Zettai ryouiki

Zettai ryouiki (pronounced Zah-thai-rye-ouk-i)

(1) In an anime game (dating from 1995), an asset obtainable which playing which afforded the player something like the “invulnerability” or “unlimited damage” concepts familiar in gaming.

(2) As pop culture slang in women’s fashion (dating from 2014), the area of visible bare skin above the socks (classically the above-the-knee variety) but below the hemline of a mini-skirt, shorts or top.

1995: From the Japanese 絶対領域 (zettai ryōiki) (literally “absolute territory” and used variously in anime gaming (and the surrounding cultural milieu) and pop-culture fashion.  The form of Romanization most common in the West is zettai ryouiki, the alternative spelling zettai ryōiki (ぜったいりょういき).  Zettai ryouiki is a noun.

A often heard phrase in English ie “the (French / Germans / Jews / Koreans etc) have a word for everything”.  It’s not literally true and given the huge size of the English vocabulary it’s probably more true of English than any other.  Nobody is quite sure just how many words there are in English and given the frequency with which words are created and fall from use, there can only ever be estimates.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says there are between 170-200,000 words currently in use but that estimate doesn’t include the most specialized technical and scientific terms or words from regional dialects and other specialized fields.  English of course steals (the polite term among lexicographers is “borrowed”) much from other tongues and were all these and the technical terms and their variants to be included in the count, some have suggested the total might approach a million.  What “the x have a word for everything” implies is a sense of surprise that anyone has a word for a thing or concept which seems variously funny, bizarre or unnecessary.

Sock heights in Japan can all be used with the zettai ryouiki look although the classists insist the genre is restricted to those in over-knee & thigh-high socks.

Zettai ryouiki in the anime tradition.

The term zettai ryouiki began in anime gaming in 1995 with the sense “holy space into which no other can intrude”, much along the same lines as “invulnerability” or “unlimited damage” in other games.  It was obvious transferrable beyond gaming sub-culture and among Japanese youth, entered slang in the context of “one’s own personal space” which others shouldn’t transgress.  Around 2013, the phrase was appropriated to describe the area of visible bare skin above the socks (classically above-the-knee socks) but below the hemline of a miniskirt, shorts or top.  It isn’t certain but the use seems to have been adopted after an advertising agency organized a campaign involving young women, for various commercial purposes, applying temporary tattoos high on their thighs, suggesting they pair the look with dark socks or stockings, the top of the socks and the hem of their mini skirts framing the message.  As a visual device, the intent was to focus on the flesh (and thus the logo) and this the fashionistas replicated although they wanted eyeballs only on their skin.  Within months, the shop Zettai Ryōiki opened in Akihabara, Tokyo, dedicated to long socks and tights.

Zettai ryōiki: Lindsay Lohan exploring the possibilities.  

The original use of zettai ryōiki described only the pairing of a miniskirt with over-knee or thigh-high socks which meant the visible skin area, though not dimensionally specific, existed within narrow parameters.  Conceptually however, the idea eventually encompassed all styles which featured an expanse of skin between the top of the sock and the hem of whatever was worn above although the purists continue to decry the use of shorter socks.  Helpfully, the most uncompromising of the sub-culture provided a mathematical formula in the form of a coefficient which was calculated using (1) the length of the miniskirt, (2) the visible skin and (3) the length of the sock which sits above the knee.  Thus not height-dependent, known as the “golden ratio”, a tolerance of +/- 25% was allowed which permitted slight variations.

Kawai Maid Cafe & Bar Akiba Zettai Ryoiki, 3-1-1 Sotokanda 1F Obayashi Bldg., Chiyoda 101-0021 Tokyo Prefecture.  Japanese futurists predict that when robotics are sufficiently advanced, among the first humanoid bots in Tokyo's bars and cafés will be in the style of the zettai ryoiki girls, adding they'll be dimensionally modeled on the basis of anime, not typical female human frames.  The artistic motif will thus be mannerism rather than realism.

Japanese schoolgirls, long the trend-setters of the nation's fashions, like to pair zettai ryouiki with solid fluffy leg warmers.  So influential are they that this roaming pack, although they've picked up the aesthetic, are not real school girls.  So, beware of imitations: Tokyo, April 2024.

Collage

Collage (pronounced kuh-lahzh or koh-lahzh)

(1) The technique, most associated with visual abstract art, of composing a work of art by pasting on a single surface various materials not normally associated with one another, as newspaper clippings, parts of photographs, theater tickets, and fragments of an envelope.

(2) A work of art produced by this technique.

(3) An assemblage or occurrence of diverse elements or fragments in (1) and unlikely or unexpected juxtaposition or (2) a coherent result.

(4) In film, a series of seemingly unrelated scenes or images or shifts from one scene or image to another suddenly and without transition.

(5) Any work created by combining unrelated (or at least definably different) styles; in literature, a combination of styles within the one work; in music a combinations of genres.

