An Introduction to Chinoiserie: When European Monarchs Tried to Build Chinese Palaces, Houses & Pavilions

in Architecture, Design, History, Travel | September 25th, 2023

Today it would be viewed as cultural appropriation writ large, but when Louis XIV ordered the construction of a 5‑building pleasure pavilion inspired by the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing (a 7th Wonder of the World few French citizens had viewed in person) as an escape from Versailles, and an exotic love nest in which to romp with the Marquise de Montespan, he ignited a craze that spread throughout the West.

Chinoiserie was an aristocratic European fantasy of luxurious Eastern design, what Dung Ngo, founder of AUGUST: A Journal of Travel + Design, describes as “a Western thing that has nothing to do with actual Asian culture:”

Chinoiserie is a little bit like chop suey. It was wholesale invented in the West, based on certain perceptions of Asian culture at the time. It’s very watered down.

And also way over the top, to judge by the rapturous descriptions of the interiors and gardens of Louis XIV’s Trianon de Porcelaine, which stood for less than 20 years.

Image by Hervé Gregoire, via Wikimedia Commons

The blue-and-white Delft tiles meant to mimic Chinese porcelain swiftly fell into disrepair and Madame de Montespan’s successor, her children’s former governess, the Marquise de Maintenon, urged Louis to tear the place down because it was “too cold.”

Her lover did as requested, but elsewhere, the West’s imagination had been captured in a big way.

The burgeoning tea trade between China and the West provided access to Chinese porcelain, textiles, furnishings, and lacquerware, inspiring Western imitations that blur the boundaries between Chinoiserie and Rococo styles

This blend is in evidence in Frederick the Great’s Chinese House in the gardens of Sanssouci (below).

Image by Johann H. Addicks, via Wikimedia Commons

Dr Samuel Wittwer, Director of Palaces and Collections at the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, describes how the gilded figure atop the roof “is a mixture of the Greek God Hermes and the Chinese philosopher Confucius:”

His European face is more than just a symbol of intellectual union between Asia and Europe…The figure on the roof has an umbrella, an Asian symbol of social dignity, which he holds in an eastern direction. So the famous ex oriente lux, the good and wise Confucian light from the far east, is blocked by the umbrella. Further down, we notice that the foundations of the building seem to be made of feathers and the Chinese heads over the windows, resting on cushions like trophies, turn into a monkey band in the interior. The frescoes in the cupola mainly depict monkeys and parrots. As we know, these particular animals are great imitators without understanding.

Frederick’s enthusiasm for chinoiserie led him to engage architect Carl von Gontard to follow up the Chinese House with a pagoda-shaped structure he named the Dragon House (below) after the sixteen creatures adorning its roof.

Image by Rigorius, via Wikimedia Commons

Dragons also decorate the roof of the Great Pagoda in London’s Kew Gardens, though the gilded wooden originals either succumbed to the elements or were sold off to settle George IV’s gambling debts in the late 18th century.

Image by MX Granger, via Wikimedia Commons

There are even more dragons to be found on the Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm, Sweden, an architectural confection constructed by King Adolf Fredrik as a birthday surprise for his queen, Louisa. The queen was met by the entire court, cosplaying in Chinese (or more likely, Chinese-inspired) garments.

Not to be outdone, Russia’s Catherine the Great resolved to “capture by caprice” by building a Chinese Village outside of St. Petersburg.

Image by Макс Вальтер, via Wikimedia Commons

Architect Charles Cameron drew up plans for a series of pavilions surrounding a never-realized octagonal-domed observatory. Instead, eight fewer pavilions than Cameron originally envisioned surround a pagoda based on one in Kew Gardens.

Having survived the Nazi occupation and the Soviet era, the Chinese Village is once again a fantasy plaything for the wealthy. A St. Petersburg real estate developer modernized one of the pavilions to serve as a two-bedroom “weekend cottage.”

Given that no record of the original interiors exists, designer Kirill Istomin wasn’t hamstrung by a mandate to stick close to history, but he and his client still went with “numerous chinoiserie touches” as per a feature in Elle Decor:

Panels of antique wallpapers were framed in gilded bamboo for the master bedroom, and vintage Chinese lanterns, purchased in Paris, hang in the dining and living rooms. The star pieces, however, are a set of 18th-century porcelain teapots, which came from the estate of the late New York socialite and philanthropist Brooke Astor.

