Vexed in the Islands

Today is VexiDay, or World Vexillology Day, a day to celebrate flags of all types (vexillology is the study of flags). With the Paris Olympics and Paralympics still floating around in our memory I thought it would be appropriate to look at a couple of national flags designed by lgbt people.

A quick word about national flags. National flags do not necessarily represent an independent nation. The term has also come to be used for any flag adopted by a constituent nation, dependent territory or autonomous region that is recognised and used by them nationally and internationally. Wales, Guam and Hong Kong have national flags, even though none of them are independent.

Long-time readers may remember that I wrote about Prince George of Greece and Denmark (1869-1957) and his involvement with the first modern Olympics in 1896. I also mentioned how he became the High Commissioner and Governor General of Crete in 1898. In fact, he was often just referred to as the Prince of Crete.

During the years of fighting between Cretan Christians and Ottoman Turks over control of the island several flags flew over Crete, all claiming to be its national flag. Crete was part of the Ottoman Empire, so the Turks supported the flying of the Ottoman flag. Conversely, the Cretan Christians who wanted to become part of Greece supported the Greek national flag. There were also several other flags used by both sides.

The Ottoman Empire had reluctantly agreed to let Crete by governed by the Great Powers (UK, France, Russia and Italy) as a sort of peace-keeping force. As such they didn’t support the use of any of the flags. The Great Powers flew their own national flags over the areas where they had particular control, like Berlin after World War II partitioned in 1945 between UK, USA, France and the Soviet Union.

After the Great Powers appointed Prince George as High Commissioner the race was on to design a new national flag to be raised on his arrival to take up his position. The main concern was to choose a design that did not upset any of the ethnic or religious communities.

Prince George designed his own flag (labelled A below). Almost immediately, his design came under criticism, primarily because it contained a common symbol of Greek nationalism – a Greek Orthodox Christian cross. In fact, it had 2 of them. The white cross on a blue background was also used on flags by Cretan Christian groups attacking Muslims and Turks. There seemed to be an obvious bias by Prince George to promote Crete joining Greece.

The Russians proposed flag B above, but this went the other way – the crescent, red and green are Muslim and Ottoman symbols. With just 3 days before Prince George arrived on Crete the Great Powers decided on flag C, a variation of Prince George’s idea. Red and the star were intended to represent the Ottoman Turks and Cretan Muslims. They refused to fly it. However, the design stayed and was used on Cretan banknotes right up to the day Crete eventually fulfilled its desire to become part of Greece in 1913.

The flag of Crete was never displayed at an Olympic Games, but in 1906 the so-called Intercalated Olympic Games (which until 1949 the IOC regarded as official) took place. Although Crete was still officially part of the Ottoman Empire, 8 athletes were listed as competing for Crete, though in the official report they were counted as part of the Greek team.

Even if Prince George didn’t see his flag fly at the Olympics, one lgbt artist did, and it was there again in Paris 2024.

From a vexillo-historical point of view the national flag of the United Kingdom is the one that has appeared at the most Olympics due to its inclusion in so many past and present other flags of its colonies and territories. Though the UK’s flag wasn’t designed by someone in the lgbt community (as far as anyone knows), the original design which excluded the red diagonal cross was chosen by King James of England and Scotland, who certainly was.

The biggest increase in the creation of distinctive national flags came in the 1950s and 1960s as many current nations were attaining their independence from colonial powers (plus one or two nations, like Canada, who decided to change theirs).

The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago gained independence in 1962. Prior to that they were British colonies who used the flag illustrated below left, showing their coat of arms. This is the flag used by Trinidad and Tobago at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games up till then.

In May 1962, only 3 months before independence, Trinidad and Tobago decided to adopt a brand new flag and coat of arms. The Independence Committee appointed 7 people to form a flag and arms sub-committee. These people included museum directors, politicians and one designer.

The designer was Carlisle Chang (1921-2001), a gay artist born in Trinidad of Chinese immigrant parents. Today Chang is regarded as the father of Trinidadian Art. He designed carnival costumes, painted murals, and was an interior designer.

Chang was also no stranger to the world of flags and heraldry. In 1957 he was a member of the committee that designed the flag and coat of arms of the short-lived West Indies Federation (1958-1962). Although the design of the Federation flag is credited to Edna Manley, it is believed that the coat of arms (below left) was primarily Chang’s work.