1915–1920: From the French collage, the construct being coll(er) (paste, glue) + -age.  Coller was from the Ancient Greek κόλλα (kólla) (glue) of uncertain origin but may ultimately be from the primitive Indo-European kol- and cognates included the Russian кле́й (kléj) and the Middle Dutch helen. The –age suffix was from the Middle French -age, from Old French -age, from the Latin –āticum (influential in words like rivage and voyage) which was used to form nouns or collective nouns in the sense of "action or state of being (a) X, result of Xing" or (more rarely), "action related to X".  Although the historical suffix has had many applications (eg family relationships or locations), it’s now almost wholly restricted to the sense of "action of Xing", and many terms now have little to no connection with the most common uses something especially notable in forms descended from actual Latin words such as fromage and voyage.  Collage & Collagist are nouns, collaged & collaging are verbs (used with object); the noun plural is collages.

Of the accidental & intentional

It not certain exactly when collage was first used in the sense its modern meaning.  It's sometimes credited to English painter and critic, Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) who used the term in a 1919 publication but that’s contested given the word had appeared earlier though there’s some doubt whether that was in reference to the mechanical technique or the final product.  What became known as collage certainly long pre-dates 1919; papier collé was used by both Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Georges Braque (1882–1963) early in the century and artists, authors & painters had for centuries been producing work from disparate components.  In the digital age, the somewhat misleadingly named software eCollage (and many others) allowed collages to be created on screen although, technically, these programs were as often used to render photomontage as collage.  The opportunistically named iCollage is an image-assembly app for iOS.

A montage of Che Guevara collages.  The difference between collage and montage is that while a collage weaves together things of difference to create a unified whole, a montage uses complete things of some similarity to create something visually coherent although, with some modern artists, coherence can prove elusive.

Colleges by Giuseppe Arcimboldi; Left to right: Four Seasons in One Head, oil on canvas, (circa 1590), Fire, oil on wood, (1566), Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor painted as Vertumnus, Roman god of the seasons, oil on canvas, (circa 1591), The Librarian, oil on canvas, (1566) & Summer, oil on canvas, (1563).

In Western portraiture, the collage is not a recent form.  Although also a conventional court painter of portraits and sacred art, Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldi (1527–1593) was noted for his portraits rendered as collages, the heads fashioned from objects such as vegetables, fruits, flowers & fish.  Very much the modern art of his day, his fanciful work seems to have been well received and critics have linked his work to the tradition of Mannerism.  Examples of collage have been found which pre-date Antiquity and the idea of assembling some representation of something from whatever items fall to hand is thought likely to have been one of the earliest forms of human artistic expression. 

Colleges by Jason Mecier; Left to right: Sigmund Freud, Frida Kahlo, Barack Obama, Lindsay Lohan & Donald Trump.

Los Angeles based pop artist Jason Mecier (b 1968) operates in a particular niche of the collage world, his mosaic portraits fabricated from unconventional materials, sometimes thematic (Sigmund Freud rendered in pills) and most famously, trash.  Perhaps surprisingly, Mr Mecier seems never to have fashioned a likeness of crooked Hillary Clinton; even when working with trash, presumably one has to draw the line somewhere.

Ambrosia

Ambrosia (pronouced am-bro-zia)

(1) In classical mythology, the food (sometimes called nectar) of the gods and said to bestow immortality.

(2) Something especially delicious to taste or smell.

(3) A fruit dish made of oranges and shredded coconut.  Sometimes includes pineapple.

(4) Alternative name for beebread.

(5) Any of various herbaceous plants constituting the genus Ambrosia, mostly native to America but widely naturalized: family Asteraceae (composites).  The genus includes the ragweeds.

1545-1555.  From the Middle English, from the Old French ambroise, from the Latin ambrosia (favored food or drink of the gods) from the Ancient Greek ambrosia (food of the gods), noun use of the feminine of ambrosious (thought to mean literally "of the imortals") from ambrotos (immoratlity; immortal, imperishable).  The construct was a- (not) + mbrotos (related to mortos (mortal), from the primitive Indo-European root mer- (to rub away, to harm (also "to die" and used widely when forming words referring to death and to beings subject to death).  Writers in Antiquity woud use the word when speaking of theit favorite herbs and it's been used in English to describe delectable foods (though originally of fruit drinks) since the 1680s and came to be used figuratively for anything delightful by the 1730s.  Applied to certain herbs by Pliny and Dioscorides; used of various foods for mortals since 1680s (originally of fruit drinks); used figuratively for "anything delightful" by 1731.  The adjective ambrosial dates from the 1590s in the sense of "immortal, divine, of the quality of ambrosia", the sense of "fragrant, delicious" developed by the 1660s.  The other adjectival forms were ambrosiac (circa 1600) & ambrosian (1630s).

Ambrose was the masculine proper name, from the Latin Ambrosius, from the Ancient Greek ambrosios (immortal, belonging to the immortals),  The Biblioteca Ambrosian (Ambrosian Library) in Milan (1609), established by Cardinal Federico Borromeo (1564–1631), is named for Saint Ambrose of Milan (circa 339–397) Bishop of Milan 374-397.