Explore cultural critic Aileen Kwun and the Asian American Pacific Islander Design Alliance’s perspective on the still popular design trend of chinoiserie here.

h/t Allie C!

How the Ornate Tapestries from the Age of Louis XIV Were Made (and Are Still Made Today)

Download Vincent van Gogh’s Collection of 500 Japanese Prints, Which Inspired Him to Create “the Art of the Future”

Free: Download 70,000+ High-Resolution Images of Chinese Art from Taipei’s National Palace Museum

– Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine and author, most recently, of Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto and Creative, Not Famous Activity Book. Follow her @AyunHalliday.

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Patti Smith Reads Sylvia Plath’s Poem, “The Moon and the Yew Tree”

in Literature, Poetry, Travel | September 15th, 2023

Court Green, the rural Devon property Sylvia Plath called home for sixteen months toward the end of her life is a popular pilgrimage for Plathophiles, seeking to worship at the wellspring of some of her best known poems — The Bee Meeting, Daddy, Lady Lazarus, and many other works posthumously published in 1965’s Ariel.

(Her ex-husband Ted Hughes wrote his collection, Crow, there as well, not long after Plath died by suicide. Something tells us his widow, Carol, a staunch defender of her husband’s legacy, doesn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat when she sees starry eyed devotee’s of her husband’s first wife tromping around the perimeter of the property where she still lives…)

Plath scholar Dorka Tamás made the trip to St. Peter’s, the North Tawton church abutting Court Green. Plath took pleasure in describing its grounds in letters to friends and family, and immoratlized its massive yew in “The Moon and the Yew Tree”:

I looked around the Victorian gravestones, slowly passing the souls of the dead. The beautiful green trees could not contrast more with the Neo-gothic church. I knew at first sight which one is the yew tree in Plath’s poem. I was searching for the window of Court Green, Plath’s office window, from which she could have an expansive view of the yew…North Tawton has been an ambiguous place for both Plath and Plathians. In the year she spent in the isolated village, she produced her best and most well-known poems, but it was also a place where she experienced extreme isolation after Hughes left her. Nevertheless, the country life provided plenty of opportunities for Plath to explore her creative, aesthetic, and domestic independence, such as horse riding in the field of Devon, experimenting with beekeeping, painting her children’s nursery elbow chair, and making apple pie from the apples of her garden. The poetry and fiction Plath wrote between autumn 1961 and winter 1962 are embedded in the natural environment in Devon and community, places, and non-human life of North Tawton.

Poet David Trinidad, an avid collector of Plath-related memorabilia, whose souvenirs include a vial of dust from the studio she occupied during a residency at Yaddo and a facsimile of a blue patterned Liberty of London scarf she gave her mother during a 1962 visit to Court Green, prizes his cuttings from St. Peter’s yew:

Plath wrote The Moon and the Yew Tree on October 22, 1961, less than two months after moving to Court Green. Everything in the poem is true: her property was separated from an adjacent church by a row of headstones; on Sunday eight bells would toll; an ancient yew tree grew in the church graveyard. …She doesn’t mention the yew tree specifically in any of her letters; she saved that for the poem.

Godmother of Punk Patti Smith, whose souvenirs run more toward Polaroids, wrote of visiting Plath’s grave in her memoir, M Train, and identifies the poet as someone who makes her want to write.

Her performance of “The Moon and The Yew Tree,” above, is more straightforward than Plathian, allowing the darkness of the work–which The Marginalian’s Maria Popova calls “one of (Plath’s) finest poems and one of the most poignant portraits of depression in the history of literature”–to speak for itself.

As Popova notes, the poem was written during a difficult period, in an attempt to fulfill a writing exercise suggested by Hughes, “to simply describe what she saw in the Gothic churchyard outside her window.”

Who would dare fault Plath for obeying the impulse to editorialize a bit?

The New Yorker had accepted but not yet published “The Moon and the Yew Tree” when Plath took her own life on February 11, 1963. It was published posthumously in a two-page spread along with five other poems six months later. You can read it online here.

via The Marginalian

Hear Sylvia Plath Read 18 Poems From Her Final Collection, Ariel, in a 1962 Recording

Hear Patti Smith Read 12 Poems From Seventh Heaven, Her First Collection (1972)

– Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine and author, most recently, of Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto and Creative, Not Famous Activity Book. Follow her @AyunHalliday.

