Digest 1273

Re: Fifteenth Century Visual Sources and Costume Research: An Analys

Posted by: "Bill Barber" bbarber@... wdwbarber
Mon Jan 1, 2007 1:45 pm (PST)
I wonder what the women said about this stuff in private. Oh, to be a
fly on the wall.

Probably what I say when I see a man driving a Hummer, "Sorry about your penis."

Here's a site I found useful for my own garb research. It is alomst exclusively about female garb but is very interesting. Enjoy:
http://cadieux.mediumaevum.com/15thc-costuming.html



Loyaulte' me lie

--- In , "Carol Rondou"
<lilith@...> wrote:
>
> Re: Fifteenth Century Visual Sources and Costume Research: An
Analys
>
> Posted by: "Bill Barber" bbarber@... wdwbarber
> Mon Jan 1, 2007 1:45 pm (PST)
> I wonder what the women said about this stuff in private. Oh, to be
a
> fly on the wall.
>
> Probably what I say when I see a man driving a Hummer, "Sorry about
your penis."
>
> Here's a site I found useful for my own garb research. It is
alomst exclusively about female garb but is very interesting. Enjoy:
> http://cadieux.mediumaevum.com/15thc-costuming.html



Thanks, that's a really useful site. Back to what we were saying,
though, about the difficulty of understanding a former era. Even with
all the careful study and dressmaking skills, the cut of the clothes
doesn't really seem to match up to the originals, does it (too bulky
under the arms, and the skirts not quite strutting their stuff)? And
the hose also look far too bulky.
I wonder whether woollen hose wouldn't actually have been knitted,
like socks (it's not so long ago that people still knitted socks, and
used garters on their knee-length ones). I recall once seeing a 15th
century picture of the Virgin Mary using a set of sock needles.

Marie


>
>
>
> Loyaulte' me lie
>
>
>

About a year ago, I was trying to come to grips with what might both
motivate and inhibit people in the fifteenth century. I remembered a
lesson I learned while curating historical exhibitions: one cannot crawl
inside the the Zeitgeist of another era. We may know a few facts, and
have a relatively sound sense of chronology, but we'll never totally
understand how people viewed their world.

The posting on clothing goes a step further: it shows how hard it is to
get even the facts right.

Every time a new history or biography comes along, we often learn more
about the author and his/her cultural world view than we do about the
subject.

mariewalsh2003 wrote:
>
> --- In
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>, "Carol Rondou"
> <lilith@...> wrote:
> >
> > Re: Fifteenth Century Visual Sources and Costume Research: An
> Analys
> >
> > Posted by: "Bill Barber" bbarber@... wdwbarber
> > Mon Jan 1, 2007 1:45 pm (PST)
> > I wonder what the women said about this stuff in private. Oh, to be
> a
> > fly on the wall.
> >
> > Probably what I say when I see a man driving a Hummer, "Sorry about
> your penis."
> >
> > Here's a site I found useful for my own garb research. It is
> alomst exclusively about female garb but is very interesting. Enjoy:
> > http://cadieux.mediumaevum.com/15thc-costuming.html
> <http://cadieux.mediumaevum.com/15thc-costuming.html>
>
> Thanks, that's a really useful site. Back to what we were saying,
> though, about the difficulty of understanding a former era. Even with
> all the careful study and dressmaking skills, the cut of the clothes
> doesn't really seem to match up to the originals, does it (too bulky
> under the arms, and the skirts not quite strutting their stuff)? And
> the hose also look far too bulky.
> I wonder whether woollen hose wouldn't actually have been knitted,
> like socks (it's not so long ago that people still knitted socks, and
> used garters on their knee-length ones). I recall once seeing a 15th
> century picture of the Virgin Mary using a set of sock needles.
>
> Marie
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Loyaulte' me lie
> >
> >
> >
>
>

--- In , Bill Barber
<bbarber@...> wrote:
>
> About a year ago, I was trying to come to grips with what might both
> motivate and inhibit people in the fifteenth century. I remembered a
> lesson I learned while curating historical exhibitions: one cannot
crawl
> inside the the Zeitgeist of another era. We may know a few facts,
and
> have a relatively sound sense of chronology, but we'll never totally
> understand how people viewed their world.



