#roger fenton

[semioticapocalypse]

Roger Fenton. Sebastopol from Cathcart's Hill. Crimea. 1855

I Am Collective Memories   •    Follow me, — says Visual Ratatosk

[gacougnol]

Roger Fenton (English, 1819-1869)

Cedars Monmouthshire

October 1857

[lafaebrique]

Rievaulx Abbey, the High Altar by Roger Fenton (1854)

[careful-disorder]

Roger Fenton, "The valley of the shadow of death" Crimean War photograph. Dirt road in ravine scattered with cannonballs. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

"The Crimean War (1853–1856) was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. Britain and France successfully defended the Ottoman Empire against Russia… It was one of the first "modern" wars…" - Decline and modernization of the Ottoman Empire. Crimean War

[vulturesouls]

Egyptian commander Ismail Pasha seated with two standing attendants, April 27, 1855

Salted paper print by Roger Fenton (English, 1819 - 1869), photographer

Getty Museum

[hikari-to-kage]

Princess Helena and Princess Louise, Balmoral 1856

Photograph by Roger Fenton (1819-1869)

[cendrineartist]

Early photography: Tintern Abbey - Roger Fenton

Early photography: Tintern Abbey - Roger Fenton https://creativeramblings.com/favorite-photography/tintern-abbey-roger-fenton/

Sharing my favorite images from the early days of photography… Title: Tintern Abbey Location: Wales Date: ca. 1856 Photographer: Roger Fenton (1819-1869) Process: salted paper print from wet collodion negative British photographer Roger Fenton is remembered for his images captured during the Crimean War. He helped found the Photographic Society, which was later renamed the Royal…

[dumbbitchhour]

Roger Fenton, Men of the 68th Regiment, 1855 x

[astralbondpro]

Star Trek: The Original Series // S02E12: I, Mudd

[scandalous-mannequin-head]

I need help how do i spread my account around more :( please i just wanna talk about superheroes and be nerdy

Im adding all the stuffs im interested in in the tags (i have no idea hor to use tumblr)

[semioticapocalypse]

Roger Fenton. Banks of the Dnieper; Distant View of the Forts and Low Town of Kief. 1852

I Am Collective Memories   •    Follow me, — says Visual Ratatosk

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Genius is nothing other than the ability to retrieve childhood at will.

Charles Baudelaire

Is this all there is to art? A kind of solipsism? An inability to get past the egoism of infancy?

In Fellini’s masterpiece 8+1/2 the answer seems to lie with unraveling the mysterious phrase ‘Asa Miso Nasa’. Up front I will admit the film is not easy to follow as it doesn't really have a great plot and it does feel like episodic that gives it a disjointed look. But that doesn't mean there are no grand narratives underpinning it because there is.

The film, released in 1963, is about a movie director named Guido. His latest project has stalled before filming has even begun. Played by the incomparable Marcello Mastroianni, Guido is suffering from anxiety and creative block. It’s no wonder. He has sown chaos in his love life, and his creative indecision is producing near-mutinous levels of angst among actors, agents and crew. But all of this is mere surface tumult. Guido is haunted by something deeper. Something to do with . . . what? His parents, his childhood, the Catholic church? Feelings of shame and bliss? Death? All he has to answer his question is the phrase 'Asa Miso Nasa' to unlock answers but something he doesn't quite get.

In many ways ‘Asa Miso Nasa’ is a red herring, a sort of wild goose chase to nowhere. Like "Rosebud" in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, or the madeleine in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, "Asa Nisi Masa" is a Hitchcockian ‘MacGuffin’ - a convenient object upon which the plot turns. In Fellini’s film it’s used as a gateway to crucial memories of the central character - even though it is itself peripheral to the central story.

Fellini’s answer is, I think, with his apprehension that the urge to make art is connected to a time in our lives when we were lifted and carried about, lowered into baths, tucked into bed; when we first used our lips to suck and to kiss; when we flapped our arms and kicked our legs; or when we danced without unrestrained joy. In other words, when we felt ourselves to be unique in our childhood.

Why should that be so? James Fenton, the great poet and critic, provided a plausible answer, even if he was writing about something else.

