Colors

This bottle is made by great grandmother “Biji ” Swaran Kaur , before her marriage somewhere in 1935-36, in her parental home village “Pur Hiran “, Jalandhar, Punjab. It is a valuable possession that has been handed down from generation to generation. It represents a family tree. An arrangement of small toys and figurines in a vintage glass bottle made good 82 yrs back! There is a doll for each member of the family.

During those times girls were taught to acquire some skills like learning embroidery, knitting, colourful naala string making, soft cloth toys like “gudia” doll, cloth balls known as “Khuddo” , cooking paintings, bamboo basket known as “chabba” to keep rotis, parathas (today casserole) , jute mat durries, rajai quilt…,similarly such show items bottle to display their skills .This used to be the proud part of their dowry! to impress the would be in- laws !!

Note , This beautiful bottle needs focus and patience to systematically arrange and make just through a small opening on the top!

Also birds, flowers and plants are shown which tells the respect of nature and Eco friendly living. If you note minutely the figurines are well dressed and wearing jewellery, costumes which indicates taste and culture of that period. The colors on the plastic dolls have faded and the silver on the pearls almost look rusty which adds to the vintage look that is visible through the cloudy glass bottle.

Week 13

From discussing Napolean  we shifted to discussing about India and its ancient history.

Right fromt the Indus valley civilization in 3300 BCE,  to the vedic period and Mauryan empire in 200 BCE, The medieval period with the Mughals invading India in 1526, And then entered the British with their colonial rule in 1757.

Week 12

Crusades objects:

AL AQSA MOSQUE

This is the third holiest site in Islam, located in the old city of Jerusalem. It is believed that Muhammed migrated from mecca to medina and resided in this mosque. When the crusaders took over they used the dome as a church and the mosque as a palace. It underwent a lot of destruction from earthquakes and invasions and was rebuilt .

SAINTE CHAPEL

It is a gothic style royal chapel in Paris where the King of France lived until the 14th century. Its interiors are also beautifully painted .The original colors are believed to be brighter than the reconstruction ones despite of most of it being stained glass.

SALADIN’S TOMB DAMACUS

He fought the crusaders bravely and defeated them in the Battle of Hattin. He died and was buried adjacent to Umayyad Mosque. He is known as the most famous king in Kurd history.

THE WAR WOLF

The Warwolf accurately hurled missiles weighing as much as three hundred pounds (140 kg) and levelled a large section of the curtain wall.

Week 11

CARPET PAGES

These are pages decorated with geometrical patterns and placed before each of the four gospels in the gospel book. They have brilliant colors ,active lines, and symmetrical designs.

LINDISFARNE GOSPELS

This manuscript is known to be written by a monk named Eadfrith. However some parts were left unfinished so it is believed that he was still working on it at the time of his death .

BUST OF CHARLEMAGNE

It’s supposed to contain charlemagne’s scull cap,it’s a masterpiece of gothic metalwork.

MAGNA CARTA

It was first drafted as a peace treaty between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons. It promised justice and protection and limitations.

Week 10

Caroligian art

This art originated from the Frankish empire under the reign of Charlemagne .There were illuminated manuscripts that were adorned with jewels set in gold.This had figures that suggested a narrative and were prestige objects. This style was mostly scene in the wall paintings of churches and frescos.

 

Romanesque Art

The objects made during this period had a greater value than the paintings.Stained glass was widely used and mostly primary colors where used and had a striking appearance.They had elaborate scripts with calligraphy.

Gothic Art

Increased literacy rates led to representation of secular themes.The old testament and new testament scenes were depicted side by side. Stylewise the figures seemed more animated .Stained glass and illuminescense played a major role.

Ottoman art

 

Week 9

We spoke about the Roman empire in more detail.

This summarises most of what we learnt about in that class. We discussed about when christianity came into picture and were asked to make a mind map of roman history.

Week 8

We had a great debate today. I belonged to the city state of Delos. The debate started off with a trade round where points were added or subtracted according to the items that were bought or sold among the city states and athens , sparta and persia. Then we moved onto the alliance round which was very interesting.Since Delos has a naval base , athens , sparta and persia, all of them fought for our alliance. We ended up pairing with Athens and managed to get Rhodes to be a part of the Delian League. We were leading with 308 points when Sparta and Argos came into alliance along with Corinth. Persia tried really hard but I personally felt that the city states were biased because in history Persia actually ends up losing . Then we also faced a plague, wherein half of our population died, and yet we won after we had a tie with sparta and then the oracles decided to roll a dice and we got the higher number of points.

Week 7

We watched a documentary and took notes.

It basically summed up a lot of what was taught later in the lecture. The laws followed in ancient rome provoked a thought in me about the voting system so i cleared my doubts with the faculty.

Week 6

We discussed in class about how the debate would proceed. Our faculty told us of all the details we need to research on so we can contribute in the debate.This seemed very interesting to me, like a game of Catan where we would kind of rewrite history by trading with the city states etc.

Week 5

We discussed about the war strategies of Persia . It was a very informative class . We saw a documentation of the Cyrus cylinder and how it holds importance for everyone till date. By the time the new babylonian empire emerged the King got a reputation similar to that of God and became a god king.We also discussed about the hellenistic period , Oracle of delphi and Athens and Spartas relationship. The class ended with a little discussion on Alexander the great.