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Old 22nd August 2020, 02:47 AM   #18
Jim McDougall
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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Great thread Shayde, and good to see the interest in classic art as a medium in identifying the period of use of certain forms and the elements of the hilts.
Naturally there is always the caution with 'license' and use of contemporary examples placed in historic periods of long before, such as Rembrandt using modern ethnographic weapons in Biblical scenes, not the case here obviously but just noting in art used in this way.

As Carvaggio was an avid brawler and duelist he was quite familiar with the weaponry around in his time (1571-1610) and given his penchant for detail it would seem that he would portray these accurately.
As always, many forms remained around for long periods and often as heirlooms, so the notion of 'antiquated' forms being present, even with the more current types in the same context.

It seems I recall reading about Rembrandt's "Night Watch" painting, the militia unit depicted is noted to be using 'antiquated' types of guns etc. Naturally the painting (not actually titled 'Night Watch', but the name of the town guard unit) faiithfully showed the heirloom or older types of weapon the men used. They of course furnished thier own arms.

As AVB Norman ("The Rapier and the Small sword", 1980) noted in his outstanding work which he used art work (mostly portraits) to establish date range for various hilt styles, portraits tended to be more reliable as the subject typically wore his own weapon. Though not infallible, it seemed pretty well placed.

It seems that his instances of the gruesome beheadings etc he was reacting to the sentence of same leveled at him as a sentence for one of his crimes in brawling, which gave legal permission to anyone to carry out on him if found.

On another note, elements of armor much as with weapons were often mixed together irrespective of proper matching obviously, as damaged or unserviceable were replaced with what was available.
It was not at all unusual in these historic times for men to be outfitted in incongruent assemblage of pieces, perhaps even to the degree of Cervantes' "Don Quixote".

These works of art give us wonderful context for the weapons often in our collections, adding so much to appreciation.
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