As far as Trinidad and Tobago is concerned, both the coat of arms (above, next to the West Indies Federation coat of arms) and the familiar diagonally striped flag (above right) are Chang’s work. Official sources claim that several designs were submitted to the Independence Committee, but there is not record of anything but Chang’s design. The sources also claim that it was the sub-committee who designed the flag but, as the interview with Chang below makes clear, he was the only one truly dedicated to the project and the contribution of the other 6 members was negligible.

After I had finished writing this article, news emerged that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Rowley, had announced his intention of altering Chang’s design of the coat of arms. In a world where colonial symbolism is being replaced with traditional local emblems, Dr. Rowley has suggested that the 3 ships on the shield, representing those which brought Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean, should be replaced by 3 traditional steelpan drums. I like this idea.

The concept of decolonising national emblems is a good way to express national identity and to show a period of successful independence, but does it go far enough to justify de-colonisalism as a reason? I wonder if Dr. Rowley also supports that changing of his nation’s name. Trinidad is the name given to the island by the very colonists he wants to remove from the coat of arms.

Next time you see the flag of Trinidad and Tobago you can put a name to the gay man who designed it, Carlisle Chang, and ponder on the irony that Trinidad and Tobago is still one of the many homophobic nations in the Caribbean.

(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World: 4) Art in Italy

Last time on “80 Gays”: Partners 9) Robert Ferro (1941-1988) and 10) Michael Grumley (1942-1988) co-wrote a book about Atlantic, the latter also writing about Bigfoot (the subject of a novel by 11) Samantha Leigh Allen), and after whom a literary prize is named which grants winners residency at the Art Workshop International founded by 12) Bea Kreloff (1925-2016) and 13) Edith Isaac Rose (1929-2018).

The Art Workshop International is a summer school offering courses in several creative arts – writing, painting, art history – while at the same time offering attendees the opportunity to experience the culture on a famous town in Italy. The second of this summer’s sessions ended a couple of weeks ago.

Several well-known lgbt artists and writers have been among the tutors during the 2-week courses, including 5) Edmund White, and Dorothy Allison (number 28 in my 2020 edition of “80 More Gays Around the World”).

The Art Workshop’s founders, 12) Bea Kreloff and 13) Edith Isaac Rose, met at the opening of an exhibition in 1980. There was an instant connection and they found kindred spirits in each other. They had a lot in common. They were both children of eastern European immigrants – Bea’s from Russia, and Edith’s from Hungary and from what is now Poland. Both of their fathers were in the clothing industry – Bea’s father was a tailor, and Edith’s father made women’s coats. And both Bea and Edith were married.

Bea Kreloff was born Beatrice Magit in 1925. In 1944 she married Bernard Krulovetsky, another child of east European immigrants. He soon shortened his name to Kreloff, and Bea kept her married name for the rest of her life. The couple had two sons.

Edith Isaac Rose was born Edith Ganansky in 1929. In 1950 she married Charles Leitelbaum (often mistakenly called Teitelbaum), again, a child of east European immigrants. They separated in the early 1980s.

In 1950 Bea and Edith were both studying art. Bea entered the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Afterwards she became a private art tutor whilst producing her own work. In the 1970s she became Chair of the Art Department at the Ethical Culture Fieldson School, Riverside, New York City. By this time she had separated from her husband and have moved with her sons into accommodation provided by the charitable organisation, the Westbeth Artists’ Residents Council in Manhattan.

Edith Isaac Rose graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1951. Moving to New York City a few years later she also became an artist and decided to drop her married name and adopted the first names of her parents, Isaac and Rose, for her professional work. Edith’s artwork became increasingly more influenced by social issues, such as political corruption and social inequality. She also expanded into other media, including embroidery. She used all media to produce a body of work in the 1980s, a series of works called “Daily Rage” which displayed which reflected her own left-wing opinions.

The year after Bea and Edith met at that exhibition, Edith left her husband and went to live with Bea. They remained together until Beas’ death in 2016.

The Art Workshop International which the couple founded in 1981 was established in the historic town of Assisi in Italy. Of course, this town is famous for its association with one man, whom we met two years ago, 14) St. Francis of Assisi (c.1187-1226).

