Monday, February 23, 2015

Film

Film costuming and clothing history in general are a great way to start learning and appreciating history--both historical events, people, cultures, languages and raiment. In the cinema, clothing design is something really fun and unique. I love to scroll through the thousands of photos at FilmCostumes and the very interesting images of RecycledMovieCostumes, and of course the great, well-known Non-WesternHistoricalFashion.

Also I love FripperiesandFobsFashioninHistory, FashionsfromHistory, the excellent OldRags and of course many auction houses--one with great photos is WhitakerAuctionCo.

There's ClothesonFilm and VintageFilmPropsandCostumes. PeriodWardrobe is a neat look at homemade historical costumes. The FIDM Museum of couture and textiles has a great blog of both photos and information.

Another great place to look through pictures is PeriodMovieCaps. For all areas of the world, there's a very long list of links at FilmCostume.

The painting below is British Frederick Goodall's [1822-1904] "A Dream of Paradise".


Sunday, February 22, 2015

Art

Sometime reading gets you through the winter months -- and some great blogs on art [with tons of photos of some of the best art in history] are:

DantisAmor [Latin: Dante's Love] -- intense, lovely articles with tons of photos and academic discussion, excellent and very long

ByronsMuse -- a more accessible, shorter blog but similar to the blog above; discussion of paintings

TheOrientalistGallery -- incredible mid-1800s art of the Orientalist fad [non-European world painted by Euros]

MedievalChurchArt -- both art, discussion and very immense in knowledge

BeyondBordersMedievalBlog -- tons of articles and academic discussion

If you need more, you can read PreRaphaelitePaintings and of course, for a lighter time watch 30 Rock all over again. A great film to watch in the romantic, gothic vein is Onegin, it always bears a rewatch! It has Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler in the Russian, classic Pushkin epic poem 'Eugene Onegin' [Евге́ний Оне́гин].


Friday, February 20, 2015

Food

Since famous Paris food blogger/chef David Lebovitz doesn't update daily, an intellectual food lover can yearn for more--and I've found that the blog EatingAsia really fills the gap. It has tons of fascinating descriptions, you learn a lot, and the photos are amazing.

The food it covers is unique and really broadens your horizons if you haven't eaten a lot of Asian food. The diversity of Asian food is amazing! In that vein, there is the Malaysia Food & Travel site. It's similarly great. There's also the really broad, big site FoodRepublic if you are in the mood to read the NYT of the food world; I love the diversity of the articles and focii.

Of course, the same applies to Mimi Thorisson, who lives in rural France--she's got an incredibly interesting, beautiful, professional blog that appeals to nature/photography lovers and food lovers. Her anecdotes are always interesting, and it makes you want to immediately travel to a rural countryside and just go on a walk. Some of the photos are NationalGeographic level work, highlighting the true beauty and variety of nature.


Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Carnival

From Venice to New Orleans, Carnival has begun. The holiday is pre-Lent, so it takes place mostly in late January and in February.

One great painting of the long festival is by Frenchman François Flameng [1856-1923]. I love to read NolaDefender for all the interesting New Orleans news. There are some really funny pieces as well, and a great King Cake review piece.