Cupid, Psyche and the Nectar of the Gods

In Greek mythology, Psyche was the youngest and loveliest of a king’s three daughters.  So haunting was Psyche’s beauty that people travelled from afar to pay homage, neglecting the worship of Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of love and beauty, instead venerating the nymph.  Venus became enraged at finding her altars deserted, men instead turning their devotions to the young virgin, watching as she passed, singing her praises and strewing her way with chaplets and flowers.

Indignant at the exaltation of a mortal, Venus began her righteous rant.  "Am I then to be eclipsed in my honors by a mere mortal girl?  In vain then did that royal shepherd, whose judgment was approved by Jove himself, give me the palm of beauty over my illustrious rivals, Pallas and Juno. But she shall not so quietly usurp my honors. I will give her cause to repent of so unlawful a beauty."  Venus summoned her winged son, the mischievous Cupid and telling him of Psyche, ordered her revenge.  "My dear son, punish that contumacious beauty; give your mother a revenge as sweet as her injuries are great; infuse into the bosom of that haughty girl a passion for some low, mean, unworthy being, so that she may reap a mortification as great as her present exultation and triumph."

Obediently, Cupid set to his task.  In the garden of Venus lay two fountains, one of sweet waters, the other of bitter.  Cupid filled two amber phials, one from each fountain and suspending them from the top of his quiver, hastened to the chamber of Psyche, finding her asleep.  He shed a few drops from the bitter fountain over her lips and although though the sight of her moved him almost to pity, touched her side with the point of his arrow.  At the touch she awoke and her eyes gazed upon the invisible Cupid which so enchanted him he became confused and pricked himself with his own arrow.  Helplessly in love, his only thought now was to repair the mischief he had done and he poured the balmy drops of joy over all her silken blonde ringlets.

Psyche, henceforth frowned upon by Venus, gained no benefit from her charms.  While all cast covetous eyes upon her and all spoke her praises, not prince, plebeian or peasant ever asked for her hand in marriage.  Her two sisters had become betrothed to princes but Psyche sat in solitude, feeling cursed by the beauty which had failed to awaken love.  The king and queen, thinking they had incurred the wrath of the gods turned for guidance to the oracle of Apollo who answered: “The virgin is destined for the bride of no mortal lover. Her future husband awaits her on the top of the mountain. He is a monster whom neither gods nor men can resist."

Her parents, distraught, abandoned themselves to grief but Psyche was fatalistic, saying "Why, my dear parents, do you now lament me? You should rather have grieved when the people showered upon me undeserved honors, and with one voice called me a Venus. I now perceive I am victim to that name.  I submit.  Lead me to that rock to which my unhappy fate has destined me."  Accordingly, amid the lamentations of all, she was taken to the peak of the mountain and there left alone.  When the tearful girl stood at the summit, the gentle Zephyr raised her from the earth and carried her on the breeze, bringing her to rest in a flowery dale where she laid down to sleep.  When she awoke, refreshed, she looked around and beheld nearby a grove of tall and stately trees.  Entering the forest, she discovered in its midst a fountain from which bubbled crystal-clear waters and nearby, a splendid palace, so magnificent she knew it the work not of mortal hands, but the retreat of some god.  Drawn by admiration and wonder, she ventured to enter the door.  Amazed at what she saw, she walked along a marble floor so polished it shimmered, golden pillars supported a vaulted roof, walls were enriched with carvings and paintings of fantastic beasts.  Everything upon which her eye fell delighted her.

Soon, although she saw no one, she heard a voice.  "Sovereign lady, all that you see is yours. We whose voices you hear are your servants and shall obey all your commands with utmost care.  Retire, should you please, to your chamber, recline upon your bed of down and when you see fit, repair to the bath.  Your supper awaits in the alcove”.  Psyche took her bath and seated herself in the alcove, whereupon a table appeared laden with extraordinary delicacies of food and nectarous wines.   While she ate, she heard the playing of lute and harp and the harmony of song.

That night she met he husband but he came only in the darkness, fleeing before the dawn, but his words and caresses were of love and inspired in her a like passion.  Often she would beg him to stay so she might behold him in the light but he refused, telling her never to attempt to see him, for no good would come of it and that he would rather have her love him as a man than adore him as a god.  This, Psyche accepted but the days grew long and lonely and she began to feel she was living in a gilded cage.  One night, when her husband came, she told him of her distress, her charms enough to coax from him his unwilling acquiescence that her sisters could visit.  Delighted, she summoned the obedient Zephyr who brought them to the mountain and in happiness, they embraced.

The splendor and celestial delights of Psyche’s palace astonished her sisters but also aroused their envy and they began to pepper her with questions about her husband and she told them he was a beautiful youth who spent his days hunting in the mountains.  Unconvinced, the soon drew from her that she had never seen him and they began to fill her mind with dark suspicions, recalling the Pythian oracle had declared her doomed to marry a direful and tremendous monster.  Psyche protested but they told her the folk living in the valley say the husband is a terrible and monstrous serpent, amusing himself while nourishing her with dainties that he may by and by devour her.  They told to one night to take with her a lamp and sharp blade so that when he slept she might light the lamp and see his true form.  If truly he is a monster they told her, "hesitate not and cut off its head".