Scholars are still discussing the nature of St. Francis’s sexuality. It may never be known. Within the Franciscan Order, which he founded, the attitudes towards homosexuality have changed as society’s attitudes have changed. As a Catholic organisation the Franciscan stance on homosexuality at the moment is “love the sinner, hate the sin”. When I began studying as a Methodist lay preacher several decades ago I began researching Christian doctrine on homosexuality – apart from atheists, no genuinely Christian denomination has ever declared homosexuality one of the sins, except Christian leaders who abuse their position of influence and express their own personal view and claim it is doctrine. Even Popes have done this.

Today, all Catholics are encouraged to treat members of the lgbt community with the respect due to all humans. Some of their doctrines may be homophobic. All organisations have the right to make their own rules which their members are expected to follow, that’s democracy. But change doesn’t always come from outside. The Catholic Church cannot change (in other words, make it more acceptable to those who aren’t Catholic) if there are no lgbt Christians within in to influence change. Even though the Franciscans do not yet accept same-sex marriage within its Order they don’t apply this to same-sex marriage outside it. Some Franciscan friars openly campaigned for same-sex marriage in the USA before it became legal.

Like I said earlier, most established denominations (I don’t recognise the many blatantly homophobic US independent evangelical churches as Christian) “love the sinner, hate the sin”, so there should be no surprise to learn there are lgbt+ Christians can, and have, become church leaders. That brings me on to our next individual, an openly gay Franciscan friar who is currently the equivalent of a Franciscan bishop, 15) Brother Markus Fuhrmann (b.1971).

Next time of “80 Gays”: Some right royal visitors bring gender variation to Cologne, with a sweet smell that leads to a transformation.

Heraldic Alphabet 2022

Welcome to my 9th Heraldic Alphabet celebrating International Heraldry Day with coats of arms in the lgbt community. Some nations don’t yet allow women to use shields, only ovals or diamond shaped lozenges. For the sake of uniformity I will only use shields. Let’s start with some basic definitions.

Arms of Office – arms of an institution of which a person was the nominal head, used only during their term of office.

Assumed – arms adopted by a person or family where no heraldic authority exists in their lifetime or location, or are not officially registered if one does exist.

Attributed - arms designed retrospectively to historical or legendary people who lived before heraldry existed.

Family – arms usually borne by the senior bloodline family member. Other family members are often required to add certain differences. Some nations allow all family members to use the arms unaltered.

Marital – Both spouses with a coat of arms can place them side by side on one shield. Heraldic heirs place theirs on a smaller shield or lozenge over their spouse’s. Wives can also display the arms of their husband only.

Personal – a) inherited family arms used by the individual, with or without specific differences; or b) new arms granted by an official heraldic authority.

Quarters – a minimum of 4 divisions of a shield with a different inherited coat of arms in each. Some individuals are entitled to bear many more quarters. The quarters are numbered left to right, row by row.

Without further ado, here is the 2022 Heraldic Alphabet (peers are listed by their title):

A) Alexander the Great (356 BC- 323 BC), King of Macedonia. Attributed arms. Alexander had many coats of arms designed by medieval heralds. This is the earliest I can find. For more information see this article.

B) Countess Erszsébet (Elizabeth) Báthori (1560-1614), serial killer. Family arms granted to her paternal ancestor in 1325. It represents dragons’ teeth, reflecting the legend of the family’s founder killing a dragon. Sometimes the teeth are shown coming from the other side. Over the years the teeth have also became stylised as white triangles. All versions have been used by the family.

C) Sir Henry Channon (1897-1958), Anglo-American member of the UK parliament. Personal arms, probably granted to him in the 1930s after being naturalised as a British citizen. I haven’t found any information about these arms or its symbolism.

D) Olga de Meyer (1871-1931), artists’ model and arts patron. Family arms, being the arms of the Caracciolo family of Naples (Olga’s paternal grandfather was Giuseppe Antonio Caraccciolo Pinelli, 4th Duke of Castelluccio). Olga married twice and could have borne marital arms in each case.

E) Erté (1892-1990), real name Roman Petrovich Tyrtov, Russo-French costume and set designer. Family arms of the Tyrtov family. Erté was a direct descendant of 16th century Tatar warlords who were granted a coat of arms by the Tsar of Russia.