“Because,” wrote Fenton - and here comes the part that Guido, the anxious, grown-up filmmaker, must reckon with - “there follows the primal erasure, when we forget all those early experiences, and it is rather as if there is some mercy in this, since if we could remember the intensity of such pleasure it might spoil us for anything else. We forget what happened exactly, but we know that there was something, something to do with music and praise and everyone talking, something to do with flying through the air, something to do with dance.”

Something Fellini-esque, you might say.

Art is more than a pathetic desire to revert to childhood bliss. It’s true that the self-centredness of great artists - and by no means just male artists - is bound up with their desire to find again the treasure in the corner of the childhood bedroom, and the only sound is the children’s chant: “Asa Nisi Masa.” But what do all artists want if not to be understood.

But here we run into a problem. For all the attention artists seek, there is a kind of shame for them in being “understood.” Being “explained” is never more than an inch from being “explained away,” rendered redundant, losing the vital quality that makes one unique. Their egos can't handle that. So we can never judge beauty in art if we limit ourselves to just the life and meaning of an artist. If anyone ever says they don't like this art because of this artist was not nice or was abusive or held questionable beliefs then they are either illiterate fools or as shallow as the unfunny Hannah Gadsby is about Picasso.

There is much, much more to art, which, at its best, is always about transcending solipsism and reaching for beauty.

For Roger Scruton, the great philosopher of aesthetics, “Beauty is an ultimate value - something that we pursue for its own sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations,” Scruton developed a largely metaphysical aspect to understanding standards of art and beauty. For Scruton, the purpose of art is to save the sacred - the beautiful.

For Scruton, beauty is wrapped up in his view of the sacred. The sacred begins with the fundamental nature of man as an end, not merely a means - here childhood memories are a means not an end. Scruton then, is able to apply this concept of ends to beauty. The ability to place meaning on things is what gives man his sacredness and makes him an end unto himself. The sacred gives us a glimpse into eternity, and provides man with the cure to his temporal misery. In a manner almost Platonic, Scruton describes the sacred as pulling man out of the world of things and into the transcendental realm. It is an attempt not so much to find a glimpse of our childhood so much as to find Eden again, even if only in a finite temporal way, and to “prefigure our eternal home.”

Thus, it is this sacred nature of ends, not means, that Scruton puts forth in his understanding of beauty. In this Scruton echoes those philosophers of that past. Some like the Greek philosopher, Plotinus, beauty is seen as an ultimate value, pursued for its own sake, and the way in which the “divine unity makes itself known to the soul.”

Beauty is the glue that holds cultures together. It transcends individual places and ages. Light shining through stained glass in the Notre-Dame Cathedral, the face of Mary in Michelangelo’s La Pietà, a Bach orchestral suite, or a Frederico Fellini film (and none more so than the playful but sublime 8+1/2). Our experiences of these things connect us to the experiences of so many others over the decades and centuries since their creation. The beauty links us with a sense of profoundness and awe.

[finemealcreates]

Time to Go

Dark cloth brushed against the rumble that litters the ground, the hooded figure taking careful steps as he makes his way towards the group. 

All around there are several strangely dressed people, different amounts of injured and grimey. Tears are in their eyes as they all look at the man Danny is here for. 

“Tony, look at me,” a blond woman manages out, tears in her voice and eyes. Her hand cradles his face, as she manages a warbly smile. “We’re gonna be okay,” she assures, the man managing a slight smile as their eyes meet. “You can rest now.”

Evidently that was all the man needed. Permission to stop hanging on. So he doesn’t.

Danny pays no mind to the mourning souls that surround the man, crying and getting on their knees in respect of him. 

Instead, he focuses on the newly deceased soul that is standing above his own body, watching it all. 

He stands next to him, letting the man take a moment to process what just happened. 

“I … died,” the man says. 

“You did,” Danny replies, even though he’s certain the other man did not need his response.

“And you’re … who? The grim reaper?” the man asks, turning to look at Danny skeptically. 

Danny doesn’t fault him for that, after all he is dressed in a robed cloak and has a scythe in hand. 

Still, he laughs kindly in response. 

“No, no I do not hold that title personally,” Danny answers, amusement coloring his voice. 

“Then, why …” the man trails off, the question hanging in the air. 

“Your soul will cross to your after life with or without my interference,” Danny replies. “I am here because I know what it is like to die as a hero, and have no one there on the other side for you.”

