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The Culturist Profile picture
@the_culturist_
May 23, 2023 • 16 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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There are great sculptors, and then there are those whose abilities to transform stone border on the divine.

These are 15 of the most astonishingly lifelike marble sculptures ever created 🧵 Image
1. Ugolino and His Sons - Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1867) ImageImage
2. Moses - Michelangelo (1515) ImageImage
3. The Abduction of Proserpina - Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1622) Image
4. Modesty - Antonio Corradini (1752) Image
5. The Veiled Virgin - Giovanni Strazza (1850s) Image
6. David - Michelangelo (1504) ImageImage
7. The Veiled Christ - Giuseppe Sanmartino (1753) Image
8. The Release from Deception - Francesco Queirolo (1759) Image
9. Pietà - Michelangelo (1499) Image
10. Apollo and Daphne - Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1625) Image
11. The Veiled Hestia - Rafaelle Monti (1847) Image
12. The West Wind - Thomas Ridgeway Gould (1874) Image
13. Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss - Antonio Canova (1793) Image
14. Nymph - Giovanni Battista Lombardi (1864) ImageImage
15. Laocoön and His Sons - Unknown Image

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More from @the_culturist_

The Culturist Profile picture
Sep 5
The story of Saint George isn't just about a brave knight slaying a dragon and saving a damsel.

St. George matters because he holds the answer to the most important of all questions:

What actually is evil, and how do you destroy it? 🧵 Image
To understand the nature of evil, first note that the dragon is a perversion of the natural world.

Its origin is in nature, like the snake or lizard, and that makes it compelling. It's close enough to something natural (something good) that we tolerate it. Image
And notice the place from which it emerges. In Caxton's 1483 translation of the Golden Legend, it emerges from a stagnant pond: water without natural currents, which breeds decay.

It's also outside the city walls, and thus overlooked. Image
Read 18 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
Jul 29
Why would someone who could paint the picture on the left choose to paint the picture on the right?

A thread... 🧵 Image
Picasso died in 1973 at the age of 91.

His self portraits had changed quite a lot by that age... Image
But why did he want, as he put it, to "paint like a child"?

The answer has a lot to do with Picasso himself, but also with the changing world in general... Image
Read 17 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
Jul 11
The French Revolution was way more sinister than you think.

In a frenzy to purge all aspects of Christian life, they even changed the calendar and UNITS OF TIME.

10-hour days, 100-minute hours, 100-second minutes.

Then they made a new religion — the Cult of Reason… 🧵 Image
From 1793 to 1795, France mandated "metric time": 10 hours in a day, 100 minutes in an hour, etc.

In their zeal to remake society, revolutionaries deemed this an essential step to becoming truly "rational". Image
Authorities created new clocks to make people adjust to the new units, and went about checking that the new times/dates went on all public documents. Image
Image
Read 16 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
Jun 17
How did Christianity go from persecuted minority to official religion of the world's greatest empire?

Well, two pagan rivals went to war over Rome — and one saw something strange on the eve of battle.

A sign appeared in the sky, and altered history forever… (thread) 🧵 Image
For the early believers, being Christian in the Roman Empire was a dangerous business.

Its followers met in secret, and its martyrs were torn apart in arenas. Image
In 303 AD, Diocletian tried to stamp the faith out entirely. Christians were a threat to pagan unity, and of course, disloyal to the Roman gods.

But there was something else going on... Image
Read 20 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
May 22
Do you ever wonder what the White Tree of Gondor means — and why it's dead?

Well, there's a hidden story that most don't know about.

And it's the key to understanding the entirety of The Lord of the Rings… (thread) 🧵Image
Gondor's White Tree is a symbol of the realm. When we encounter it in The Return of the King, it's been dead for 150 years.

A reflection of Gondor's fortunes, before Aragorn's ascension as king...Image
Image
Tolkien was borrowing a very old idea. In Ancient Greece, towns had a hearth at the center called a prytaneion.

Someone had to tend the sacred fire each day — if it died, so too the city would die.Image
Read 17 tweets
The Culturist Profile picture
May 8
Right now, cardinals are selecting a new Pope in this room, beneath Michelangelo's epic ceiling.

But what did he actually paint up there, and what does it mean?

Well, it's something quite strange — because these are no ordinary Bible scenes… (thread) 🧵 Image
Michelangelo did not want to paint the Sistine ceiling. He never considered himself a painter.

Still, in 1508, the Pope pressured him into doing so, and Michelangelo put his sculpting on pause... Image
Image
What he painted is unlike anything seen before or since, but on the surface it isn't obvious why.

There are 9 scenes from Genesis: Earth's Creation, Man's Creation, the Fall of Man, and the Great Flood. Image
Read 18 tweets

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