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I picked up a couple short books at the book fair that I read but aren't really long enough for their own entries so I decided to do little write ups of them all together.
The Victorian Undertaker was a cute little pamphlet, 30 odd pages long all about Victorian funeral customs. A must really for any goth. It was full of illustrations of pictures from the time, as well as advertisements for funeral homes, cemeteries, proper mourning attire etc. It touched briefly on the patriarchal attitude of mourning over widows. Which was interesting. I also learned that you could wear purple with your black as the mourning was reduced to the second stage, half-mourning. So I guess I am in half-mourning most of the time.
Figure Compositions of China and Japan was a nice little book of illustrations of people mostly from the Tang dynasty and a couple later. The most interesting thing about the book was the painting of women working with silk, washing and ironing that the Emperor had done. I thought it very interesting that the Emperor decided to do a painting of women's work. I think the why of that would be a very interesting subject to pursue. I'm sure it probably had something to do with government wanting increased investment in sericulture. But perhaps it was something like the emperor wanting to pay respect to his mother by showing what women did. As I said, interesting. There was also a picture of a Bodhista feeding a hungry ghost. Which was really cool as it was the first time I'd ever seen a visual representation of a hungry ghost.
I also looked through two wonderful books with Mexican art, The Mighty Aztecs and The National Anthropological Museum (of Mexico). They both had gorgeous images in them, I really want to go back and read through all of them. I'm fascinated by meso-american cultures. I wish I had more time to read about them. But alas life is always so busy.
The Victorian Undertaker was a cute little pamphlet, 30 odd pages long all about Victorian funeral customs. A must really for any goth. It was full of illustrations of pictures from the time, as well as advertisements for funeral homes, cemeteries, proper mourning attire etc. It touched briefly on the patriarchal attitude of mourning over widows. Which was interesting. I also learned that you could wear purple with your black as the mourning was reduced to the second stage, half-mourning. So I guess I am in half-mourning most of the time.
Figure Compositions of China and Japan was a nice little book of illustrations of people mostly from the Tang dynasty and a couple later. The most interesting thing about the book was the painting of women working with silk, washing and ironing that the Emperor had done. I thought it very interesting that the Emperor decided to do a painting of women's work. I think the why of that would be a very interesting subject to pursue. I'm sure it probably had something to do with government wanting increased investment in sericulture. But perhaps it was something like the emperor wanting to pay respect to his mother by showing what women did. As I said, interesting. There was also a picture of a Bodhista feeding a hungry ghost. Which was really cool as it was the first time I'd ever seen a visual representation of a hungry ghost.
I also looked through two wonderful books with Mexican art, The Mighty Aztecs and The National Anthropological Museum (of Mexico). They both had gorgeous images in them, I really want to go back and read through all of them. I'm fascinated by meso-american cultures. I wish I had more time to read about them. But alas life is always so busy.