Psyche tried to resist her sisters’ persuasions but knew she was curious and that night she took to bed a lamp and a long, sharp knife.  When he had fallen to sleep, silently she arose and lit her lamp, beholding but the most beautiful of the gods, his golden ringlets falling over his snowy neck, two dewy wings on his shoulders whiter than snow, with shining feathers like the tender blossoms of spring.  Entranced, as she moved her lamp better to see his face, a drop of hot oil fell on the shoulder of the god and startled, he opened his eyes and fixed them upon her.  They both were frozen for a few seconds, then suddenly and without a word, he spread his wings and flew out of the window.  Psyche, crying in despair, in vain endeavored to follow but fell from the window to the ground below.

Hearing her fall, Cupid for a moment paused in his flight and turned to her saying, "Oh faithless Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After I disobeyed my mother's commands and made you my wife, will you think me a monster and would cut off my head?  Go, return to your sisters, who you trust more than me.  I punish you no more than to forever leave you for love cannot dwell with suspicion."  With those words, he flew off, leaving poor Psyche crying into the earth.  For hours she sobbed and then looked around, but her palace and gardens had vanished and she found herself in a field in the city where her sisters dwelt.  She repaired thither and told them her story at which, though pretending to grieve with her, the two evil sisters inwardly rejoiced for both thought as one: that Cupid might now choose one of them.  Both the next morning silently arose and snuck secretly to the mountain where each called upon Zephyr to bear them to his lord but leaping up, there was no Zephyr to carry them on the breeze and each fell down the precipice to their deaths.

The devastated Psyche meanwhile wandered.  Day and night, without food or rest, she searched for her husband and one evening saw in the distance a magnificent temple atop a lofty mountain and she felt her heart beat, wondering if perhaps there was Cupid.  She walked to the temple and there saw heaps of corn, some in loose ears and some in sheaves, mingled with ears of barley.  Scattered about, lay sickles and rakes, the instruments of harvest, without order, as if thrown carelessly from the weary reapers' hands in the sultry hours of the day.  This unseemly confusion disturbed the neat and tidy Psyche and she put herself to work, separating and sorting everything and putting all in its proper place, believing she ought to neglect none of the gods, but prove by her piety to prove she was worthy of their help.  The holy Ceres, whose temple it was, finding her so religiously employed, thus spoke to her, "Oh Psyche, truly your are worthy of our pity, though I cannot shield you from the frowns of Venus, I can teach you how best to allay her displeasure. Go, then, and voluntarily surrender yourself to your lady and sovereign, and try by modesty and submission to win her forgiveness, and perhaps her favor will restore you the husband you have lost."  Filled with both fear and hope, Psyche made her way to the temple of Venus.

Venus met her with anger.  "Most undutiful and faithless of servants," said she, "do you at last remember you have a mistress or have you come to see your sick husband, the one injured by the wound given him by his worthless wife?  You are so ill favored you can be worthy of your lover only by showing industry and diligence.  I shall put you to work".  She led Psyche to temple’s storehouse in which sat vast piles of wheat, barley, vetches, beans and lentils, the food for her birds.  “Separate these grains, put them all in sacks and have it done by night” she commanded, leaving her to the task.  Shocked, Psyche sat silent, moving not a finger.  While she despaired, Cupid ordered an ant, a native of the fields, to bring all ants from the anthill and they gathered on the piles.  Quickly and with the efficiency of their breed, they took grain by grain, making perfect parcels of each and when done, vanished from sight.  As twilight fell, Venus returned from a banquet of the gods and seeing the sacks neatly stacked, became enraged.  "This is no work of yours, wicked one, but his, whom to your own and his misfortune you have enticed."  So saying, she threw her a piece of black bread for her supper and stormed off.

Next morning Venus ordered Psyche to be called and said to her, "Behold yonder grove which stretches along the margin of the water.  There you will find sheep feeding without a shepherd, with golden-shining fleeces on their backs.  Go now, fetch me some of that precious wool gathered from every one of their fleeces."  Standing on the riverbank, wondering at the difficulty of her task, Psyche was about to cross but river god made the reeds speak, telling her "Oh maiden, tempt not the dangerous flood, nor venture among those rams for as long as the sun shines, they burn with a cruel rage to destroy mortals with their sharp horns or rude teeth.  But when the noontide sun has driven them to the shade, and the serene spirit of the flood has lulled them to rest, you may then cross in safety, and you will find the woolly gold sticking to the bushes and the trunks of the trees."  Psyche did as they said and returned with her arms full of the golden fleece but Venus was not pleased.  "Well I know it is by none of your own doings that you have succeeded I do not believe you are of use but I have another task for you.  Here, take this box and go your way to the infernal shades, and give this box to Proserpine and say, 'my mistress Venus desires you to send her a little of your beauty, for in tending her sick son she has lost some of her own'.  Be not too long on your errand, for I must paint myself with it to appear this evening at the circle of the gods."

