#*empire

[artschoolglasses]

Wool Pelisse with Cotton Braid, English/French, 1810-20

From the National Gallery of Victoria

[thoughtportal]

[the-book-of-captain-rex]

The War Is Not Over 

captain rex  👑

art : @5healthMONO

[sartorialadventure]

Names of shades and when in Regency England they were most popular.

[vintagehomecollection]

A profusion of flower pictures, grouped to stunning effect against a fabric wall, is given added life by the real arrangements spilling from the sconces and massed on the chest below.

Decorating with Pictures, 1991

[thehmn]

I finally got to watch Viften (Empire) and it’s such a fascinating movie. It was written by Anna Neye who also plays Anna Heegaard, a rich free black woman who’s dating the Danish governor of the island.

It’s sold as an absurdist comedy and I think there’s no other way to describe it. There aren’t any real jokes but you often end up laughing at the absurdity of it all.

It’s extremely honest about the horrors Danes put the black population through but thankfully it only shows it in quick flashes of art as seen in the trailer. I once watched a video where they explained why most women aren’t into slasher movies and why black people generally don’t rewatch movies about racism and slavery. It’s because the the horrors shown are very real fears and a fact of life so the only people who can really enjoy watching a woman get horribly murdered as entertaining are men and only white people can watch a black person getting whipped to death with cinematic lighting and have a fun night out. By showing the horrors in art they get to be clear about exactly what is going on without coming off as exploitative.

But it’s also very honest about the ways a society based on slavery fucks with everyone. Most of the servants at the manor are slaves except the cook who bought her own freedom years ago. She tells the housekeeper Petrine that some day she too will be able to buy her freedom and get her own slave. That’s right, the freed black people aspire to get their own slaves because that’s the sort of values a society like this instills in people. And Anna tries to be as nice as possible to her own slaves but doesn’t take her own success for granted and is more afraid of an uprising than her white lover and ends up doing some really horrible things to her slaves to keep them down.

It also touches on how people viewed being black or white back then. That it wasn’t all about skin colour but also status. That’s why all the white people treat Anna as one of them. She’s a rich, educated lady so of course she’s “white”. Even Anna express contempt at being called black because she doesn’t work in the field. The poor freed black people also call Petrine white because she dress and acts like a Dane. Not as in “you are pretending to be white” but as in you are white.

And hats off to the director Frederikke Aspöck. There’s a scene where a woman buys her freedom and they put on a symbolic slave auction where she gets up on the podium and bids on herself. All the white neighbors have come to witness it because it’s seen as this joyous day and they all clap, she’s offered to drink with them and she’s all smiles. The director managed to make the scene wholesome while highlighting the absurdity of it and all you can do is chuckle because what the fuck? The white people think it’s a good thing that she’s free but continue to keep and mistreat their own slaves, and she no doubt dreams of getting her own down the road. It’s very much depicted as institutionalized racism and not just “a few bad eggs”.

And I didn’t know where to put this but there’s a lot of interesting symbolism going on with Anna’s dresses. She always wears dresses that match the colors of the rooms she’s in, establishing her as fully part of the system, but as she begins to realize that the Danish state will never see her as fully equal her colors start to clash with her surroundings.

I watched it on Netflix and it has English subtitles so it should be somewhere for English speakers to watch if you feel so inclined.

[oldschoolfrp]

Holding the wall (Russ Nicholson, Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3e, GW, 1987)

[nocternalrandomness]

"Out of the Sun"

[empirearchives]

Y’all look at this set of Napoleonic playing cards I found by Philipp Otto Runge, early 19th century.

They depict figures from the Napoleonic era including famous military figures and women wearing really pretty empire style.

The first one is supposed to be Murat.

Source: Hamburger Kunsthalle

[rogerdeakinsdp]

Denise Richards as Trish in EMPIRE (2002) dir. Franc. Reyes — costume design by Jacki Roach

[sleepdeprivedartboi]

I love how palpatine says "So be it, Jedi" In return of the Jedi. He says it with such venom and anger in a subtle way. The acting is phenomenal. You can tell that this man is absolutely fucking fuming at the fact that he has planned his whole life to kill the Jedi, finessed the entire galaxy into going to war with each other just so he could rise to the top and cackle, then killed 95% of the Jedi order in half a day, had everything planned meticulously from the clones betrayal to the inquisitors and the hunting of Jedi, planted fear in civillians and ruled for 30 years and when he finally has the chance to completely claim the galaxy for his own.... A Jedi Still stands in his way .

The fate of the galaxy within his reach and the thing stopping him is the exact thing he spent his life planning to eradicate, hope and goodness. Luke is the embodiment of that. And he's not only standing there, he's taunting palpatine too.

I'd be pissed too.

[we-are-knight]

Knights of the Blazing Sun / Knight of Bretonnia, by Mihail Gard

[the-book-of-captain-rex]

Captain Rex 1849 👑 

art by scadarts

[vintagehomecollection]

Interior Visions: Great American Designers and the Showcase House, 1988

[illustratus]

The Emperor of Byzantium Basil II during the Georgian campaign, 1020 by Giuseppe Rava