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

The 5 Innovative Bridges That Make New York City, New York City

in Architecture, Design, Travel | August 29th, 2023

The Brooklyn Bridge ignites the passions of tourists and locals alike.

For every 10,000 visitors who pause in its bike lanes to snap selfies, there’s an alum of nearby PS 261 who celebrated its birthday with a song that mentions the fates of its engineers John and Washington Roebling to the tune of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.

(A sample chorus: Caisson’s disease! Caissons disease! Caisson’s disease is really bad!)

Native son Adam Suerte of Brooklyn Tattoo estimates that he inks its likeness on a half dozen customers per month. (A temporary option is available for those with commitment issues…)

In 1886, a hustler named Steve Brodie claimed to have survived a jump off of it, a tale propagated by Bugs Bunny.

We watch movies at its feet and draw attention to causes by marching across it.

It continues to mesmerize artists, poets, filmmakers and photographers.

But, as architect Michael Wyetzner makes clear in his most recent video for Architectural Digest, it’s not the only bridge in New York City.

Also, despite what you may have heard, it’s not for sale.

Understandably, the hybrid cable-stayed/suspension superstar connecting Brooklyn to lower Manhattan takes the lead in Wyetzner’s coverage of five bridges that have had an enormous impact on the development of a city whose five boroughs were once traversable solely by ferry.

The other notable players:

The Hell Gate Bridge — a feat of WWI-era railroad engineering connecting Queens to Randall’s and Wards Island over a particularly perilous stretch of waterway, it was once the longest steel arch bridge in the world.

In his 1921 book New York: The Great Metropolis, painter Peter Marcus noted that “if laid over Manhattan it would reach from Wanamaker’s store at Eighth Street, to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street.”

Macomb’s Dam Bridge, a low lying swing bridge whose center portion pivots to accommodate boat traffic on the Harlem River. When construction began in late 1890, the New York Times gushed that it would be a “street built in mid-air” between the Bronx and Washington Heights in upper Manhattan:

It is hardly enough to say of it that it will be the greatest piece of engineering of the kind in the world. Nothing like it has ever been attempted.

The High Bridge - Originally part of the Croton Aqueduct, it is technically the oldest surviving bridge in the city, as well as a community-led preservation campaign success story. Having languished in the latter part of the 20th century, it is now a beautiful pedestrian bridge whose killer views can be enjoyed without the hassle of Brooklyn Bridge-sized crowds.

The George Washington Bridge - a major money maker for the Port Authority, it’s not only the world’s busiest bridge, it puts a lot of the bridge in “bridge and tunnel crowd” by connecting Manhattan to New Jersey.

Architecture buffs can geek out on the Concrete Industry Board Award-winning bus station and storied Little Red Lighthouse in its shadow.

The GWB’s most ardent fan has got to be artist Faith Ringgold, who immortalized it in her Tar Beach story quilt and related children’s book:

I never want to be more than three minutes from the George. I could always see it as I grew up. That bridge has been in my life for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I could walk across it anytime I wanted. I love to see it sparkling at night. I moved to New Jersey, and I’m still next to it.

Wyetzner, whose architectural round up shoehorns in a lot of interesting information about public health, economics, transportation, labor practice and New York City history, is actively courting viewers to suggest bridges for a sequel.

We’ll throw our weight behind the Manhattan, the Williamsburg, the Queensboro, the Verrazzano, and the admittedly dark horse 103rd Street Footbridge.

You?

A Mesmerizing Trip Across the Brooklyn Bridge: Watch Footage from 1899

See New York City in the 1930s and Now: A Side-by-Side Comparison of the Same Streets & Landmarks

An Online Gallery of Over 900,000 Wonderful Photos of Historic New York City

– Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine and author, most recently, of Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto and Creative, Not Famous Activity Book. Follow her @AyunHalliday.

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Why Hiroshima, Despite Being Hit with the Atomic Bomb, Isn’t a Nuclear Wasteland Today

in History, Travel | August 14th, 2023

Jan Morris visited Hiroshima in 1959, fourteen years after its devastation by the United States’ atomic bomb. “The city has long been rebuilt, and a new population has flooded in to replace the victims of the holocaust,” she wrote, “but for all the bright new buildings and the broad boulevards, no Pompeii is more surely frozen in its attitude of disaster, and no Mont Pelée more permanently scarred.” Despite the robust urban form and activity around her, she felt “for all the world as though the tall new buildings are not there at all, and the islands of the Ota delta are still blackened and smoking. Assured indeed must be the visitor who has not, just for a fleeting foolish moment, wondered if the stones of Hiroshima were still radioactive, or eyed the running water thoughtfully.”