F) Clyde Fitch (1865-1909), US dramatist. Family arms of the Fitch family of Norfolk, UK, from whom Clyde descends. This is an example of a family with “ancient” and “modern” arms. In quarters 1 and 4 are the modern arms adopted around 1633. In quarters 2 and 3 are the ancient arms used before 1633. The crosses are allusive (they allude to the family in some way). When ending in a point crosses are known as “fitchy” or “fitchée”.

G) Capt. Richard Gorges (1876-1944), implicated in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. Personal arms as the 3rd son (indicated by the star) of his father. Another “ancient” and “modern” arms. The ancient arms is the blue spiral in the 3rd quarter representing a whirlpool. They are canting arms (i.e. exactly representing the family name – “gorges” is Latin for “whirlpool”). The family were involved in a court case in 1347 over who was entitled to use the blue and yellow checked arms in the 1st quarter. The Gorges lost and had to add the red chevron. In the 2nd quarter are the arms of the Russell family who adopted the Gorges name after becoming their heirs. The 4th quarter shows the arms of Richard;s mother, the heir of the O'Kelly family.

H) Tim Hely Hutchinson (b.1953), publisher. Personal arms as the 2nd son (indicated by the crescent) of the Earl of Donoughmore. In quarters 1 and 4 are the Hutchinson arms; in quarter 2 are the Hely arms, his paternal ancestors who married the Hutchinson heiress; and in quarter 3rd are the Nickson arms, whose heiress married into the Hely family.

I) Francesco Italia (b.1972), Mayor of Syracuse, Sicily, since 2018. Arms of office, being those of the town of Syracuse granted on 8 December 1942 by the Consulta Araldica del Regno d’Italia. The eagle holding a heraldic thunderbolt has been a popular Italian emblem since the Roman Empire, and is said to represent Jupiter. Other sources say it represents Jupiter as Zeus in eagle form when he kidnapped Ganymede. See here for the queer angle on that story.

J) John Sam Jones (b.1956), Mayor of Barmouth, Wales, 2014-15. Arms of office, being those of the town of Barmouth (probably assumed). I can find no record of them being officially granted, though they have been used for over a century and appear on the mayoral chain of office and the council website, amongst other places. The dragon’s head refers to a legendary sea monster said to haunt the shores of Barmouth.

K) Robert King, 4th Earl of Kingston (1796-1867), Anglo-Irish politician. Personal arms as the Earl of Kingston, first known to have been used by his ancestor Sir John King (d.1637) which appear in Sir John’s funeral entry recorded at the College of Arms, London. There is probably no connection between these and the O’Kelly arms (see Richard Gorges above).

L) Frances Norma Loring (1887-1968), US-Canadian sculptor. Assumed family arms, used by her ancestors, the Lorings of Hingham, Massachusetts, descended from the Lorings of Axminster, Devon, UK. However, these arms are recorded as those of the Lorings of Suffolk on the opposite side of the country. I can find no link between the two families. The Suffolk family arms appear on a tombstone of Frances’s ancestral relatives in the Old Granary Burial Ground, Boston, Massachusetts, indicating the family had assumed them before the 18th century.

M) The Mann family. Family arms. Thomas Mann (1815-1955), German writer, his daughter Erika Mann (1905-1969), and two of his sons, Klaus Mann (1906-1959) and Golo Mann (1909-1994), were all members of the lgbt community. The arms was adopted in 1840 by their ancestor Johann Siegmund Mann (1761-1848) upon his election as President of the St. Anna almshouses, Lübeck. Whether they were officially registered or granted is uncertain. The Manns were wealthy merchants and the arms feature Mercury, the god of commerce.

N) Maria Nirod (1879-1965), Maid of Honour at the Imperial Russian court. Family arms of her paternal family, the Mukhanovs of St. Petersburg. In 1903 she married Count Feydor Nirod and could have used his coat of arms. After his death in 1913 Maria became a surgical nurse and partner of Vera Gedroitz (see her arms here).

O) Jayne Ozanne (b.1968), member of the General Synod of the Church of England. Family arms of her paternal ancestors on Guernsey, Channel Islands. Although some sources state that the Ozanne family had a coat of arms in the 14th century this design is more reminiscent of arms often granted in the 16th. My research is incomplete, and Jayne may descend from members of the family who were granted an altered version of these arms in the 18th century.

