The art of armor in a 2006 podcast courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On that, I must ask, at what point will art history include every form of wares that humans can create? Centuries from now, people will go to museums and see projectors originally found in high schools. I watched a podcast series on British public telephones, and I seriously considered reviewing it for my blog.
Coming from the Kienbusch Collection, the armor featured in the acoustiguide came from the 14th century and ending with the 19th century. The podcast’s history goes in chronological order from a 2,000 year old Corinthian helmets to the Kentucky Rifles (made in Pennsylvania). They offer interesting facts such as a fairly comprehensive take on the class systems that owned these weapons and armor. For people who wore them, armor meant something very important to them regardless of class. While the podcast talked about what Knights wore, they caution that they had no armor from the actual era of the Knight. When listening to the Chivalry Commandments, it represented these nice ideals and these horrifying prejudices at the same time. I also learned that knights’ fashion acted as both fashionable and functional for them. You will learn about the wearing and the upkeep of armor and how a man can easily “relieve himself” while wearing such an outfit. Important really. The selections consist of mostly German armor and remains Euro centric overall. They did have some armor from Egypt and Iran.
Beyond describing the weapons and armor, the narrators even take apart the concept of armor for humans and animals. The overall theme of this series shows the technological advancements that influenced armor and weapons in world history. From an art history standpoint, they inform that Albrecht Durer painted shields, a cool factoid. I did love the medieval background music and the delicate guitar music used to represent delicate stained glass windows. The podcast did use percussion during the Turban helmet podcast. They use special effects for comical effect to the point that it distracted me. The narrators would use contemporary examples in comparison to make the past seem less exotic. Makes sense since they point out that most of our rituals, words, symbols, gestures, etc, came from these eras. On length time wise, the longest podcast does not even go over two minutes. As usual, they put no reproductions when you download this podcast.
Art History Ramblings 