Today, the very name of Hiroshima still evokes one thing and one thing only, at least to most foreigners. But if those foreigners actually make the trip to that once-destroyed city, it will probably strike them as even more incongruously alive than it did Morris those six decades ago.

Some would imagine that, given that the dropping of the bomb known as “Little Boy” remains just within living memory — its 78th anniversary passed just last Sunday — Hiroshima would be an abandoned nuclear wasteland. Here to explain why it flourishes instead is Youtuber Kyle Hill, whose new video above explains the difference between the long-term effects of nuclear devastation on Hiroshima and those on a place like the region of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

“For all the destruction it caused, the Little Boy bomb was terribly inefficient,” Hill says. “Of the bomb’s 64 kilograms of uranium, less than one kilogram underwent fission. This means that “every joule of energy that devastated Hiroshima, a fireball so hot it etched ‘negatives’ of people into concrete, a blast wave so intense, it shattered windows 200 kilometers away, came from less than a gram of matter converted directly into energy.” To the much more powerful nuclear weapons developed since there can be no comparison, even considering that Little Boy (like “Fat Man,” which hit Nagasaki) was detonated high in the air, not on the ground, thus causing relatively little lasting contamination. As a result, there’s no need to feel radiation-related hesitation about visiting Hiroshima. If you go, by all means visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, but don’t forget to enjoy an okonomiyaki or two as well.

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The Story of Akiko Takakura, One of the Last Survivors of the Hiroshima Bombing, Told in a Short Animated Documentary

This 392-Year-Old Bonsai Tree Survived the Hiroshima Atomic Blast & Still Flourishes Today: The Power of Resilience

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A Look Into the Wondrous Life & Expansive Work of the Late Jan Morris, Who Wrote the Entire World

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Behold A Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design: The 19th Century Book That Introduced Western Audiences to Japanese Art (1880)

in Architecture, Art, Design, History, Travel | July 31st, 2023

In 1880, architect Thomas W. Cutler endeavored to introduce his fellow Brits to Japanese art and design, a subject that remained novel for many Westerners of the time, given how recently the Tokugawa shogunate had “kept themselves aloof from all foreign intercourse, and their country jealously closed against strangers.”

Having written positively of China’s influence on Japanese artists, Cutler hoped that access to Western art would not prove a corrupting factor:

The fear that a bastard art of a very debased kind may arise in Japan, is not without foundation…The European artist, who will study the decorative art of Japan carefully and reverently, will not be in any haste to disturb, still less to uproot, the thought and feeling from which it has sprung; it is perhaps the ripest and richest fruit of a tree cultivated for many ages with the utmost solicitude and skill, under conditions of society peculiarly favorable to its growth.

Having never visited Japan himself, Cutler relied on previously published works, as well as numerous friends who were able to furnish him with “reliable information upon many subjects,” given their “long residence in the country.”

Accordingly, expect a bit of bias in A Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design (1880).

That said, Cutler emerges as a robust admirer of Japan’s painting, lacquerware, ceramics, calligraphy, textiles, metalwork, enamelwork and netsuke carvings, the latter of which are “are often marvelous in their humor, detail, and even dignity.”

Only Japan’s wooden architecture, which he confidently pooh poohed as little more than “artistic carpentry, decoration, and gardening”, cleverly designed to withstand earthquakes, get shown less respect.

Cutler’s renderings of Japanese design motifs, undertaken in his free time, are the lasting legacy of his book, particularly for those on the prowl for copyright-free graphics.

Cutler observed that the “most characteristic” element of Japanese decoration was its close ties to the natural world, adding that unlike Western designers, a Japanese artist “would throw his design a little out of the center, and cleverly balance the composition by a butterfly, a leaf, or even a spot of color.”

The below plant studies are drawn from the work of the great ukiyo‑e master Hokusai, a “man of the people” who ushered in a period of “vitality and freshness” in Japanese art.

A sampler of curved lines made with single brush strokes can be used to create clouds or the intricate scrollwork that inspired Western artists and designers of the Aesthetic Movement.