P) Katherine Phillips (1631-1664), poet, sometimes called “the Welsh Sappho”. Marital arms, being those of her husband, James Phillips, MP (d.1674). James descended from the third son (indicated by the star) of Sir Thomas Philipps (yes, the name is spelt differently) of Picton Castle.

R) Frederick “Russ” Russell-Rivoallan, UNESCO diplomat. Personal arms granted to him on 15 December 2010 by the Canadian Heraldic Authority. Red and white represent Canada, while ermine represents Brittany (whose arms are ermine), the home of his partner, Pierre Rivoallan. The dovetail division symbolises the dove of peace, and the tree represents Brampton, Ontario, where Russ was raised – the city’s flag contains a pine tree.

S) Edith Jemima Simcox (1844-1901), trade unionist and social reformer. Family arms, being those of her father George Price Simcox, the 2nd son (indicated by the crescent) of Thomas Greene Simcox of Harborne, Staffordshire. The arms were granted by the College of Arms on 16 May 1821 to Thomas’s father.

T) Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), Italian poet. Family arms used since the 15th century. Like Gorges above these are canting arms – “tasso” is Italian for “badger”. The horn appears in the arms of the town of Cornello where the family originate. It may also represent a post horn, the Tasso family founded the European postal service. The senior branch of the family were postmasters for the German Emperor who granted a double-headed eagle to replace the horn. The family germanised their name to Taxis and are the ancestors of the Princes von Thurnund Taxis, who still have a badger in the centre of their arms today.

U) Nicolas Chalon du Blé, 2nd Marquis of Uxelles (1852-1730), Marshal of France. Personal arms as the marquis. These are the family arms of the du Blé family, used since the 1200s. The Uxelles title comes through the marriage of an ancestor to the heiress of the Baron d’Uxelles in 1537.

V) Carl van Vechten (1880-1964), American writer and photographer. Family arms, being those of his direct ancestor Teunis Dircksen van Vechten of Utrecht. Teunis migrated to the US in the 1630s. A variation which shows the bar on a red background with battlements only on the top edge of the stripe is recorded in some sources.

W) Mary Spencer Watson (1913-2006), British sculptor. Possible family arms. These are carved into the memorial stone of her father George Spencer Watson in St. James’s church, Piccadilly, London. Although the family can be traced back to 17th century Yorkshire, there’s no clear link between this family and another of the same name living in the same place at the same time, who had a different coat of arms.

Y) Anna Yevreinova (1844-1919), feminist writer and the first Russian woman to earn a Doctor of Law degree. Family arms, granted to her Jewish ancestral uncle, Yakov Evrienov (1700-1772), State Councillor, and inherited by his descendants only. So, technically, Anna would not have been entitled to use them, but I’ve included them out of interest.

Extraordinary Life: The Japanese da Vinci - Part 2

After a really horrible first quarter of the year in which I have been battling illness, I really must apologise and catch up on my planned schedule. Last summer I wrote about the samurai who has been called the Japanese Leonardo da Vinci, Hiraga Gennai (1728-1870). The parallels between them aren’t exact but the sheer scope of Hiraga’s activity is more than enough to justify the comparison.

In that first article we left Hiraga relinquishing his feudal duties and abandoning any responsibilities to any feudal lord. He had the independence to pursue his own interests. A chronological survey of his life would see us jumping from one discipline to another. Individual surveys of each will reveal a better picture of Hiraga’s genius.

Let’s begin with the main focus of Part 1, which was Hiraga’s use of marketing. Product promotion isn’t something that was created in recent decades. The spread of the printing press across the globe from the 14th century helped to spread advertising and promotion more widely than any previous method. In Japan the development of printing during the first part of the Edo Period (1603-1868) saw a big increase in marketing, especially after paper prices began to drop.

The three main methods of advertising were product sponsorship of events, distribution of printed leaflets, and promotion of products during seasonal festivals. In fact, this is very much what we still see today. Hiraga used all of these methods. The third method was highlighted in Part 1 with his suggestion of promoting eels during the Midsummer Day of the Ox. This influenced others to sell their products and services in similar ways.

