Featured
WHAT IS: Fashion, more than a Frock?
Fashionable costume encompasses all that we wear, including the previously unmentionable undergarments. They have been on show, in the past few decades, on a scale far beyond those who founded the world of fashionable couture could have possibly imagined. From skinny self sacrificing super models to those demanding the use of ‘real people’, costume accommodates a desire to be noticed. It is the look at me, look at me syndrome, which has been in play for thousands of years. Today it collectively reflects a western society in which privacy has been stripped completely bare. But is fashion about more than a frock?
WHAT IS: A Mirror, more than Glass?
The mirror, more than just glass, has occupied a unique place in his imagination as a site of the divine or demonic, of lucidity or madness. It is the ‘matrix of the symbolic’ and accompanies the human quest to know and understand our identity.
Finding Paradise on Earth
From the earliest times gardens were associated with shade, running water; fragrance and fresh produce and therefore represented peace and prosperity. Each visit to a garden is a unique experience because its plants, ornaments, views and garden buildings appear in a sequence that can never exactly be repeated ever again. Another quality, not possessed by [...]
Destiny, Fate and the Lady and Unicorn Tapestries
In the late medieval period of the fifteenth century the now famous millefleurs tapestries first appear characterized by their backgrounds made of hundreds of tiny flowers. The most well known in this style are known as La Dame á la Licorne, or the Lady & the Unicorn. A group of six tapestries they are woven from a combination of woolen, silk and gold thread and have exercised an almost universal fascination on all those who have encountered them for hundreds of years.
The Harmony of Courtly Love
From the 11th to the 13th century in England and Europe expressing personal feelings in relation to the beauty and bountiful joys of women became the province of troubadours, who were both composers and performers of lyrical poetry set to romantic music. They roved about the countryside visiting castles and their communities to deliver the latest ditties going about in song. The themes they favoured the most were those of chivalry and courtly love.
At the Beginnings of Art
Greek sculpture was the first, the only ancient art to break free from conceptual conventions, for that of representing men and animals. Artisans wanted to explore consciously how art might imitate nature, or even improve upon it. There was no conscious striving towards realism at first, especially until it was understood to be a possible and desirable goal. This began six centuries before the Christ event.
Romantics, Reformers & Revolutionaries 01
Monarchs, Middling People & Mozart
The era of romantics and revolutionaries is also all about the continuing themes from ancient Greece and Rome for that of liberty, religion and justice. It certainly must have been wonderful to be there when, on June 19th 1764 the remarkable child prodigy from Austria 8 year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave a concert in London playing his own compositions on the harpsichord and organ.
Towers – Symbols of Hope and Freedom
Towers are structures that come out of a tradition as old as our memories of time and their symbolism has evolved with our own cultural development. The many towers around the world that stand are a potent reminder of all our desires for hope and freedom and are symbolic of a future filled with faith and promise for everyone.
