Humanities desk
< April 17	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 19 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 18

Here are a few questions about Sandro Botticelli‘s Birth of Venus

1. The first question is a silly one. Why are none of them smiling?

Because they know they are in a very serious, famous painting. Plus, because they didn't have Netflix and stuff, people in the old days didn't smile as much.

2. Why does Zephyr have long hair, and why is he frowning? Can anyone tell me his emotion based on his face?

Because there was no electricity, people waited a lot longer to get haircuts. It's a Saturday, and he is worried about when the nearest barbershop is going to open (they didn't have weekend shopping like we do now).

3. Is the goddess who Zephyr is carrying possibly frightened? Her face looks a bit like that when you first see it.

Yes, she's frightened - it's her first flight. Because there were no jet aircraft and traffic control, flying was a lot more dangerous. You had to do it manually.

4. Does Venus have abs, and also, is she pregnant? First, you can see four bumps above her stomach, and second, her belly looks big.

She works out, but... she's just been born, so .... look, why don't you call the Uffizi and ask them? There are contact details on their website. Unlike when the picture was painted, it will be open on Sundays.

Please answer all my questions

Answermeplease11 (talk) 00:07, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to help out.--Shirt58 (talk) 01:59, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone tell me some information about this painting by Peter Paul Rubens?

This question is about Venus at a Mirror. I have four things I want to know about it.

1. Is the boy with the wings holding the mirror Cupid?

2. Why does Venus have an arm bracelet

3. Who is the Black lady, and what is her name? Also, is she a real life person?

4. Where does this painting take place?

Please answer these questions, and if you dont know, I dont care. Answermeplease11 (talk) 00:44, 18 April 2021 (UTC) Answermeplease11[reply]

A more useful link is File:Rubens_Venus_at_a_Mirror_c1615.jpg. It appears to have both Classicizing and contemporary Renaissance features... AnonMoos (talk) 03:57, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This historical medicine article says: "the dark-skinned female typically described as the Venus' maidservant".

For the relationship between Venus and Cupid, see Cupid: "He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus and the god of war Mars".

A similar composition had been painted in 1555 by Titian, see Venus with a Mirror and a later version by Diego Velázquez, see Rokeby Venus, but neither includes the second woman.

Alansplodge (talk) 10:03, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since the child holding up the mirror has wings, this is undoubtedly Cupid, like in the earlier painting Venus with a Mirror by Titian (who also painted another version, a copy by Rubens of a lost copy of which, older than this Venus, has been preserved^[1]). In fact, the main reason for identifying the woman with Venus is the fact that in mythology she is the mother of Cupid. The gold bracelet, set with precious stones, accentuates the central figure's nudity. It may have been a high fashion thing in Rubens' days. Other than signalling high status, I doubt it has a symbolic significance. --Lambiam 12:27, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But still, where does the painting take place? You havent answered that question yet. Answermeplease11 (talk) 16:19, 18 April 2021 (UTC) Answermeplease11[reply]

Either in a Dutch Renaissance boudoir, or a fantasy neo-Classical never-never-land -- or probably some aspects of both. AnonMoos (talk) 04:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Seeking answers about paintings

I have questions about paintings, please to answer them.

1. Why have people blue skin in this painting by Picasso. Is they related to Naʼvi peoples?

2. Why leftside woman be all nude? Why she does not wear loin cloth like other Naʼvi peoples?

3. Why is eye of woman of another pianting by Picasso in its wrong spot. Is the model a mutant? Can she be fixed by plastic surgery?

Luvstalk (talk) 13:09, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1. See Picasso's Blue Period.

2. See Nude (art).

3. See Cubism.

Alansplodge (talk) 14:12, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1. Of course. Picasso invented a time machine, watched Avatar in 2009, then went back to 1903 to create the painting.