While Cutler might not have thought much of Japanese architecture, it’s worth noting that his book shows up in the footnotes of Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan: The Role of Traditional Japanese Art and Architecture in the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Take a peek at some Japanese-inspired wallpaper of Cutler’s own design, then explore A Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design by Thomas W. Cutler here.

Download Classic Japanese Wave and Ripple Designs: A Go-to Guide for Japanese Artists from 1903

Hundreds of Wonderful Japanese Firework Designs from the Early-1900s: Digitized and Free to Download

– Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine and author, most recently, of Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto and Creative, Not Famous Activity Book. Follow her @AyunHalliday.

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Behold the Unique Beauty of Japan’s Artistic Manhole Covers

in Art, Design, Travel | July 19th, 2023

Visitors to Japan can’t help but be struck by the beauty of its temples, its scenic views, its zen gardens, its manhole covers…

You read that right.

What started as a scheme to get taxpayers on board with pricey rural sewer projects in the 1980s has grown into a countrywide tourist attraction and a matter of civic pride.

Each municipality boasts its own unique manhole cover designs, inspired by specific regional elements.

A community might opt to rep its local floral or fauna, a famous local landmark or festival, an historic event or bit of folklore.

Matsumoto City highlights one of its popular folk craft souvenirs, the colorful silk temari balls that once served as toys for female children and bridal gifts.

Nagoya touts the purity of its water with a water strider — an insect that requires the most pristine conditions to survive.

Hiroshima pays tribute to its baseball team.

Osaka offers a view of its castle surrounded by cherry blossoms.

The proximity of the Sanrio Puroland theme park allows Tama City to lay claim to Hello Kitty and Pokémon-themed lids have sprung up like mushrooms from Tokyo to Okinawa.

Most of Japan’s 15 million artistic manhole covers are monochromatic steel which makes spotting one of the vibrantly colored models even more exciting.

In the fifty some years since their introduction, an entire subculture has emerged. Veteran enthusiast Shoji Morimoto coined the term “manholer” to describe hobbyists participating in this “treasure hunt for adults.”

Remo Camerota documents his obsession in Drainspotting: Japanese Manhole Covers and American traveler Carrie McNinch shares the joy of stumbling across previously unspotted ones in her autobiographical comic series You Don’t Get There From Here.

The ongoing popularity of this officially sanctioned street art is evidenced by the Japanese Society of Manhole Lovers, an annual manhole summit, and tons of collectible trading cards.

Explore a crowdsourced gallery of Japanese manhole covers here.

via Colossal

The Making of Japanese Handmade Paper: A Short Film Documents an 800-Year-Old Tradition

Download Classic Japanese Wave and Ripple Designs: A Go-to Guide for Japanese Artists from 1903

Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of The East Village Inky zine and nine books, including, most recently Creative, Not Famous. Follow her @Ayun-Halliday

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

How Olive Oil Was Made in Ancient Rome in the Middle Ages (Plus in Modern Times)

in Food & Drink, History, Travel | July 12th, 2023

If you think cannabis possesses a broad range of applications, olive oil is going to blow your mind!

Humans have been hip to this miracle elixir since approximately 2500 BCE, when Mediterranean dwellers used it as lamp fuel and to anoint royalty, warriors, and other VIPs. (Not for nothing does “messiah” translate to “the anointed one”…)

Its culinary applications entered the mix between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.

Even amurca, the bitter tasting, foul smelling liquid byproduct of the oil pressing process had numerous things to recommend it, as least as far as the ancient Romans were concerned. They used it as a fertilizer, a pesticide, a floor plaster, a sealant for jars, a fire accelerant, moth repellent, axel grease, a surface varnish, a nutritional supplement for livestock, and a remedy for skin diseases and infections.

It’s also a serious pollutant, so good on them for diverting it from the landfill.

Methods for extracting this practical, nutritional powerhouse from the olive fruit have evolved over time.

Bronze Age frescoes and ancient papyri document the earliest approach.

The Romans and Greeks took things up a notch with mechanical presses, such as the replica at the Biblical History Center, above.

In an episode of his National Geographic Uncharted series, chef Gordon Ramsay traveled to Morocco to take a turn at one of the manually-turned stone grinding wheels that were the Middle Ages’ contribution to the history of olive oil, discovering in the process that such “bloody hard work” is better accomplished by an ass.

His labors were rewarded with a taste of olive oil straight from the press - oh my lord, that is beautiful! I’ve heard of extra virgin but this is gonna be extra-extra virgin!

