Tag: Culture
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Phallus shrine
A wooden phallus in a small wooden shrine. How did this piece end up at the flea market of Kitano-Tenman-gu? Has it figured on someone’s house altar – or bedside table – and fallen out of favour? We can only fantasize about it and think up vivid stories, but we don’t know. It is likely…
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Black is beautiful
A black woman and a woman in black against a black background. When I walked into a bank in Alice Springs and saw this tableau I couldn’t resist taking a picture. It is at moments like this that I love the world, this wonderful world. The woman in black is clearly an Aboriginal girl, but…
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Death of an anthropologist
I haven’t found an explanation by the Aboriginal painter July Dowling about this work of hers. Whatever I say about it will be guesswork. But it is interesting, and probably not without significance, to note that apart from red ochre and synthetic paint, blood has been used in the painting. The three Aboriginal women’s faces in…
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A child is born
every quarter of a second. Happy Christmas. Photo of the week: Christmas, Mumbai, India 2014
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Feminine beauty
5 Pillars, 5 times Hathor, the goddess of beauty, joy and love. We are here in the temple complex on the little island of Philae in the Nile south of Aswan. The temple dates back to the Ptolemaic dynasty. 3000 Years of pharaonic rule is coming to an end, and, as we can see, Egyptian art…
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The Bent Pyramid of Dashur
“We humbly greet you, oh majestic pyramid of Snofru.” That’s what the tracks in the sand seem to express in honour of the monumental tomb. The pyramids of Giza and Dashur are awe-inspiring indeed. Not only man, but the entire environment comes under the spell of their mighty presence. A drifting cloud grows dark in response to…
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The Pyramids
Going down the pyramids, one doesn’t do it every day. Nor coming face to face with them. When the moment is there, one can’t avoid the impression of absolute grandeur, and of well-nigh disbelief that thousands of years ago people have managed to plan, organize and build monuments like that. With its height of 140…
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At home in Kumaon
A row of old village houses; the ground floor reserved for the animals, the people upstairs. All built, cut and painted true to tradition. But times have changed. In the background we see a glimpse of a new building, constructed with brick and cement. And so the charm and beauty of the old is gradually…
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Coffee time!
The background of the impressive Maori figure on the painting we recognize as Okains Bay, the pristine bay that I showed you on this blog two weeks ago. Behind the Maori’s back we see two waka (traditional Maori canoes) pulled up on the beach. The first Maoris that came to New Zealand over a thousand…
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Okains Bay
Okains Bay is not just a magnificent bay on New Zealand’s South Island (see last week’s post). It is also the place of an old Maori settlement with still a considerable percentage of Maori population to this date. The photo shows the inside of the Whaakata, a traditional meeting house, now part of the Maori…
καιρός remembered 