Question 6: To what extent has Illustration constructed our understanding or view of historical events and perceptions of truth? History and art are intrinsically linked together when it comes to our understanding and knowledge of historical event’s. The depictions of groups of people or individuals drawn by people long gone gives us a glance into the mindset of past societies, they allow us to see cultural and social events, without us even having to have lived through it. We can mark social and cultural progression and digression through the materials used along side the depiction of architecture, clothing and general imagery within the illustrations. However these images are very biased as they’re only specific shots of an historical event from a certain point of view and these images can be altered later on by different regimes who censor or destroy parts of the image we see. Illustration lends context to historical text and visa versa, together they give us a better and more well rounded understanding of things. But illustrations can be used to romanticise or demonise events and we rely heavily on them when creating our own opinions of past societies. You have things such as the Bayeux tapestry, a reportage piece of illustrative textile made to glorify war and the triumph of William the conqueror or the Georgian newspaper illustration depicting Napoleon Bonaparte as small, which was 100% false but is one of the most successful charter defamation campaigns via illustration in history. Historical illustration much like history itself is biased, it is the bases of most of our formed theories when trying to reimagine historical events however much like historical text, it must be taken with a grain of salt, everything is contextual and opinionated.
5-Subjects •
Social Hierarchy
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Gender
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Sexuality
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Misogyny
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Moral Values (Religion)
5 Quotes •
For women, virginity was the highest possible state, widowhood next best, with marriage coming in a distant third. Widows who chose to remarry were viewed with suspicion. Why would any woman seek to place herself once again in a position where she would have to endure sexual relations?- Manson 1998
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To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness. -Edgar Allan Poe
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To be continually subject to the breath of slander, will tarnish the purest virtue, as a constant exposure to the atmosphere will obscure the brightness of the finest gold; but in either case, the real value of both continues the same, although the currency may be somewhat impeded. -CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
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History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there. George Santayana
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History is a combination of reality and lies. The reality of History becomes a lie. The unreality of the fable becomes the truth. Jean Cocteau
5 Websites •
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ auck17&div=5&id=&page=
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http://search.proquest.com/openview/ 045dfff13f9105038a157d364248d120/1?pqorigsite=gscholar&cbl=1819323
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http://www.jstor.org/stable/25002144? seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
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http://www.historychannel.com.au/articles/28/medieval-sex-andsexuality#.VxgnmyMrK3U
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http://www.library.rochester.edu/robbins/sex-society
5 Books •
Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts 1st Edition
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Staging Slander and Gender in Early Modern England (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World) Hardcover – 28 Oct 2003 by Ina Habermann
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Gender, Art and DeathBy Janet Todd
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Women, Agency and the Law, 1300-1700 edited by: Bronach Kane, Fiona Williamson
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Lies, Slander and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature Pastoral Rhetoric and the Deviant Speaker
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Madonna of Humility with the Temptation of Eve Carlo da Camerino
Michelangelo Adam and Eve
Queen of Sheba Prague
Hans Holbein the Younger