Author Topic: Western Civilization is UGLY  (Read 7486 times)

90sRetroFan

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #75 on: June 08, 2021, 11:38:48 pm »
Graffiti is Counterculture, duh!

rp

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #76 on: July 18, 2021, 12:59:44 pm »
Touring a 79,995,000 Oceanfront Florida MEGA MANSION

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On this week episode, we are in Delray Beach, FL touring an Italian Renaissance Revival style mega mansion with direct access to both the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal waterway !

The best way to renovate a mansion like this would be to blow it to smithereens.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2021, 01:03:35 pm by rp »

90sRetroFan

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #77 on: July 19, 2021, 12:42:52 am »
The first question we should ask is: what is Renaissance Revival architecture doing in FLORIDA?? How is it even "Revival" considering that Florida never had built in such a style prior to the colonial era?

As for the architecture itself, it is no coincidence that the parts that the presenter is most impressed by (e.g. the club room) are actually the worst parts.

More information about Renaissance Revival is available here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Revival_architecture

Can you guess who else is a fan of this style?

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The staircase at Mentmore Towers designed by Joseph Paxton, and the one at the Warsaw University of Technology designed by Bronisław Rogóyski and Stefan Szyller (late 19th century), both rise from pastiches of true Renaissance courtyards. Both staircases seem more akin to Balthasar Neumann's great Baroque staircase at the Würzburg Residenz than anything found in a true Renaissance Palazzo. The apparent Baroque style staircase at Mentmore is not without a Renaissance influence, its first flight is similar to "The staircase of the Giants" rises from the Doge's Palace Courtyard, designed when the Venetian Gothic was being uncomfortably merged with Renaissance style. Similarly to that at Mentmore, the Staircase of the Giant's terminates on to an arcaded loggia. Perhaps not ironically the Hall and Staircase at Mentmore were designed by Paxton to display furniture formerly housed in the Doge's Palace.

Answer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentmore_Towers

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Mentmore Towers, historically known simply as "Mentmore", is a 19th-century English country house built between 1852 and 1854 for the Rothschild family in the village of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. Sir Joseph Paxton and his son-in-law, George Henry Stokes,[1][2] designed the building in the 19th-century revival of late 16th and early 17th-century Elizabethan and Jacobean styles called Jacobethan.[3][4] The house was designed for the banker and collector of fine art Baron Mayer de Rothschild as a country home, and as a display case for his collection of fine art. The mansion has been described as one of the greatest houses of the Victorian era.[5][6]



The Rothschilds are such renowned patrons of the style that they got it named after themselves:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go%C3%BBt_Rothschild

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Le Goût Rothschild, (pronounced [lə ɡu ʁɔtˈʃild]; English: the Rothschild taste), describes a detailed, elaborate style of interior decoration and living which had its origin in France, Britain, Austria, and Germany during the nineteenth century, when the rich, famous, and powerful Rothschild family was at its height. The Rothschild aesthetic and life-style later influenced other rich and powerful families, including the Vanderbilts, Astors, and Rockefellers, and became hallmarks of the American Gilded Age. Aspects of le goût Rothschild continued into the twentieth century, affecting such designers as Yves Saint Laurent and Robert Denning.

Characteristics

The decorative interior elements of the "Goût Rothschild" include lavish use of extravagant heavy textile fabrics (like damask, brocade, and velvet) and much gilding, elaborate stucco ceilings, and precious (and often antique) wooden panelling and parquet flooring. This heavy abundance is combined with eighteenth-century, mostly French, furniture. For the Rothschilds, furniture and works of art often were of royal provenance. The family bought only the best which was on the market at that time, with preference for the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI. And not so long ago after the French Revolution in 1789, there were some excellent pieces to buy, including many from the Château de Versailles. In architecture, the Rothschilds preferred styles of the Renaissance. The fusion of these uses of materials and styles, "the Rothschild style", combines a sense of Victorian horror vacui beside masterworks of art, sculpture, and armour.

With the construction of Waddesdon Manor, the newly established English branch of the Rothschild family revived imitation of French Renaissance styles in the United Kingdom. The expansive manor house was built in the tradition of the châteaux in the Loire Valley. The Rothschilds often bought original architectural elements from neglected castles and palaces and re-used these floors, fireplaces, ceilings, doors, and panellings in their own newly built castles and palaces, as, for example, in Mentmore Towers, Waddesdon Manor, the Château de Ferrières, and the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waddesdon_Manor



























See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_Rothschild

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rothschild_family_residences
« Last Edit: October 10, 2021, 11:46:57 pm by 90sRetroFan »

rp

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #78 on: July 19, 2021, 12:55:52 am »
"The first question we should ask is: what is Renaissance Revival architecture doing in FLORIDA??"