Psyche now believed her own destruction was at hand and, with no wish to delay what was not to be avoided, dashed to the top of a high tower, preparing to cast herself headlong, thus to descend the shortest way to the shades below.  But then, a voice from the tower said to her, "Why, poor unlucky girl, do you design to put an end to your days in so dreadful a manner? And what cowardice makes you sink under this last danger when you have been so miraculously supported in all your former?"  Then the voice told her how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto, and how to avoid all the dangers of the road, to pass by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and prevail on Charon, the ferryman, to take her across the black river and bring her back again. But the voice also cautioned, "When Proserpine has given you the box filled with her beauty, you must never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity to pry into the treasure of the beauty of the goddesses."

Encouraged, Psyche obeyed the advice and travelled safely to the kingdom of Pluto. Admitted to the palace of Proserpine, she delivered her message from Venus and soon, she was handed the box, shut and filled with the precious commodity. Then she returned the way she came, glad once more to be in the light of day.  But as she walked along the path, a longing desire overcame her, an urge to look into the box for, as she imagined, a touch of the divine beauty would make her more desired by Cupid so, delicately, she opened the box.  But in there was nothing of beauty but only an infernal and truly Stygian sleep which, being set free from its prison, took possession of her, and she fell in the road where she stood, plunged into a deep sleep, lying there without sense or motion.

But Cupid was now recovered and could no longer bear the absence of his beloved Psyche and slipping through a crack in the window, he flew to where Psyche lay.  He gathered up the sleep from her and closed it again in the box, waking her with the gentlest touch of one of his arrows. "Again," said he, "have you almost perished by the same curiosity.  But now perform exactly the task imposed on you by my mother, and I will take care of the rest."  Then Cupid, as swift as lightning, presented himself before Jupiter with his supplication.  Jupiter was impressed and so earnestly did he plead the cause of the lovers that he won the consent of Venus and on hearing this, sent Mercury to bring Psyche up to the heavenly assembly, and when she arrived, he handed her a goblet ambrosia saying, "Drink this, Psyche, and be immortal; nor shall Cupid ever break away from the knot in which he is tied, but these nuptials shall be perpetual."  Thus Psyche became at last united to Cupid, and in time, born to them was a daughter whose name was Pleasure.

Wedding Banquet of Cupid and Psyche (circa 1517) by Raphael (1483–1520).

The story of Cupid and the OCD Psyche is told by the Roman writer Apuleius (circa 124-circa 170) in three chapters in his rather risqué picaresque novel, The Metamorphoses of Apuleius (which Saint Augustine dubbed Asinus aureus (The Golden Ass (by which it’s today known)).  The Golden Ass is notable as the only full-length work of fiction in Classical Latin to have survived in its entirety and is a work with aspects which would be regarded as novel centuries later, including fantastical imagery, passages like fairy tales and elements which would now be called magic realism.  Like many modern fairy tales, there is a moral to the story and for Apuleius it was that it is love which makes to soul immortal and there was no need for subtlety, Cupid the son of the goddess of desire and Psyche's name originally meant soul.

With the re-discovery (and some re-invention) of much of antiquity during the Renaissance, the story gained much popularity and attracted the interest of artists and from Raphael’s (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1483–1520) studio came the best known evocation.  One of the scenes is the wedding feast, painted in the form of a hanging tapestry.  Psyche’s guest list was a roll-call of the gods, Ganymede, Apollo, Bacchus and Jupiter are all at the table, the Graces and the Hours in attendance.  The artists (for some the work was executed by professional painters under Raphael’s guidance) do have some fun, very much in the spirit of Apuleius for above the flying Mercury sits, artfully arranged, a suggestive conjunction of certain vegetables and fruits.

The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche (1532) by Giulio Romano.

The romance of Cupid and Psyche drew other artists including the Italian Giulio Romano (Giulio Pippi, circa 1499-1546), a student of Raphael whose influence permeates.  While not highly regarded by critics and better remembered as an architect, Romano is of note because he was among the earliest of the artists whose work can be called Mannerist and certainly his wedding feast painting includes the mythological, a staged and theatrical setting, eroticism and an unusual sense of perspective; all characteristic of Mannerist art although he remained entirely naturalistic in the callipygian rendering of Psyche’s buttocks.

In Shakespeare's late drama The Winter's Tale there’s an allusion to Romano as “that rare Italian master” but despite the bard’s apparent admiration, historians of art treat him as little more than a footnote; the shadow Raphael cast was long.  Some critics seem determined to devalue his work, the Catholic Encyclopaedia (1913) noting it was “prolific and workmanlike, always competent…” but with “…no originality; as a painter, he is merely a temperament, a prodigious worker. His manual dexterity is unaccompanied by any greatness of conception or high moral principle.  His lively but superficial fancy, incapable of deep emotion, of religious feeling, or even of observation, attracted him to neutral subjects, to mythological paintings, and imaginary scenes from the world of fable. Therein under the cloak of humanism, he gave expression to a sensualism rather libertine than poetical, an epicureanism unredeemed by any elevated or noble quality.  It is this which wins for Giulio his distinctive place in art.  His conception of form was never quite original; it was always a clever and bookish compromise between Raphael and Michelangelo.  His sense of color grows ever louder and uglier, his ideas are void of finesse, whatever brilliancy they show is second-hand. His single distinctive characteristic is the doubtful ease with which he played with the commonplaces of pagandom.  In this respect at least, paintings like those of the Hall of Psyche (1532) are historical landmarks.  It is the first time that an appeal is made to the senses with all the brutal frankness of a modern work”. 

