Lazy Post

Hell of busy-ness this month, but I'd feel sad leaving my oh-so-devoted readers with nothing for so long. No Bear Wives--that may have to wait until after end of term, at least--but have some pictures from Athanasius Kircher's truly epic China Monumentatis from 1667.*

Fig. 1: The Kangxi Emperor-Monarchæ Sinico-Tartarici

One word: PIMP. Note the weird little dog (not sure if he was a doggy type in life). The really cool thing about this picture (and the others in the book) is that we can "read" them to be depictions of China in the 17th century, but they actually have a lot of improbable distortions based on how European observers saw, for instance, Kangxi's throne troom as a copy of the French king's. We can't make judgment calls about European travelers simply being unable to see the "real" things around them--only that they saw, but what they saw was processed between observation and representation. Here's a contemporary photo of the Taihedian throne room for comparison.**


Fig. 2: Father Adam Schall-P. Adami Schall Germanus I. Ordinis Mandarinus

I will pwn you with geometry. (Kangxi was actually quite into geometry. Unfortunately, the mass conversion Schall was supposed to be working toward didn't exactly occur by dint of his success in sharing the delights of triangles with the Emperor. Instead, they studied math, which is probably the opposite of mass conversion.)

Fig. 3: Green-haired turtles-No Latin caption. [Let them speak for themselves.]

Included because they can fly. [Hums "Flight of the Valkyries," followed by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song.]
Oh yeah, I know. I haven't ever seen them because they're from the palm-tree areas of South China. Gosh, they have some strange shit down there.***

Fig. 4: Mandarin with sidekick-Modus scribendi
This reminds me so strongly of Carl Pyrdum's medieval marginalia monkeys. Indeed, I wonder if it isn't from the same visual tradition? (Especially as this is the modus scribendi?)

I could post a lot more, but these are probably my top 4 . Maybe later I'll try to find the page of "regional costumes" from various Chinese cities, or the pictures of Chinese beauties posed in "native" styles and costumes.


*Randomly: judging from how dark these images are, I'd guess it's the English edition we're looking at. Oh well, the Latin captions are still sweet.
**NB, the Taihedian, or "Hall of Great Harmony," was the pimpest of the throne halls, and was reserved for fairly special occasions--celebrating the New Year, for instance, or the accession of a new ruler.
***Other strange shit those Southerners have: people who use tree bark to make fake injuries so to better accuse others of assault or even murder; sodomites (often rendered "rabbits" in slang); pirates; weird islands where people have holes in the middle of their chests; informal wars between gangs hired by different powerful lineages.