Le chant des abysses

Resist, it is our duty.

Victoria and Albert Museum

(this is probably somewhat related to my other favourite genre of painting, Husband With Multiple Kids Making Come Hither Eyes At His Wife)

The left is “the busy father” by Theodore Weber, the right one is “At the china repairer’s “ by Wenzel Tornoe. All dads who are actively involved in childcare and a painter who thought it was a cute topic rather than anything ridiculous.

Italian Winegrower And His Daughter by Francesco Baratta (1590-1666)

Victoria and Albert Museum

Title: Penelope Unraveling Her Work at Night Artist: Dora Wheeler Keith (American, 1856-1940) Date: 1886 Genre: mythological art Medium: silk embroidered with silk thread Dimensions: 114.3 cm (45 in) high x 172.7 cm (68 in) wide Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, USA

I'm also very happy that if there were to be a single piece preserved of this artistic style... it couldn't be more appropriate for it to be Penelope unraveling her work. The decay of the piece, poorly cared for, gives the impression that she is unraveling the work she exists in. If anything was going to exist of this art style, I'm glad it's this one.... but also we'll never know what other works of art existed. Art in a format that is firmly women's work is so powerful, and it's devastating that a whole style of art that uses women's work existed and died within a relatively short span of years.

I get how, sans original context and in a world where we're dealing constantly with the encroachment of corporations on what you're allowed to do with your own two hands, "Candace Wheeler patented a technique" sounds like some kind of greedy overreach. However, what she would have been doing is protecting the technique she created from being co-opted by owners of factories, the exact mode of production that she and her associates found exploitative and artistically void, not to keep anyone from being able to replicate it at home. Producing textiles was her business, and it was hardly wrong of her to not want to be undercut by sweatshop labor.

girlfriend approved! my one regret was that I didn’t scroll back to find the inspiration post early enough to put the sad mandolin-playing cat with its vulva out on the back, but there’s always next time.

Like MAKE make them, cut and sewn from silk jersey. (None of the commercially available silk stockings are GOOD enough! 😭 Either too coarse or too blended with spandex, they're not shiny and they don't have the glossy, tightly-knit feel of the originals! You can find MEN'S silk dress socks with the same texture, but stockings, oh no! 😠 I have to do everything myself around here.)

there is hope for the world

every reread kills me a little bit more

reread and enjoy <3

Ottoman cape and vest, 1890s. Whitaker Auctions.

THE WATERMELON WOMAN (1996) dir. Cheryl Dunye Cheryl is young, black, and lesbian, working in Philadelphia with her best friend Tamara and consumed by a film project: to make a video about her search for a black actress from Philadelphia who appeared in films in the 30s and was known as the Watermelon Woman. Following various leads, Cheryl discovers the Watermelon Woman’s stage name and real name and surmises that the actress had a long affair with Martha Page, a white woman and one of Hollywood’s few female directors. As she’s discovering these things, Cheryl becomes involved with Diana, who’s also white, and the affair strains Cheryl’s friendship with Tamara. More discoveries bring Cheryl to new realizations. (link in title)

L'Art et la mode, no. 34, vol. 29, 22 août 1908, Paris. Etude. — Dessin de U. Checa. Bibliothèque nationale de France

To Alexander from Livia. If you're well, I don't care very much. If you're dead, I'm rightly glad.

Le Figaro-modes, no. 31, juillet 1905, Paris. Mlle Dalnys, du chatelet. Photo Paul Boyer. Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque Forney

Don't smack people around at balls

Do not slap him with your handkerchief, nor tap him with your fan; He’ll stand there, as oblivious as before. Why so silent in your censure? Be more violent if you can: A good swift kick is harder to ignore.

Courtesy Alain Truong

I feel you, Neolithic hedgehog. I feel you.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Lauritz Andersen Ring - "At Breakfast" (1898)