Among the other products Hiraga had a major hand in promoting was tooth powder, but he was also instrumental in the development of regional expositions of local products. He arranged several expositions from 1757, sending out invitations to potential exhibitors, writing and printing catalogues and promotional material and publicising them across a wide area. These expos increased national awareness in natural sciences such as pharmacology, agriculture and mining.

Hiraga’s interest in mining led to the setting up of several mining projects. Even though these eventually failed they did lead to the creation of the Arakawa River which greatly helped in the shipping of coal. One alarming mining project was finding a way to turn asbestos deposits into fire-resistant cloth.

Most of Hiraga’s accomplishments were influenced by his contact with Dutch merchants. The Dutch and Chinese were the only foreign merchants allowed into Japan and from them Hiraga learnt of the arts and sciences not known in Japan. Hiraga’s insatiable quest for knowledge drew him to the Dutch like a magnet. This made him a pioneer in Dutch studies in Japan, which is known as Rangaku.

Everything Hiraga learnt about European advances in science and technology came through observation and experimentation rather than formal tutoring. One of the devices he came across during his contact with Dutch merchants was a broken static electric generator. By disassembling it and working out how each part worked Hiraga managed to get the generator working again. It took him several years and the result caused a sensation. He gave public demonstrations of it working and gave electrotherapy to patients. Copies were made and other people began to use them in market places.

Another result of Hiraga’s contact with the Dutch was influenced by his knowledge of mineralogy and chemistry. As I mentioned above he developed mining techniques and he located a particularly good source of clay for producing high quality pottery. He persuaded the government to help him set up kilns and workshops, aimed at reducing the reliance on obtaining pottery from China or Holland. With influences from Dutch pottery Hiraga developed a new style that combined both Dutch and Japanese elements. This style became very popular and is now named after him – Gennai ware.

Hiraga’s knowledge of geology also led him to investigate the use of minerals in the production of paints and dyes. You’ll not be surprised to learn that Hiraga was an accomplished painter. Unfortunately, very little of his work survives, and there’s only one of his oil paintings known to exist today.

If you’ve read Part 1 of this Extraordinary Life you’ll probably be intrigued by a particular comment I made and are eager to know more. It was about Hiraga writing a book about farting whose title translates into English as “The Theory of Farting”. The title makes it sound like the book is a serious study of the subject, but is actually a satirical novel (Hiraga loved writing satire, which was a popular genre in his lifetime). The “Theory” is more of a discussion than a novel, not unlike ancient Greek philosophical works. The author describes his encounter with a street performer who could fart tunes and animal noises. A fellow spectator is appalled at the performance but the author goes into a speech on how farting is superior to any other art form. The performer is self taught, not a product of a school where he was taught to copy previous artists using established instruments and techniques. Hiraga is taking a dig at the artistic establishment, even though he was part of it himself. It reminds me of a performer called Methane Man who had a similar farting act and appeared on “Britain’s Got Talent”.

Hiraga was not just a satirist. He could turn his hand to other literary forms. His pioneering use of marketing was utilised in the catalogues he wrote for his many trade expositions; he write scientific books; and he write poetry. Hiraga’s homosexuality played a role in other works, such as a guide book on male prostitutes and passages on gay sex in his novels. One of his novels I am really interested to read is “Furyu shidoken”, Hiraga’s version of “Gulliver’s Travel”. The stories are not exact in content because it’s unlikely that Hiraga had actually seen a copy of “Gulliver’s Travels”. He may have heard snippets about the novel from his Dutch contacts and used these as inspiration for his own novel.

With the extraordinary variety of disciplines Hiraga Gennai took up it is highly appropriate to compare him with Leonado da Vinci. However, unlike da Vinci, Hiraga’s life ended on a down note. Several accounts of his final year vary in the detail but agree on the final outcome. In 1779 Hiraga was arrested for murder (of a carpenter or one of his disciples). Hiraga was imprisoned and died in jail at the end of the year.

Many scholarly works on Hiraga Gennai repeat the word “extraordinary” when describing his works, deeds and legacy. Like so much of east Asian history, comparatively very little is known in the west. While Hiraga may be unknown to the majority outside Japan in his native country, even in modern anime, his name is well known and familiar.

