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1 Beginning in 1865 he worked to improve his ornamental ceramics by testing a number of raw materials in and around Pécs, by introducing kaolin from Bohemia, and by refining these materials and even selling them. As his daughter Teréz noted in her memoirs, Vilmos had wanted to be a painter in his youth. Vilmos Zsolnay adhered to this ideal of technical and artistic perfection. Innovation came through the methodical, often ideological, adaptation of artistic forms and the deliberate, if occasional, exploration of symbolic content. In practical terms, historicism was based on the encyclopedic knowledge of craft. European culture had always recognized and practiced a kind of historicism in the adaptation and embellishment of historical forms. This change in perspective was influenced by an unparalleled broadening of historical awareness-as evident in the separation of historic periods-and the discovery of the innate possibilities in historical investigations.
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While so-called historicist works were once judged to embody a retrograde spirit of academicism and the unimaginative repetition of bygone stylistic periods, such historicism is now considered a direction that actually anticipated modernism in terms of both theory and practice, in many respects tending to look forward rather than to adhere strictly to tradition. The interpretation of historicism has undergone a gradual change in recent decades. From the exhibition: Hungarian Ceramics from the Zsolnay Manufactory, 1853-2001. In the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, New York. Published for The Bard Graduate Center for Studies Readers and collectors of Chinese porcelain will be familiar with the motif, the symbol of longevity, as seen on Chinese ceramics.Originally published in Hungarian Ceramics from the ZsolnayĬsenkey and Ágota Steinery. Late 19th century purple garo silk embroidery detail showing swirling water and fungus of immortality. This is the first time I’ve come across the notion of the ‘sacred fungus’ which according to the accompanying museum labels is a Chinese belief dating back over 4000 years. The exquisite embroidery and the beautiful designs show the variety of symbols that have been incorporated into the more recent interpretations of Zoroastrianism. The Parsi are Zoroastrians who live in modern day India.
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Of course I’m interested in cloth and the display of 18th and 19th century Parsi textiles caught my attention. Rooms within rooms and a hierarchy of space is an idea repeated in many sacred spaces and I was reminded of a visit I made to the ancient Egyptian Temple of Edfu. It was a fascinating exhibition with at its core a small fire temple consisting of an inner sanctum and out prayer room. In Christianity, the Three Wise Men from the East who bring gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus, are sometimes depicted in Persian dress, and they are described as ‘Magi’, a Persian word for a Zoroastrian priest. There is evidence of the Zoroastrian presence in the Bible. Fire, the everlasting flame, represents God’s light or God’s wisdom. Central to the Zoroastrian belief system is that there is only one creator God and at the heart of the religious rituals is fire. Zoroastrianism is considered to be probably the world’s oldest monotheistic religion originating from the ancient tribes of Iran over 3500 years ago. Fire symbolised purity and there appeared to be a link to Persian Zoroastrianism.īrick thought possibly to come from the sides of the staircases in the palace of Darius (522-486 BCE) at Susa, Iran. Light, fire and the light from a flame was of significance for followers of both religions during this period. I first discovered this religion when writing about the visual environment of Late Antiquity looking at the Roman cult of Mithras and early Christian imagery. I was interested in seeing artefacts associated with Zoroastrianism across the centuries from its beginnings in ancient Persia. It was called ‘The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination’. – not sacred, but very tasty!Last month I went to an exhibition being held at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, the University of London.
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Humble English field mushrooms found under the hedge at the bottom of my garden