2. She's a Na'vi nudist.

3. Beauty is in the misplaced eye of the ~~beholder~~ beheld. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:39, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But can she be fixed by plastic surgery? You havent answered that question. Luvstalk (talk) 12:49, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

3a. Cosmetic repainting. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:15, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have a few questions about Bouguereau‘s Birth of Venus

1. Why is Cupid so young in this painting, when Psyche is at least a young adult?

2. Is the angel reaching for the dolphin female?

3. Can centaurs even swim?

4. What is the black thing in between the centaur who is not blowing the conch shell’s legs?

5. Is the crown who the nymph on the right is wearing made out of seaweed? Also, why is she even wearing it?

6. Why are there two dolphins, when the other paintings of Venus Anadyomene have none?

7. On the wikipedia page, it says that there is a shadow in the clouds that is supposed to be a silhouette of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, but where is it?

Answermeplease11 (talk) 16:18, 18 April 2021 (UTC) Answermeplease11[reply]

We have an article, The Birth of Venus (Bouguereau). Click on the blue links in the references section for more information. It may be time to start doing your own research. Alansplodge (talk) 16:23, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alansplodge, are you frustrated with me? The only reason I wont watch the video is because I’m worried it’ll either have less than 100 likes, less than 1000 likes, or it will have more dislikes than likes.

Answermeplease11 (talk) 16:28, 18 April 2021 (UTC) Answermeplease11[reply]

That's not really what we're here for. Try some internet research yourself and let us know if you get really stuck. Alansplodge (talk) 16:44, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Alansplodge, that video link on the the Birth of Venus page was just music that also did close ups on the paintings, but told no information at all.

Ive checked the internet, and the sites gave me no answers. The only two reasons I ask questions on wikipedia is first, I’m afraid no one will answer my questions, and second, Wikipedia has lots of people who know different things. That is why is use wikipedia for questions.

Answermeplease11 (talk) 16:53, 18 April 2021 (UTC) Answermeplease11[reply]

Alansplodge?

Answermeplease11 (talk) 12:24, 19 April 2021 (UTC) Answermeplease11[reply]

Jamborkretz, Czechoslovakia

Hi Folks!! Anybody know where Jamborkretz, Czechoslovakia is. It is for the Malvina Gruber article. It is obviously been copied wrongly, or it is an Americanisation of a Belgian or French term for somewhere in Czechoslovakia. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 17:06, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I found out it is a German phrase for a Czechoslovakian location. So it is exonym. scope_creep^Talk 20:34, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The birth name Hofstadterova is variously spelled Hofstadtjerowa^[2] or Hofstadyerova,^[3] suggesting these are different romanizations of a Cyrillic spelling. The orthography of the Czech–Slovak languages has used the Latin alphabet for centuries, so this puts the Czech classification of her birth place in doubt, even as her ethnicity may have been Czech. Sambir Raion, now in Western Ukraine about 30 km from the Polish border, belonged in 1900 to Austria-Hungary. An alternative name of Sambir is Sambor, and in German the region was referred to as Kreis Sambor,^[4] or Sambor'scher Kreis,^[5] which could be abbreviated as Sambor. Kreis.^[6] An S may be misread as a J,^[7] and an i as a t.^[8] So, perhaps, Jamborkretz arose as a misreading of Sambor. Kreis. --Lambiam 11:41, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering if it might be somewhere in Subcarpathian Ruthenia. DuncanHill (talk) 12:20, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find good maps of the First Czechoslovak Republic (reasonably detailed and having a good resolution), but I get the impression that Galicia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia, then part of Czechoslovakia, border each other. The book Republic for a Day,^[9] published in 1939, contains this sentence: "He had been born at Sambor in Galicia, he said, had fought in the Ukrainian army and then been forced to emigrate to Czechoslovakia." --Lambiam 20:32, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam: @DuncanHill: It seems to be an endonym. There is a document held by the British Archives at Kew, but it has not been digitized as yet, although I suspect using Jamborkretz and all the academic sources are using. That is a really good start. I will do a search, see if I can see anything. I notice there is a small list of unidentified places (in these situations), and I guess it is ongoing research. Excellent work. Folks! I'll get back to you today. scope_creep^Talk 11:15, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The first letter J of the birth place Jambokretz in Czechoslovakia as given in the 1949 sentence is presumably a French spelling for Magyar Zs... or Slovak Ž.... Slovakia belonged to Hungary at the time of her birth, so Žabokreky or Žabokreky nad Nitrou in Slovakia (both Magyar: Zsámbokrét) fit well. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 01:49, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The birth of Malvin Hofstädter, daughter of Mór Hofstädter and of Cäcilie Guzsik, was recorded in the Jewish birth register for Žabokreky nad Nitrou (then Zsámbokrét) on 7 December 1906 (Familysearch.org, film 005363650, catalogue 1389949, view 166). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 22:48, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

--Pp.paul.4 (talk) 12:45, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Who routes mail to fictional characters?