Bill, I'd like to thank you for all the fascinating sites and
references you manage to find and share with us.

Speaking of the Zeitgeist of past times, my mother used to talk about
the high level of anxiety/excitement of daily life during WW II.
From what she described, life was tuned to a higher pitch than ever
after the war, with everyone anxious for the next bit of news, the war
always in the background, if not the foreground, of daily life, and
everyone united in a common cause.

I think the film "The Best Years of Our Lives" captures some of that
aura. The title has two meanings...the best years of the characters'
lives were disrupted and consumed in the war, but those years were
some of the best intheir lives because never again would they feel
such a sense of camaraderie, vitality, and intensity...never again
wouldthey feel quite so alive.

The ovrall social climate was far different during the Korean and
Vietnam conflicts.

Katy

Thanks, Katy

A number of years back, a friend and I were thinking of getting into the
corporate research business. I had done a lot of research for a company
that supplied leasing and training services for the multihousing
industry. For twenty years before that, I did a lot of historical
research while I worked as a museum curator. The web was a godsend.

While I was traipsing around the web about six or seven years ago, I
subscribed to a whole pile of historical research sites, and set up a
bunch of Google Alerts. When I decided not to go into the research
business, I was tempted to unsubscribe from these sites, but I'm glad I
didn't.

A ton of stuff continues to come up. Most is junk, but there are always
one or two gems. And they are eclectic: nothing I'd think of searching
for on my own volition. I've just finished adding some more Google
Alerts, so we'll see what happens. The problem in pulling WOTR
references is that the majority of returns deal with the Shakespearean
history plays.

All in all it's fun, and it keeps me off the streets.

It strikes me that some of the things we think of as ancillary to our
subject are really important. It's interesting to speculate on the
murder of the princes, the machinations of Buckingham, etc., but it's
also fun to know that people visited the tower menagerie and wore short
tunics.

There are many sites dealing with 54mm, 90mm, 120mm and 1:12. figures.
I'll post the stuff as I find it. I used to work on figures when I was a
bit younger. Wasn't much good at it, but it was fun.

I learned about the difficulty of dealing with Zeitgeist when I put
together a gallery of First Nations artifacts and reproductions. My
interpretation was very Eurocentric, and I was called on this point. I
then realized that even in the interpretation of the past in my own
culture, when dealing with 'pioneers', I couldn't really identify with
their lives to any great extent. Even people who work in living history
sites pack up at the end of day, go home, and watch CSI.

Oh, well...

oregonkaty wrote:
>
> --- In
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>, Bill Barber
> <bbarber@...> wrote:
> >
> > About a year ago, I was trying to come to grips with what might both
> > motivate and inhibit people in the fifteenth century. I remembered a
> > lesson I learned while curating historical exhibitions: one cannot
> crawl
> > inside the the Zeitgeist of another era. We may know a few facts,
> and
> > have a relatively sound sense of chronology, but we'll never totally
> > understand how people viewed their world.
>
> Bill, I'd like to thank you for all the fascinating sites and
> references you manage to find and share with us.
>
> Speaking of the Zeitgeist of past times, my mother used to talk about
> the high level of anxiety/excitement of daily life during WW II.
> >From what she described, life was tuned to a higher pitch than ever
> after the war, with everyone anxious for the next bit of news, the war
> always in the background, if not the foreground, of daily life, and
> everyone united in a common cause.
>
> I think the film "The Best Years of Our Lives" captures some of that
> aura. The title has two meanings...the best years of the characters'
> lives were disrupted and consumed in the war, but those years were
> some of the best intheir lives because never again would they feel
> such a sense of camaraderie, vitality, and intensity...never again
> wouldthey feel quite so alive.
>
> The ovrall social climate was far different during the Korean and
> Vietnam conflicts.
>
> Katy
>
>