Many of those in the Italian diaspora feel closer to "Italy" (i.e. the Italian Renaissance) and hence Western Civilization than they do to America.

I am not stereotyping all Italians, but those who feel any sort of affinity to the Renaissance should be prohibited from reproducing.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2021, 12:57:37 am by rp »

Zea_mays

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #79 on: July 20, 2021, 09:15:38 am »
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Many of those in the Italian diaspora feel closer to "Italy" (i.e. the Italian Renaissance) and hence Western Civilization than they do to America.

Which is why Columbus Day is a holiday in the US, despite Columbus never setting foot in the US--so Italian-descendants in New York could have a holiday dedicated to an "Italian"!

-----


On a different topic, I recently learned the exteriors of gothic cathedrals used to be covered in gaudy paint:

https://www.churchpop.com/2015/02/23/medieval-cathedrals-color/

https://useum.org/artwork/Wells-Cathedral-s-Magnum-Opus-Main-Panel-15th-century-2005-C-Matthew-Grayson-matthew-grayson-2005








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(Similarly, this is why cultural appropriation is annoying.)


I wish more discussions about cultural appropriation mentioned Western Civilization's long history of it. Most activists who speak out against cultural appropriation seem to focus exclusively on present-day examples, yet are always extremely vague and rarely list anything specific.

Meanwhile, for hundreds of years non-Western cultures were imitated, commercialized, and fetishized for their 'exoticness' while Western nations colonized and subjgated them... It's not "cultural exchange" when only one side is doing all the taking and is producing a shallow imitation, nor is it "cultural appreciation" when one side is literally colonizing and subjugating the other...

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Europeans developed an appetite for exoticism as greater emphasis was put on empire building and colonization in other nations. There was a growing fashion for Turkish styles in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. Europeans did not regard Ottomans as rivals that they had to contend with and imitate militarily, politically, or diplomatically, but rather as an exotic foreign people possessing quaint and strange fashions that could be consumed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turquerie#European_perspective
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinoiserie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonisme
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism#In_European_architecture_and_design

They even tried to appropriate Chinese garden designs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharawadgi

Although it helped them move a bit away from the "French formal garden" style:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_landscape_garden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_landscape_garden

90sRetroFan

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #80 on: July 22, 2021, 02:23:12 am »
"shallow imitation"

It's even worse than this. The shallow imitation then gets elevated above the original in the minds of many of the colonized people purely due to Eurocentrism, and they themselves start producing works in the imitation style deliberately catering to the inferior Western tastes (which they yet presume to be superior):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_export_porcelain

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Chinese export porcelain includes a wide range of Chinese porcelain that was made (almost) exclusively for export to Europe and later to North America between the 16th and the 20th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_export_porcelain

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Often the shapes were dictated by the export markets, but the decoration was predominantly East Asian in style, although quite often developed from Dutch imitations of Chinese pieces.

This is the same as what has much more recently happened in our own lifetimes with video games (Western preference for 3D causing even non-Western companies to almost completely discontinue development of 2D games in which they had previously excelled):

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/counterculture-era/is-counterculture-still-alive/msg7200/#msg7200

Similarly with movies/TV shows/etc.. Producers/directors/etc. talk about catering to the "international market" when they what really mean (whether they are conscious of it or not) is catering to the Western market. Not long ago I was talking to acc9 in private about Zhang Yimou who does embarrassingly shameless Orientalism to titillate exoticism-seeking Westerners:



yet whose Chinese fans think (due to his receiving Western awards) this is what good wuxia is like, thereby obscuring awareness of what the real thing is meant to be like.

"They even tried to appropriate Chinese garden designs:"
"Although it helped them move a bit away from the "French formal garden" style:"

I actually did a post on this in the old forum which I haven't reposted yet (due to the large number of pictures). It is important to raise awareness that landscape gardens are anti-Western.

Zea_mays

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #81 on: July 31, 2021, 10:04:14 pm »
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Similarly with movies/TV shows/etc.. Producers/directors/etc. talk about catering to the "international market" when they what really mean (whether they are conscious of it or not) is catering to the Western market. Not long ago I was talking to acc9 in private about Zhang Yimou who does embarrassingly shameless Orientalism to titillate exoticism-seeking Westerners:

Wow, is that from a serious film? It looks like some ridiculous satire.

------------

On the topic of Western aesthetics being the opposite of child-like, here are some paintings that make this contrast obvious:






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Andr%C3%A9_van_Loo

------------

On another topic, self-aggrandizement is an important part of Western art.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Rome


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Archduke_Leopold_Wilhelm_in_his_Painting_Gallery_in_Brussels


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribuna_of_the_Uffizi_(painting)






...And plenty of others:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/318418636136734169/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/743023638494710112/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/743023638494710105/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/743023638494710183/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/19844054585075996/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/772508142337279825/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/657595983075803176/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Paintings_of_art_galleries

90sRetroFan

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #82 on: August 01, 2021, 01:14:20 am »
"Wow, is that from a serious film? It looks like some ridiculous satire."

