arthistoryislife

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Athena Parthenos (Roman 2nd-3rd Century A.D.)

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‘Circe Offering The Cup To Ulysses’ by John William Waterhouse.

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@schwarzkopfnonne

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Something I’ve always loved about Dracula is the hints of tech in the text.

Dr. John Seward keeps his diary in phonograph, which is pretty high tech for the 1890s. Throughout the novel we get entries in phonograph and telegraphs, and there’s a mention of a Kodak camera.

It gives readers (especially when it was published) a sense that these characters are competent. They’re in touch and forward thinking. They understand the ever-changing technology of a world drastically moving toward the turn of the century.

It also separates them from Dracula’s old-world views. It creates even further distinction between him and our protagonists and another layer of other that makes his presence uncomfortable.

The inclusion of different forms of communication also makes the text feel more realistic. Dracula was written with the intent to convey a serial of actual events. It helps deepens the realism to diversify the entries and portray unique individuals, with their own personalities and quirks in life and communication, coming together to face evil.

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St. Margarets, Westminster, Louis Hubbard Grimshaw

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A portrait of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and two of their children or Louis Charles and Madame Elisabeth; circa 1825, unidentified artist. [source: Matthieu Semont SCP Auction, 30 June 2022.]

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Sandro Botticelli  -  Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman,  ca. 1483  (detail)

Italian, 1445-1510

Fresco, detached and mounted on canvas

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Lararium in House of The Ephebe, Pompeii, Italy

Photo by Miguel Hermoso Cuesta (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons

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An Evening at Home Edward John Poynter, 1888

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Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan in

Love & Friendship (2016)

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Sophie Anderson (British, 1823-1903): Simplicity (via Dorotheum)

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Dracula (1931) dir. Tod Browning

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The "lararium" in ancient Rome was a small domestic sanctuary in which offerings and prayers were made to the lares, the protective spirits of deceased ancestors, who watched over the proper functioning of the family and home. It could be located in different spaces of the houses, for example in the atrium (main courtyard of well-to-do Roman dwellings); in the most humble, which did not have it, it could often be placed in the kitchen, near the central fire. There could be more than one larario in the house. Each family worshiped their tutelary gods with offerings and daily rituals. If they were not carried out, they believed that they were exposed to various misfortunes. Family relics were also kept in the larario. The offerings were varied, but mainly flowers to decorate it, wine, incense, cereals, honey, perfumes, fruits, cakes or animal sacrifices. The master of the house dedicates a prayer: "May this home be for us a source of goods, a blessing of happiness and good luck." (Plautus)

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The Three Connoisseurs (dress details), Frédéric Soulacroix (French, 1858-1933)