Monday, November 16, 2009

From the Vaults of Curious Expeditions



Last time the bunny introduced me a strange and interesting site about, well, strange things. This site is called Curious Expeditions: Traveling and exhuming extraordinary past. And it has many exciting stories and mysteries about the past. Since I am fascinated with historic past and it's intriguing tales as well as enigmas, I became interested with this site (and I helps too if a certain site has links to other blogs, so that I can look for other things that may suit my curiosity).

But one article from their archives that I became most intrigued about talks of the small statues of dwarf in Salzburg, Austria. It is actually a garden filled with dwarf statues, called Zwerglgarten, or “Dwarf Garden” created in 1715 by prince Archbishop Franz Anton Harrach. You can click the here for the link to this curious site. These over-sized garden gnomes might not be categorized as fantastically grotesque, but are more of nameless memorials of the court dwarves who are simply differently formed in nature, and are represented as thus.

Sadly, they never mentioned the artist of the dwarves, or probably they don't know who actually made it, and the commissioner never puts his or her name in records. Sometimes, I am dissappointed with the artists who were so skilled yet they are forgotten by time, or were never recognized, and now we hardly know their names even if their works still exist amongst us. But perhaps it's their destiny to not to be recognized by future generations, or even by their contemporaries, to preserve their strangeness and the mystery of their work. Or because they just haven't really given thought to fame and immortality, and they simply did what they wanted to do.

***

During the past seven days, we had a meteor shower in our country. Though quite sadly I missed them due to my usual sleeping schedule, since I usually sleep early and wake up minutes after the sun had risen.

37 comments:

The Revolutionary said...

My initial response to that terrifying dwarf statue was one of fear. Is that normal?

Tom Bailey said...

You have an amazing blog. So many unique statues and pictures I feel like I am in a museum of sorts.

Great blog!

José Luis Avila Herrera said...

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fiziskandarz said...

very interesting blog :)

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sian tiksom said...

I dont think it would be very good to be a dwarf since it is a gross physical deformity to be short of stature as an adult. Perhaps artists of the past did not sign their names to such art work depicting defects because they were ashamed to be exploiting hideously deformed people as curiosities for public amusement. As if they were just another cute subject and to be a dwarf was a trivial event to happen to a person.
Would it kill you as an artist to use your talent to depict the social reality of people in a catholic country unable to get abortions even if the fetus is detected as a dwarf?
All the best with your work and i hope it improves to get more social depth.
from sia2100.blogspot.com

Sophie.J said...

I hope you have put comments to them about it, so they can amend their faults.
Sometimes, they just a bit lazy to make the links..at least I think so. ^-^
Hi! I'm Sophie.
Just stopped by to check on the "Blog of Note" it's a pleasure to read your thought.
Have a nice weekend!

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Shamoood said...

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Shamoood said...

Well, it's interesting to go through your stuff. May be I will be your regular visitor to check out your thirst and curiosity for past.

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The villager: said...

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Anonymous said...

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Anna Marie said...

Wow! I love this post. And I am liking your blog in general. btw, the link to http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=656 is missing the "h" in the http so it doesn't work.

hamzayun asyikin said...

intersting blog!! like it! as if im in a museum lol!! :D

seo services said...

the dwarf looks old and scary.
anyway congrats for being a blog note.

Dionysus said...

Went to this garden when I was in Salzburg two years ago, it is a very intreguing place.

You might be interested in Hellbrun http://www.hellbrunn.at/hellbrunn/english/trickfountains/fountains.asp

pilgrimchick said...

Great subject for a blog here--very unusual.

I think the concept of that garden is remarkable, outside of the art itself. Amazing.

Candie said...

wow!Your blog deserves that title big times!Wonderful,I will be back cause you blog about the things I like!

Ellie said...

that dwarfy thing is a little frightening.

ere said...

very interesting, but yes so many artists are forgotten, but i think these days we keep a better record of the ppl we want to remember, n theres so many more ways to leave ur mark on the world

Chandrika Shubham said...

Interesting blog!

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Very Top Five said...

Lovely blog, I enjoyed the gnome - Napoleon copied his hand-in-breat-pocket style!

Well done on being blog of note.

Ondrej Dyrka said...

Our past indeed hold many treasures. We should learn from it in order to prevent repeating our mistakes. For that learning, you may want to check
http://drinli.blogspot.com/2009/11/homo-sapiens-sapiens.html

Сереты отношений said...

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Unknown said...

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