To you and to me it looks like satire. To Westerners, however:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_(2002_film)#Critical_response

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On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 94% based on 211 reviews, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With death-defying action sequences and epic historic sweep, Hero offers everything a martial arts fan could ask for."[17] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100 based on 42 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[18] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A-" on scale of A to F.[19]

And then the West-worshipping Chinese trust the Western reviews and start making more of the same.....

"On the topic of Western aesthetics being the opposite of child-like, here are some paintings that make this contrast obvious:"

These are adults in children's bodies! Then again, what else can we expect from Westerners who often use the term "precocious" with a positive connotation.....

"On another topic, self-aggrandizement is an important part of Western art."

Excellent examples! This is yet another form of space-filling, this time with paintings inside paintings. One way or another, Westerners will try to fill every space they get their hands on.

90sRetroFan

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #83 on: August 07, 2021, 10:02:09 pm »
For the Olympic edition, I have to mention synchronized swimming, which is of course of Western origin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_swimming#History

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At the turn of the 20th century, synchronised swimming was known as water ballet. The first recorded competition was in 1891 in Berlin, Germany. Many swim clubs were formed around that time, and the sport simultaneously developed in Canada. As well as existing as a sport, it often constituted a popular addition to Music Hall evenings, in the larger variety theatres of London or Glasgow which were equipped with on-stage water tanks for the purpose.

In 1907, Australian Annette Kellermann popularised the sport when she performed in a glass tank as an underwater ballerina (the first water ballet in a glass tank) in the New York Hippodrome.[2]

In the past, I had never really watched more than a few seconds of it at a time (I always changed channels) as it never interested me, but this time, mostly for the sake of this topic, I forced myself to watch entire routines. By the end I literally felt nauseous. Visually, it's almost as bad as Western landscaping (only better in that at least it does not involve violence)! All the Western aesthetical kinks are present: symmetry, geometric complexity, sexual dimorphism, ornate clothing, etc.. By the way, Russia wins gold every time in this:











etc.

How can anyone possibly find this enjoyable to watch? Then I remembered: Westerners exist......

I find even regular swimming infinitely more pleasant to watch than this ****.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2021, 09:37:02 pm by 90sRetroFan »

Zea_mays

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #84 on: August 10, 2021, 06:07:40 pm »
Video of how impractical Western women's clothing from the 1890s was:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHR_l9ShK8C/

90sRetroFan

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #85 on: August 10, 2021, 11:55:53 pm »
In response to Carlson's recent praise of vampire architecture:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/uniting-americans/msg8012/#msg8012

This is probably what Carlson finds "uplifting"?































































« Last Edit: August 11, 2021, 12:16:37 am by 90sRetroFan »

Polinc_Socjus

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #86 on: August 11, 2021, 12:07:47 am »
Nice contrast in the last image with the simple tables and chairs. Like a clean spot.
Also further up the thread on the Buckingham Palace tour with the marimba music.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2021, 10:51:50 pm by Polinc_Socjus »

90sRetroFan

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #87 on: September 20, 2021, 05:22:12 am »
This next set of pictures is literally horror movie material.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisque_doll

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French and German bisque dolls began taking over the market after 1860, and their production continued after World War I.[2] These dolls wore wigs, typically made from mohair or human hair.[6] Between approximately 1860 and 1890 most bisque dolls were fashion dolls, made to represent grown up women. They were intended for children of affluent families to play with and dress in contemporary fashions.[2] These dolls came from French companies like Jumeau, Bru, Gaultier, Rohmer, Simone and Huret, though their heads were often manufactured in Germany.[2] In the Passage Choiseul area of Paris an industry grew around making clothing and accessories for the dolls.[2]

Up until the mid-19th century, most dolls were made to represent grown-ups, and when childlike dolls first appeared it was a big shift. By the late 19th century childlike dolls overtook the market.[2]

You have been warned:


















































90sRetroFan

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« Last Edit: October 28, 2021, 03:06:28 am by 90sRetroFan »

guest55

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Re: Western Civilization is UGLY
« Reply #89 on: October 10, 2021, 02:56:01 pm »
Lord Rothschild: The Billionaire Collector | The Wonderful World of Gordon Watson | BBC Documentary
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In the first of six episodes, art dealer Gordon Watson meets Lord Rothschild from the famous banking dynasty. Lord Rothschild has been collecting art since he was ten and has added to a remarkable family collection of traditional and contemporary art, furniture and design, spread between Waddesdon Manor and the Flint House on his estate in Buckinghamshire. Gordon and Lord Rothschild have known one another for some years but it has been a while since Gordon has visited Waddesdon.