Insider Food tracks olive oil to the 21st century, where production is underway at a mill in Monopoli in the southern Italian region of Puglia, an area where olive trees outnumber humans, 15 to 1.

Puglia’s 1,000-plus mills supply 40% of the country’s olive oil production, and 12% worldwide.

Contemporary olive oil makers obtain a traditional quality product by splitting the difference between the ancient and the modern, with conveyor belts ferrying the fruit to a vat where machine-driven granite wheels crush them to a pulp.

It’s less picturesque, but also more efficient and hygienic than pre-Industrial methods, thanks, in part, to rubber gloves and stainless steel.

Grading oil according to its purity is also a modern innovation, providing consumers a handle quality, taste and health attributes.

Learn more about the history of olive oil here, then get cookin’!

3,000-Year-Old Olive Tree on the Greek Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

Cook Real Recipes from Ancient Rome: Ostrich Ragoût, Roast Wild Boar, Nut Tarts & More

– Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine and author, most recently, of Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto and Creative, Not Famous Activity Book. Follow her @AyunHalliday.

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Some of the Oldest Photos You Will Ever See: Discover Photographs of Greece, Egypt, Turkey & Other Mediterranean Lands (1840s)

in History, Photography, Travel | June 14th, 2023

Beginning in the late seventeenth century, aristocratic Englishmen or continental Europeans came of age and went on a Grand Tour. Lasting anything from few a months to a few years, such trips were meant directly to expose their young takers to the legacy of the Renaissance and antiquity. Naturally, most Grand Tour itineraries placed the utmost importance on Italy and Greece; some even went to the Holy Land, as satirized by Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad. By the time that book was published in 1869, the Grand Tour was out of high fashion — but a couple of decades earlier, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey had preserved many of its destinations with a piece of cutting-edge technology known as the camera.

Girault de Prangey went on his first photographic “Grand Tour” in 1841, when he was in his late thirties. Having already traveled extensively and received an education in both art and law, he was hardly a callow youth in need of refinement. But he was an aristocrat, the sole inheritor of his family fortune, and thus able to “devote his life to his passions: travel, arts, and publishing.”

So says the narrator of the Kings and Things video above, which tells the story of how Girault de Prange managed to leave us the earliest known photographs of a large swath of the world. This project “took him from Italy to Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and the Levant, he captured over 1,000 photographs, with subjects ranging from streetscapes and architectural details to nature and landscapes and portraits of local people.”

Not that photography per se was Girault de Prangey’s goal; for him, taking a picture constituted merely an early step in the creation of a drawing or painting. “Although he only intended to use them as a sort of sketch to refer to back home in his studio,” he “arranged his pictures so as to produce a sense of drama or mystery, and this artistic sensibility sets him apart from many other pioneers of photography, who were primarily technicians or inventors.” The age of the Grand Tour was ending even in Girault de Prangey’s day, but 180 years later (and about a century after their rediscovery in one of his estate’s storerooms), his photographs send us on a very different kind of trip: not just across the world, but — much more thrillingly — deep back in time as well.

via Aeon

Related content:

The First Photograph Ever Taken (1826)

See the First Photograph of a Human Being: A Photo Taken by Louis Daguerre (1838)

Take a Visual Journey Through 181 Years of Street Photography (1838–2019)

Behold the Photographs of John Thomson, the First Western Photographer to Travel Widely Through China (1870s)

Rome Comes to Life in Photochrom Color Photos Taken in 1890: The Colosseum, Trevi Fountain & More

The First Surviving Photograph of the Moon (1840)

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

An Introduction to Chinoiserie: When European Monarchs Tried to Build Chinese Palaces, Houses & Pavilions

Patti Smith Reads Sylvia Plath’s Poem, “The Moon and the Yew Tree”

The 5 Innovative Bridges That Make New York City, New York City

Why Hiroshima, Despite Being Hit with the Atomic Bomb, Isn’t a Nuclear Wasteland Today

Behold A Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design: The 19th Century Book That Introduced Western Audiences to Japanese Art (1880)

Behold the Unique Beauty of Japan’s Artistic Manhole Covers

How Olive Oil Was Made in Ancient Rome in the Middle Ages (Plus in Modern Times)

Some of the Oldest Photos You Will Ever See: Discover Photographs of Greece, Egypt, Turkey & Other Mediterranean Lands (1840s)

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