Damning with faint praise perhaps.  Grudgingly, the editors did concede that despite being “…distinguished by such characteristics and marked by such defects, Romano occupies nevertheless an important place in the history of art. More than any other, he aided in propagating the pseudo-classical, half-pagan style of art so fashionable during the seventeenth century. It’s mainly through his influence that after the year 1600 we find so few religious painters in Europe”.

One could hardly expect The Catholic Encyclopedia (sub-titled An International work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, discipline and history of the Catholic Church), to find much worthy in a mannerist (or perhaps anything modern).  Mannerism, novel in some ways as it was, was rarely original in form or content.  It was a reaction against the perceived perfection of the neo-classicism of the High Renaissance and artists from Romano on were drawn to Greek mythology, characters like Psyche and Echo able simply and unambiguously to represent the psychological problems muddied by Christian theology.

Manikin & Mannequin

Manikin (pronounced man-i-kin)

(1) A man short in stature; (sometimes as a term of endearment but now archaic).

(2) In folklore, a dwarf; pygmy.

(3) An anatomically correct model of the human body (or a part of the body), used for teaching or demonstrating surgical and other clinical techniques; a specialized form is the phantom, an anatomical model of a fully developed fetus, for use in teaching midwifery or obstetrics.

(4) A three-dimensional figure, dummy or effigy representing a man or person (now replaced by mannequin), manikin now correctly used only in the medical context.

1560s: From the Dutch manneken (literally “little man”), a diminutive of the Middle Dutch mannekijn, from the Proto-Germanic manwaz, from the primitive Indo-European root man- (man).  The original meaning was "a jointed model of the human figure used by artists" and the sense and spelling is often blended with mannequin.  The early synonyms (in the context of small humans) included homunculus, midget, peewee, shorty, titman, & doll and (in the sense of the artificial creations) dummy, figure, mannequin & marionette.  The noun plural is manikins; the (rare) alternative spelling is mannikin.

Mannequin (pronounced man-i-kin)

(1) A styled and three-dimensional representation of the human form used in window displays, as of clothing; dummy.

(2) A figure or model of the human figure used by tailors, dress designers etc, for fitting or making clothes; historically made from timber but now constructed from many combinations of materials.

(3) A person employed to wear clothing to be photographed or to be displayed before customers, buyers etc; a clothes model (dated).

(4) In the visual arts, another name for a lay figure

1902: From the fifteenth century French mannequin (model to display clothes) from the Dutch manneken (model of the human figure used by artists).  Mannequin was the French form of the same word that yielded manikin and in English, was sometimes used in the sense "artificial man" (especially in translations, the trend apparently triggered by the frequency of use in early twentieth century translations of the works of Victor Hugo (1802–1885)).  Originally, it was applied to humans in the modern sense of “a model” and not until 1931 did it assume the meaning of “artificial human model figure to display clothing”.  A sideway variation was the later “clotheshorse” (a person whose chief interest and pleasure is dressing fashionably).  The noun plural is mannequins.

The difference between a Manikin and a Mannequin

Lindsay Lohan with several mannequins, New York Fashion Week, 2009.

Mannequin was a word once used where model would now be preferred, a person employed to wear clothes and carry accessories but since the 1930s a mannequin is a usually plastic or fibreglass emulation of the human form (in shape but not fine detail), typically found scattered throughout clothing and department stores, most famously as part of displays in shop-front windows.  Most mannequins represent a body shape within a fairly narrow range of dimensions but the industry recognizes eighteen different types including the obvious like “sexy” and “sporty” but there are also the niches such as pregnant people.  However, despite the industry's vocal embrace of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), impressionistically, it would seem the female mannequins on display still tend to the slender.

Manikins are also human shaped models but rather than being a fashion platform, they are used to help simulate medical, surgical, or clinical scenarios to assist in training and the honing of technique.  There are a variety of manikins and in the jargon of the medical devices industry, they range from low to high fidelity, the rating an indication of the degree of anatomical realism included, a high-fidelity manikin sometimes even including movement, speech, muscular reaction and facial expressions.  A high-fidelity manikin might include a complete set of internal organs and have many interchangeable parts whereas a low-fidelity model might be just a hollow shell used to teach students how to insert an IV or perfect the techniques of bandaging.

Manikins exist so those working in a clinical environment, from students to surgeons, can enjoy a safe environment in which to practice their skills, without the obvious risk of using live patients.  Although doctors continue, as they have for centuries, to murder their patients, rarely suffering any consequences due to the cozy legal apparatus known as “medical misadventure”, the use of manikins presumably lessens the slaughter of the innocent.  Like mannequins, manikins are designed for purpose and there are birthing simulators, newborn simulators, simulators that go into cardiac arrest, and even dental simulators.