I occasionally hear stories about people sending fanmail to, say, "James Herriott, It Shouldn't Happen To A Vet, Yorkshire, England." The fanmail arrives at the publisher and is forwarded to the author.

There must be a team at national postal services which works out how to route weirdly addressed mail such as that. Is there a name for that sort of team? Marnanel (talk) 23:00, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to this article they are handled by the Dead Letter Office. DuncanHill (talk) 23:16, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no, according to that article it's now called the National Return Letter Centre. (Why use 3 words when 4 will do?) To be precise, that's what it's called in the UK, but the original poster did use a UK example. (Added later: by the way, "now" there means 2003.) --184.147.181.129 (talk)

Sometimes the riddle is solved by local staff before being sent off to the national centre in Belfast. This article describes how a local postman tracked down a person named on a parcel sent from Sweden with the address "somewhere in Sheffield". Alansplodge (talk) 11:19, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

historic paper sizes

Recent news[10] about letterlocking makes me think that letters written 100s of years ago generally used larger sheets of paper than we use now, like maybe 1.5x larger. I don't write on paper (instead of a computer) much these days, but it seems to me that big writing paper could be nice to use. Thee's a lot of sizes listed at Paper size#Foolscap but it doesn't mention how historically common any of those sizes were. Was there a significant amount of standardization? If you wanted to buy some writing paper in the late 18th century, where would you get it? (Envelopes apparently replaced letterlocking starting around 1830). Was the thickness and surface much different from modern paper, since it would have been written on with a quill pen?

The picture File:Constitution of the United States, page 1.jpg is very famous, but some quick surfing didn't show how big the page is, what kind of paper it is written on, etc. I wonder if it was on a standard size of paper that came from a stationery store or equivalent. Anyone know?

Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 23:57, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to the NARA's catalog entry it's not on paper at all, but on parchment. However, somewhat to my surprise, the catalog entry doesn't give the size. (And I have no idea whether parchment even came in standard sizes: for all I know the pages could each be different.) You could always email them and ask.

Side comment: none of the "foolscap" sizes listed in Wikipedia is the paper we called by that name when I was writing school exams on it in Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Ours was distinctly taller but narrower than letter size, something like 7.5 x 12 inches. But I never thought to measure it, and now of course I don't have any to measure, that I know of. Of course A4 size was unknown in Canada then (it's still rarely seen here now), but I don't believe it can have been that.

