Lamp Postmodernism

[Obscure stickers appear on Edinburgh lamp posts]

Stay vigilant citizens. 

What a Relief!

Rude's The Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 (or "La Marseillaise")

 

The most famous of the four reliefs on the faces of the arch flanking the opening, this emotional composition depicts the French people rallying against enemies from abroad.

 

These citizens, both nude and in classical armor, are roused to patriotic fervor by the Roman goddess of war, Bellona, who has also been identified as a personification of Liberty.

 

This grouping so aroused spectators' patriotism that the work became known as "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem written in 1792 - the same year as the departure of the volunteers.

Who could resist the call to protect the new Republic from its monarchist enemies of the people?  

 

To Be An Emperor: Advice of Machiavelli

[Head of Augustus, Louvre Museum, Paris]

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"A prince therefore need not necessarily have all the good qualities I have mentioned, but he should certainly appear to have them. I would even go so far as to say that if he has these qualities and always behaves accordingly he will find them harmful; if he only appears to have them they will render him service. He should appear to be compassionate, faithful to his word, kind, guileless, and devout. And indeed he should be so. But his disposition should be such that, if he needs to be the opposite, he knows how. You must realise this; that a prince, and especially a new prince, cannot observe all those things which give men a reputation for virtue, because in order to maintain his state he is often forced to act in defiance of good faith, of charity, of kindness, of religion. And so he should have a flexible disposition, varying as fortune and circumstance dictate. ... he should not deviate from what is good, if that is possible, but he should know how to do evil if that is necessary."

[Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, XVIII.5 ]

Modern Art

And indeed there were not ....

The above instillation may well have constituted the only light relief (literally a relief made of lights) that the Emperor experienced in a recent and lengthy day-trip to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

"Not a big fan of modern art?", I hear the gallery whisper ... "Eh ... Nope" whips back my urbanely sophisticated response. 

See: http://www.nationalgalleries.org/visit/introduction-118

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"Do you call the man leisured who arranges with anxious precision his Corinthian bronzes, the cost of which is inflated by the mania of a few collectors, and spends most of the day on rusty bits of metal?"

Seneca, Dialogues, On the Shortness of Life, 12