L'Inconnue’s death mask.

Although anatomical models were used in medical training as early as the sixteenth century, the first manikin (in the modern understanding) was released in 1960 as a device for teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).  The design parameters were written by two physicians, Austrian Peter Safar (1924-2003) and American James Elam (1918–1995), the engineering and fabrication handled by Norwegan Åsmund Lærdal (1914-1981), head of a company with expertise in plastic molding from their experience as a manufacturer of children’s toys.  Famously, the face on the manikin is that of L'Inconnue (L'Inconnue de la Seine (The unknown woman of the Seine)).

Crowd at the public viewing portal of the Paris Morgue, circa 1890.

L'Inconnue, was probably about sixteen when she died in the late 1880s and although it’s not certain, most then concluded she took her own life.  As was done at the time, after her lifeless form was pulled from the River Seine at the Quai du Louvre, the corpse was put on public display at the Paris mortuary, a popular attraction and one justified by the purpose of hoping some of the dead might be identified.  Despite the daily crowd, none came forward to name L'Inconnue.  The dead waif however was far from unnoticed, many remarking on her unusually serene appearance and one much taken by her was the pathologist who performed the autopsy.  He had a plaster-cast taken of her face (a not uncommon practice) and within years, reproductions of L'Inconnue's alluring, deathly likeness were being sold throughout Europe, the mesmerizing mask, later describe by philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) as a "drowned Mona Lisa", fixed to the walls of drawing rooms, fashionable salons and the studios of (presumably already troubled) artists.  The silent beauty also attracted writers and early in the twentieth century there was a rash of imaginative fiction speculating about the short life of L'Inconnue, many melodramatic, most constructing a short, tragic life battered by ill fortune and finally taken by the waters of the Seine.  For writers, it was the lure of the tragic, death, water and a waif irresistibly romantic and in death she became the one of the great influencers of her age, described as “the aesthetic template for a whole generation of German girls who modeled their looks on her", adored in death as many authors liked to imagine she never was when alive.

L'Inconnue’s death mask would over the years attract artists and it’s been rendered in many materials including ceramics, copper, bronze, granite and even chocolate, seen as an icon and on canvas with a variety paints.

Decades later, L'Inconnue’s image would again be revived.  Åsmund Lærdal in the 1940s had been a manufacturer of small wooden toys but in the post-war years, attracted by the possibilities of the then novel plastic, he experimented with the soft, malleable substance and, finding it ideal for his purposes, embarked on mass-production, one of his products the acclaimed toy “Anne”, a baby with “sleeping eyes and natural hair".  Anne enjoyed international success and when told the two anesthesiologists, impressed by the life-like behavior of the doll’s plastic material, had asked if he could fabricate and mass-produce a life-sized adult manikin on which could be demonstrated their newly developed resuscitation technique, they found an attentive listener; some years earlier, Lærdal's two year old son had nearly drowned and had his father not forced the water from his airways, he too may well have died.  For a toymaker with expertise in the molding of plastic to form hollow toys, it was a formidable engineering challenge not only to create a realistic, functional maikin that reliably could be used to demonstrate the physical complexities of CPR but to design a mass-produced product which would be financially viable.

Resusci Anne in carry-case.

The technical specifications provided by the doctors had included a collapsible chest for practicing compressions and open lips to simulate mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but Lærdal, after discussions with his engineers, concluded it was also important the manikin should be recognizably female, suspecting men might be reluctant to practice CPR on a male doll's lips.  It was during the design process Lærdal recalled the enigmatic half-smile on a mask he'd seen on a wall while visiting relatives and it was this memory which inspired him to choose L'Inconnue.  Resusci Anne (Rescue Anne or CPR Anne in the US) was released in 1960 and was the first device of its type, so successful the Lærdal Toy Company soon transformed to become Lærdal Medical and it’s estimated over 300 million people around the world have been trained in CPR, most of them using Resusci Anne.  If L'Inconnue really did, as so many authors would have, take her own life in the depths of a despair only unrequited love can induce, fate would have her in death inspire Resusci Anne, called “the most kissed girl in the world”.

Perhaps surprisingly, Andy Warhol never took L'Inconnue as his subject.  This one is a fake.

Despite the sad charm of that, it couldn’t happen now, the ethics of making reproductions of a dead person's face and selling them without consent, un-discussed in the late nineteenth century, troubling today.  Were such a product now to be created and a life-like face was necessary, the visage would have to be either licensed or anonymized.  However, psychologists have conducted trials using a genuine Resusci Anne and one with no discernible facial characteristics and reported the more anthropomorphic appeared to enhance the realism of resuscitation training.  The researchers noted the face made CPR training more intense and stressful for both clinicians and lay-people but their follow-up questionnaires some months later revealed those who “kissed L'Inconnue” displayed a much higher recall of the techniques learned on the day.  She may have died forgotten, but in her immortal after-life, L'Inconnue is clearly memorable.