--184.147.181.129 (talk) 00:31, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's interesting about the parchment. I had looked at the parchment article too, which says it mostly fell out of use in the 1500s or so, but I guess the US Constitution was a special occasion. I wonder if it was available in shops at that time. I'm sure it still being made as a super niche product (I mean the real stuff made from animal skin, not the various sorts of paper now called parchment) even now, ~~but I'd have no idea where to get it.~~ (Edit: quick web search finds many online sellers and pergamena.net as an interesting manufacturer site. Cost seems to be around $40US for letter-sized sheet of goatskin manuscript parchment, other types vary). 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 01:49, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If you Google Image "u s constitution national archives", you can get at least a general sense of the size of the sheets used. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:48, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Found a reference. This article that appeared in 2011 in the New Yorker says that each of the pages is "two feet wide and a bit more than two feet high, about the size of an eighteenth-century newspaper". The scanned image is 7,258 × 8,785 pixels, so if that source if correct then it would appear that the scan was done at 300 pixels per inch and the pages are about 24 × 29 inches. --184.147.181.129 (talk) 07:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to your query about quills, our quill and nib (pen) articles say that they were the main type of pen until metal nibs for dip pens began to be mass-produced in Birmingham (England) in the 1820s. This article says that unlike those shown in films, the barbs (feathery parts) would usually be completely removed, leaving just the stem of the feather to write with. Alansplodge (talk) 11:09, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This parchment supplier sells whole skins, you have to cut it to size yourself. Alansplodge (talk) 11:37, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Quills would write on smooth modern paper better than medieval paper. The size of paper from a paper mill depends on the size of the deckle it was made with.
Sleigh (talk) 13:09, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This "full size facsimile" of the U.S. Constitution available from the National Archive store is 22 1/2" x 28 1/2": [11] 2603:6081:1C00:1187:A581:B620:6BE2:98E1 (talk) 14:19, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's going to be some variation based on location and time, but there are semi-standard terms for paper sizes in bookbinding, known as folio (a sheet of paper folded in half), quarto (in quarters) and octavo (in eighths). Based on the intended size of the book, the arrangement and orientation of the individual pages were printed on a single full-sheet of paper, and then the pages folded and cut to make the final book, that is the printing always happened before the folding and cutting. However, as noted in several of those articles, the size of the sheet of paper was historically highly variable; it probably depended on the size of the printing press, the printer would order paper from a paper maker to fit his specific press. There was not any sort of international standard of these things. --Jayron 32 12:44, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I was specifically wondering about paper used for letter writing rather than book printing, but maybe they would have been cut sheets from standard book sizes. Wondering more what was approximately customary, than looking for exact standards. It also occurs to me that they might have used bigger paper because of letterlocking: you'd write the letter with bigger margins to leave space for the folds. I also remember having a math teacher who was Chinese, who had a notebook much bigger than I'm used to seeing in the US. It might have been 25*40 cm or so, carried folded over. It made me think writing and calculating on US sized paper feels constraining. I might try getting some 11x17" photocopy paper for writing on, to see if it feels any different. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 22:08, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Standard? Standard??? You must be kidding. Historic weights and measurements are a complete minefield, with added snakes and demons for free, and anyone wondering about going into any detail at all should seriously have their head examined. Until the general adoption of the metric system and S.I. units by the mid 20th century, (except in the US), there was a vast multiplicity of local measurements which depended on what was being measured, and when, and where, and by whom. It wasn't until the mid 19th-century that any sort of order was established in the UK or the US. See

Commissioners on Weights and Measures (18 September 1820). Second Report of the Commissioners appointed by his Majesty to consider of subject of Weights and Measures (PDF). London: Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed..
Adams, John Quincy (1821). Report Upon Weights and Measures. Washington: Printed by Gales & Seaton.

See also, for example, Units of paper quantity (plus the refs): and—just for comparison—Load (unit). I once tried to improve the Foolscap folio article, but swiftly became irretrievably bogged down in mind-bending detail. It's still full of nonsense. In the US, customary units still include sizes like a tablespoon, and they still think in cubic inches for engine capacities. The difference between metric and 'imperial' measurements led to the failure of a NASA satellite as recently as 1999. What date is meant by 8/9/1937, even today? From 1824 until after the Burning of Parliament in 1834 when the bronze/brass prototype was melted in the inferno, the troy pound (also full of nonsense) was the legal measure of weight in the UK. Not many people know that. I can't even be bothered to back the statement up, it does my head in. In summary, very best of luck, and I put your chances of survival at approximately nil. :>MinorProphet (talk) 14:20, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ever so slightly off-topic, but still revelant

For those with memories who recall earlier interesting discussions about the value of French francs vs. US dollars in c.1867 and 1906–7, I happily found the table of equivalent currencies which I couldn't place at the time. Read, and weep with gratitude that times have changed. Slightly.

Doursther, Horace (1840). "Monnaies". Dictionnaire universel des poids et mesures anciens et modernes: contenant des tables des monnaies de tous les pays (in French). Paris: M. Hayez, imprimeur de l'Académie royale. pp. 286ff.

Also, if still interested, see also The Ancient Cubit (1903) by General Sir Charles Warren; British weights and measures as described in the laws of England from Anglo-Saxon times (1910) by Colonel Sir Charles M. Watson, RE, KCMG, CB, MA; and A Discourse on the Roman Foot and Denarius (1647) by John Greaves, one of the most assiduous measurers of things in general, and specifically of coins, of times gone by. ;>MinorProphet (talk) 14:20, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]