing remained modern rather than looking like a costume. Frankel felt similarly, writing that the clothes were "challenging but never too gimmicky". Several reviewers noted the chain mail dresses as a point of interest. White was impressed by McQueen's ability to create a "celebratory collection" using Joan of Arc's tragic story as inspiration. On the other hand, Robert O'Byrne at The Irish Times was critical of what he saw as McQueen's attempt to demonstrate his "intellectual credentials", dismissing the theme as "little more than intermittent and inexplicable references to Joan of Arc".
McQueen's designs were notorious for being harsh and unwearable. Reviewers found this collection much more commercial, largely regarded as a positive step for McQueen. De Teliga wrote that the designs had "huge commercial potential", while Claudia Croft complimented the clothing for being wearable. The staff writer at Women's Wear Daily (WWD) described the clothing as unusually romantic for McQueen, while Davidson noted the surprising presence of "more delicate pieces". Although they enjoyed the collection in general, the WWD reviewer criticised the harem pants and corsets as unrealistic for the average consumer.
Some journalists had expected a runway show full of McQueen's usual gruesome flourishes, based on the theme, the invitation, and the set dressing; they were surprised to find that it was not especially macabre. Multiple critics considered the flaming finale to be a properly theatrical end for Fashion Week. Bradberry felt it might "sum up the whole late 1990s London thing 10 years from now". Several remarked upon the contrast of elements between the watery runway of Untitled and the fire used for Joan. The staff writer from WWD thought that the Joan finale lacked the impact of the rainstorm that finished Untitled but considered the collection stronger.
In retrospect, the collection is well-regarded. Callahan considered the collection an expression of McQueen's "ongoing martyr complex" and wrote that "the more he abused himself, the better his work became". Writer Chloe Fox called the finale "spectacular". Judith Watt felt that it was the end of the press dismissing McQueen as a low-class intruder into the high-class fashion scene and considered the collection a demonstration of McQueen's "informed mind". In Gods and Kings, Dana Thomas was effusive about the collection, calling the clothing "handsome, sensual, and absolutely wearable" despite the "dark and somewhat frightening" theatrics of the runway show. Dazed magazine called it one of McQueen's "most visually arresting shows in terms of its beauty looks".
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
| 76,503,097 |
Reception
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McQueen was long fascinated by the conjunction of religion and female suffering. Theorist Mélissa Diaby Savané cited Joan as an example of how McQueen channelled his interest in religious suffering through a Romantic lens that led him to turn prosaic fashion shows into performance art. Dress historian Edwina Ehrman compared Joan to McQueen's Autumn/Winter 1999 collection for Givenchy, the latter of which was inspired by the 1833 painting The Execution of Lady Jane Grey. Both collections "explore female martyrdom". In a 2023 essay about the enduring influence Joan of Arc has had in fashion, writer Rosalind Jana identified Joan as the industry's "best and most unsettling interpretation of the saint", owing to McQueen's admiration for her conviction and martyrdom and the bleakness with which he presented his image of her.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
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Analysis
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The styling for the runway show has drawn critical attention for its juxtaposition of aggression and femininity, in the use of armour as well as in the styling of the models. One contemporary review called the chainmail items "an original play on the overworked theme". Curator Clare Phillips called the armour pieces "a dignified evocation of female power". Some writers have likened the models to "satanic serpents". In an essay about McQueen's use of make-up to subvert expectations of femininity, fashion theorist Janice Miller wrote that the look created a "cloned army of female warriors", making an "unforgiving, but striking, statement about feminine identity". She felt that it displayed McQueen's interest in the "inner lives" of women. Writing separately, Bethune concurred, arguing that the models "appeared aggressive and untouchable", and that their strength and sexuality "served as a counterpoint to the murder of innocents". Fashion historian Ingrid Loschek felt that the styling used "eroticism as a symbol of power", representing Joan as a soldier in an armoured minidress or "or as a Greek warrior with half-bared breast". Savané suggested that the androgynous styling and use of armour exemplified McQueen's "ideal kind of woman", who is both "strong and threatening, vulnerable yet aggressive".
Much of the scholarly analysis of the collection rests on the incorrect assumption that the photos printed on several of the garments were of the Romanov children. Keith Lodwick, for example, asserted that the prints feature Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, who he calls a "revolutionary influence". Lodwick drew a line from these items to military-inspired jackets from The Girl Who Lived in the Tree (Autumn/Winter 2008), arguing that the latter were inspired by the "revolutionary atmosphere of Les Misérables". Susannah Brown, analysing the influence photography had on McQueen, suggested he often selected photographs that would be provocative or "prove a political point" and cited the images of the putative Romanov children as one example. Sociologist Henrique Grimaldi Figueredo wrote that the collection includes "the reproduction of the murder photographs of the [Romanov] children" as an example of the kind of "fantastic trauma" McQueen explores.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
| 76,503,097 |
Analysis
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The finale has also drawn extensive commentary. Bethune believed the finale may have been partly inspired by a Richard Avedon photograph from a series called In Memory of the Late Mr and Mrs Comfort, published in The New Yorker in November 1995. One image in the series depicts a woman in red, her face covered, surrounded by fire. Fashion theorist Caroline Evans argued that the increasingly-theatrical fashion shows of the late 1990s served as "phantasmagoria": dramatic displays that existed to conceal the underlying "working mechanisms of capitalist production". She cited the flaming finale of Joan as an example.
In an analysis of McQueen's Gothic leanings, Catherine Spooner pinpointed the "revenant past" as "the defining feature of the Gothic" and argued that McQueen "constructs the past as Gothic trauma" through his designs. She identified Joan and Dante as containing depictions of "historic trauma" via the "screen-printed photographs of the murdered Romanov children and of the Vietnam War" that appeared in these respective collections. Spooner further considered the finale of Joan to be a Gothic reference to two different "persecuted teenager[s] with supernatural powers": the flaming circle explicitly references the burning of Joan of Arc, and less obviously, the beaded red dress resembled the blood-covered prom dress from the pivotal scene of the film Carrie (1976).
The ambiguous meaning of the finale has been the subject of much debate. For Spooner, it is unclear whether the woman from the Joan finale is "achieving heavenly transcendence or undergoing a demonic resurrection". Bethune, too, saw the finale as evidence of violence: for her, the red dress represented "flayed flesh", and the dangling beads, "dripping blood". Although Wilcox felt the finale reflected the cruelty of Joan's death, she felt the visual hinted at "her resurrection as martyr" and her sainthood. Andrew Wilson felt the woman in the finale represented the "McQueen everywoman: resilient, strong, a survivor of unknown horrors". Grimaldi Figueredo argued that the finale of Joan incorporated both sacred and profane imagery and cites it as an example of the aesthetic of abjection in McQueen's work.
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wikipedia
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Joan (collection)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_(collection)
| 76,503,097 |
Finale
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