The romance of L'Inconnue is compelling but there have long been doubts about the original masks, sceptics suggesting it’s unlikely the flawless features could have come from a corpse fished from a river, the suspicion being a pretty young model might have been the source for the cast taken to take commercial advantage of the great public interest in the story of the young girl.  There are other theories too and the truth will never be known but L'Inconnue’s mystery is the essence of the strange tale.

Some assembly required: The Apprentice Doctor’s Full-Body Adult, Nursing and Trauma Manikin.

Supplied as a kit complete with burns, lacerations, and broken bones, it’s said to offer a realistic experience in the identification, assessment, treatment, and transport of trauma patients and disaster victims and can be used in forensic medicine and CSI training, working well as a manikin for crime scene simulation projects.  Prices start at US$1,199.00.

To ensure durability and ease of maintenance, the manikin contains no latex and the manufacturer cautions the kit (1) is intended exclusively for classroom instructional (educational) use and training purposes, (2) requires adult supervision and guidance for students under the age of 17 years and is not suitable for those under the age of 15 and (3) contains items that may pose a choking hazard to toddlers and babies (keep out of reach of these age groups).

Intended as a low-maintenance product, the post training cleaning routine consists of (1) after nasal feeding, gastric lavage, enema, male and female urethral catheterization procedures, empty all the residual liquid, used from the stomach, intestines and bladder, (2) Rinse all used tubes & catheters with water and dry for re-use and (3) if in disuse for an extended period of time, the manikin should be wiped clean, covered and placed in a cool, dry place; this will extend service life.

Art deco (though with some debt to mannerism) lady Mannequin bust in plaster for hat or jewelry display.  Just as there are flesh & blood models who specialize is one body part (hand models, foot models etc), there are also mannequins produced for the purpose of featuring just one or several body parts.

Fashion mannequins have been in use since the fifteenth century and were originally the head-forms with which milliners ensured a hat maintained the correct shape during construction.  Once a purely “back-of-house” or “workshop” device, as the price of glass was reduced by the adoption of techniques perfected by the late sixteenth century, glass-windows in shop-fronts became larger and more common so milliners essentially invented the “window display” in its modern form.  Although it had been the practice of many artisans and merchants to display their goods in this manner, it was the milliners who were first in fashion.  By the mid eighteenth century, full-scale, wickerwork mannequins were being used to display dresses, the more conveniently adjustable versions made with wire first manufactured in Paris in 1835.  However, the expansion of the trade created a demand for cheaper, lighter, non-adjustable forms which were purely a platform for display and the first (papier-mâché) female mannequins were sold in France in the mid-nineteenth century, the higher-end stores soon adopting mannequins made from wax which produced a more lifelike appearance but, expensive and apt to be fragile, the wax was in the 1920s supplanted by a more durable composite material, based on plaster.

Statuesque: Two mannequins in the window display of Chanel Shop, Prince's Building, Central Chater Road, Hong Kong.

Modern mannequins are almost always made from plastic or fiberglass although the, as marketing devices, the haute couture houses have used (sometimes stylized) one-off mannequins made from metal and even what was claimed to be carbon-fibre though experts quickly pronounced it fake (as opposed to faux).  Fiberglass mannequins are usually more expensive than plastic and tend to be more fragile but can be rendered in a more life-like form which can be done with plastics but not at a reasonable cost.  In fact, the trend in recent years has been for plastic mannequins to eschew any attempt to appear realistic, presumably to ensure the focus fixes on the clothes.  Artists have also used articulated mannequins (historically known as lay figures), as a tool to assist the rendition of draped figures, the advantage being that unlike a live model (on an hourly rate), a mannequin can be kept indefinitely immobile or adjusted as required.  Additionally, they don’t complain about the cold, demand lunch or take cigarette breaks.

Vintage Playtex Cross Your Heart wire-free bra in beige, displayed on fibreglass mannequin.  For specific purposes, mannequins are sometimes produced with certain aspects scaled beyond the usual size range.

While there are variations which tend to be product-deterministic (and the upper ranges of the alphabet in the bra business is an obvious niche), the size and shape of most mannequins exists in a predictably narrow range and one acknowledged to be smaller in most dimensions (except height) than either the majority of the adult female population or that aligned to the majority of the garments actually sold.  In this of course it follows the profile of the industry’s live models who are famously taller, lighter and thinner than all but a handful of their customers although, under pressure from activists, this pattern is now (slightly) less extreme than once it was, despite many wishing those days would return.  Before we called models models we called them mannequins and, flesh, plastic or fibreglass, little has changed as an extract from The Bystander’s (a British weekly magazine which in 1940 merged with Tatler to be published as The Tatler & Bystander until 1968) edition of 15 August 1906 suggests:

”A mannequin is a good-looking, admirably formed young lady, whose mission is to dress herself in her employer's latest "creations" and to impart to them the grace which only perfect forms can give.  Her grammar may be bad, and her temper worse, but she must have the chic the Parisienne possesses, no matter whether she hails from the aristocratic Faubourg St. Germain or from the Faubourg Montmartre.”