1880-1899
Morning. You know the routine by now. I continue by quest to prove to you, dear reader, that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to culture etc. I know this might seem like a long pointless undertaking but trust me, if we can spend a bit of time now establishing that I’m at least half right, sixty percent of the time, it is going to save us a lot of time arguing about New Order later on.
As usual, I will be linking to paintings instead of just pasting them onto the page. I know this makes the post less visually exciting, but it also makes it a sort-of cultural advent calendar, all full of surprises.
And speaking of paintings, let’s start with a few. 1880 was the year that Gustave Caillebotte painted View Seen through a Balcony, which is proper lovely. Then some stuff happened. then in 1884, George Henry Hall painted some lemons. Or possibly two halves of one lemon. Who can say?
In 1885, the Ascension window was installed at Birmingham Cathedral, which is my favourite of the four windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones. The featured image on this post is a small part from the bottom of the window. As you can see, the detail is exquisite.
The mid-80s were a good time for literature too. King Solomon’s Mines (a great adventure, and surprisingly progressive for 1885) The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, and Flatland (which, honestly, I think is garbage, but indisputably influential in the development of science fiction, which I do like, so, you know, props)
In 1886, Queen Victoria sent Rudolph Swoboda to India to do a series of sketches. The paintings he made from them are incredible, so much more alive than his dull portraits of dull rich English dudes in their uniforms. You can see a selection of them at Osborne House. You can probably see more if you are mates with the king.
1889 saw the birth of both the RSPB and Nintendo. Of course, the bird reserves and video game systems wouldn’t arrive for a few years, but things were on their way. Incidentally, Koi-Koi, the game played with the hanafuda cards Nintendo was founded to produce, is a brilliant game. I’ve never actually played anyone at it IRL. But on computers? Blimey.
Apparently, Mozartkugel, those delicious balls of marzipan, pistachio and chocolate that turn up at ridiculous prices at Christmas markets, were invented in 1890. For the record, the knock-off version that Lidl do is spot on. Arguably better than the real thing.
Ruggero Leoncavello published Pagliacci in 1892. It is of course the best opera.
In 1893 there was a council meeting in Brighton about St Bartholomew’s Church where they argued about whether it was, “uselessly large, painfully ugly and sadly out of place”, “a monster excrescence”, “a brick parallelogram” or a, “cheese warehouse”. It is, in actual fact, a unit. A huge spireless middle, whose towering over the surrounding buildings gives it an almost surreal magnificence.
The next six years gave the world Blackpool Tower, Brown Sauce, Alice Guy-Blaché’s La Fée Au Choux, War of the Worlds, The Actor Ichikawa Sadanji I as Akiyama Kii no Kami by Toyohara Kunichika and La Boheme, which just goes to show what a planet can do when it tries.
Cool. Next time 1900-1919
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