#which is also weird as. yknow. a descendant and inheritor of the western culture in that exchange and power dynamic. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

screambirdscreaming · 14 days ago

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I swear I've been down this rabbit hole before

It goes like:

Some nice looking models on etsy/etc, but none of them are articulated which is sort of unsatisfying -> cool articulated prints on thingiverse/et al, but they are all vague in their crab details or stupidly cartoonish -> if I get my search terms just right, image search starts to show me BEAUTIFUL things, but they are all, to a one, listings in high-end online auction houses for 19th century netsuke.

Actually re: previous reblog I could get so into ball jointed dolls if people made dolls of crabs. Or other arthropods for that matter. Why is this not a thing.

#the thing is. I realize that the meiji period was in many regards rather fucked up.#and that the production of art for sale to a western audience seeking to consume japanese aesthetics but bent to fit western tastes #is a part of that fuckery and cant be meaningfully seperated from it.#(The fact that some of the most prolific producers of articulated metal netsuke were family businesses that had previously made samurai #armor and turned to sculpture after samurai were outlawed. Is an interesting fringe note.)#But dang if that era of art doesn't appeal EXTREMELY to my sensibilities #which is also weird as. yknow. a descendant and inheritor of the western culture in that exchange and power dynamic.#It's fucked up that probably the majority of these netsuke now circulate in the western art collector world #And through the sort of auction websites that wont let you so much as see what something sold for if you don't make an account #i don't Actually want to buy a 19th century hand-crafted masterwork in bronze or bone or jade #I just wish anyone contemporary was doing anything half as cool.#(But also I realize that the specific dynamic of incredibly skilled craftsmen with access to valuable materials selling to a foreign #audience with an insane amount of relative wealth. Is both an aspect of The Fuckery and integral to what allowed the sculptures to be made #with such a level of loving detail.)#So like. It is not and should not be replicable really.#But I DO wish the people making beautifully detailed realistic models and the people making cartoony articulated models. Would collaborate.

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