The man doesn’t say anything, watching as the woman who spoke to him earlier begins to sob openly. Her ability to not be overcome by her grief is gone as she clings to the man’s corpse. The sounds that she makes is all too similar to Danny’s wail, and although she is not a ghost the effect is no less impactful. 

Everyone around her goes to her, holding her as she sobs, weeping, saying she wished he didn’t have to go. The heroes around the woman cry with her. 

Being surrounded by grief and death so often, Danny is not as moved by the scene as he would have been. This is normal. It’s part of the living’s grieving process. They’ll mourn, they’ll be in a state for as long as they need. 

Most will come out of it, keep going, determined to keep their legacy going. Some will never move on, will never recover. In the end it will not change anything. The person never comes back … well, they usually don't come back. Danny doubts that this man will be the exception.

Yet, this man is not used to being around such a scene, and he begins to cry as well, falling to his knees as he reaches a hand out to the woman. Danny can tell he wants to soothe her, stop her tears. Take the pain away. 

He can’t. He can’t take the pain away. And he won’t see her until her time is up too. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he cries as his hand goes through her shoulder, tears falling down his translucent face. “I had to do it. To protect what we had. I hope you know that. I hope Morgan knows that.”

Danny stands there, waiting for the man to mourn and grieve the life he had. To mourn the life he wouldn’t get to live. 

The man sits there for a while, crying with his partner. He only stops when the heroes help the woman to her feet, leading her away. They’ve already closed the corpse's eyes, but they wait for the woman to be a ways away before a couple of them pick him up. 

“We’ll make sure everyone knows the hero you were, Tony,” the man in red and blue says, a broken shield on his back. “And I’m sorry. I was wrong. You were the type to make the sacrifice play.”

The soul smiles softly at the man, tears in his eyes. 

“We were both wrong about each other, Rogers. Don’t beat yourself up about it.” 

Then they’re gone. They take the soul’s body with them, departing the scene.

Grief hangs heavy in the air, heavy on Danny’s tongue. He allows himself to feel a little sad for all this man has lost. It is always a tragedy when a life goes, even if it’s inevitable. If life and death will always be inevitable. 

Yet, he still extends a hand out to the man in front of him. 

“It’s time to go.” 

The man turns towards Danny, sadness in every part of himself. 

“What if I don’t go? What if I stay here?” the man questions, turning back to look out where his loved ones left. 

“Then you’d become a ghost,” Danny answers honestly, hand still outstretched. “You’d watch your loved ones grow, love, lose, eventually die.” 

“Well that doesn’t sound so bad,” the man states, body tensing slightly as he meets Danny’s eyes. Like he knows there’s a but coming. 

“If you become a ghost, you cannot follow them into the final resting place,” Danny informs him. “You’ll lose bits and pieces of yourself as you are stuck in the in-between. You’ll form an obsession. It will drive every decision you make. You may even end up becoming someone you no longer recognize.” 

The man lets out a deep breath, chest heaving slightly. 

“Are you a ghost?” 

Danny nods. “I am.” 

“So, what happened to you? What’s your obsession?” the man questions, eyes racking over Danny’s form. 

Danny resists the urge to lash out at the lack of tact. Asking a ghost such things is taboo, but the newer souls don’t know. They don’t understand. So he’ll forgive him, this time. 

“I died due to an electric failure. I came back … incomplete,” Danny answers honestly. “My obsession is to help others. Protect them, aid them on their journey, whatever those who are in need of me require me to do to aid them.” 

“And are you someone you no longer recognize?” the man asks, eyes darting over Danny’s shadowed face. 

“I am no longer the person I was. I am no one I thought I would be. But I am content. This is my after-life. I do not regret who I have become,” Danny replies. 

“That’s not really an answer to my question,” the man points out. 

“It’s the only answer I have for you,” Danny says.

Then, he pushes his hand out further, silently asking the other man to take it. 

“Will it hurt?” the man asks, hand hovering over Danny’s outstretched one. 

“I do not know. I have never been.” 

The man chuckles wetly at that, but grabs Danny’s hand. 

“Thank you,” the man whispers kindly to Danny. 

Everything goes white for a moment. Then the man is gone, and Danny is alone yet again.

[instantreplaytime]

Happy pride month 🏳️‍🌈♥️🧡💛💚💙💜

Just a collection of my favorite pairings from my favorite cartoons.

There's even a crossover of rise of the guardians and how to train your dragon

[mikyapixie]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!🎄