Extraordinary Life: The Japanese Da Vinci - Part 1

Today the Japanese are celebrating something other than the Olympics. Today is the Midsummer Day of the Ox. On this day the Japanese celebrate the season by eating eels. I bet you thought that as it was the Day of the Ox that they’d be eating beef, but you’d be wrong. But there’s a simple explanation as to why eels are eaten, and legend says that that it’s all due to a gay inventor, engineer, writer, artist, ceramicist, pharmacist event organiser, and marketing executive called Hiraga Gennai (1728-1780). It’s no surprise that some historians have labelled him the Japanese Leonardo da Vinci.

Hiraga Gennai’s life was so extraordinary, in some ways ahead of his time, that it needs two separate articles. Perhaps the most extraordinary fact about him is that he wrote books on farting! Today, however, I’ll concentrate on his early life, his rise to fame and his connection to the Midsummer Day of the Ox.

Let’s start, though, with the Day of the Ox itself. The day gets it name from its location in the Chinese calendar, which the Japanese used from the 6th century until 1873. Just like the Chinese New Year, the Midsummer Day of the Ox is not a fixed date and varies from year to year. The day was known to the Japanese for centuries, but how did eels become specifically associated with it?

There’s a traditional Japanese saying that says that if you eat eels on Midsummer Day of the Ox you won’t suffer from the heat, and it gets scorching hot in Japan at this time of year, as I’m sure we can tell by watching the Olympics.

The eels became important during the Edo Period (1603-1868). This is also called the Tokugawa Period because it was founded by the shoguns of the Tokugawa dynasty. This is a family that my most regular readers may remember from older articles. The fifth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646-1709), was the subject of this article I wrote in 2019. I also mentioned his father here.

During the hot summers of Tokugawa Period Japan eels were not eaten very often. It wasn’t regarded as a summer food. Eel vendors were finding it difficult and unpredictable to sell all their eels, and the price varied according to demand. A couple of generations after the above-mentioned shogun there was one eel vendor who complained about not knowing from one day to the next if he’ll have to throw away most of his unsold produce.

It is fortunate that this vendor turned to Hiraga Gennai for advice. Hiraga came up with an effective marketing strategy. He told the vendor to put up a sign outside his shop saying “Midsummer Day of the Ox”. Of course, everyone knew what day it was, but Hiraga suggested to the vendor that he promote the eating of eels to keep cool during the summer heat. The idea worked, and the vendor sold all his eels. After that, all the other eel vendors followed suit, and it soon turned into an annual tradition.

That’s the legend. There’s no real evidence that it happened like that but it illustrates the influence of Hiraga Gennai in Japanese culture, particularly his reputation as a product marketer. To this day historians aren’t sure why this marketing plan worked. So, how great was Hiraga? Is his reputation as a Japanese Leonardo da Vinci justified? I’ll take a closer look at these questions next week, but for today let’s look at his early life.

Hiraga was born into a samurai family of the Yamashita clan. His father was a manager in the rice warehouse of the Takamatsu daimyo (or feudal lord) and young Hiraga showed an early interest in plants and herbs. He studied medicinal herbs at Osaka and was then employed as a sort of pharmacologist in the herb garden of his daimyo.

In 1749, at the age of 21, Hiraga succeeded his father as warehouse manager. He spent two years studying in Nagasaki, where he came into contact with European merchants, specifically the Dutch. On his return to the rice warehouse he resigned and relinquished his position of head of his household to his brother-in-law.

After travelling and studying around Japan he gained a reputation as an intelligent scholar and was called upon by his daimyo to perform several official duties. Once again, Hiraga resigned. He was no what you could call an independent spirit, a ronin, a samurai not attached to any feudal lordship. As such he was not allowed to serve any official duty. This gave him the freedom to continue studying and travelling. He gained more experience of Dutch culture and this influenced his future career which, in turn, influenced Japanese culture.

It is from this time that Hiraga Gennai turned into one of the most extraordinary men in 18th century Japan. This will be the focus of part 2 of this look at this Japanese da Vinci, which will appear sometime in March 2022.

Franciscan Friends

In my 2019 Advent series I wrote about the creation of the Nativity scene placed in churches around the world at Christmas. The very first one was created by one of the most famous saints in history – St. Francis of Assisi (c.1187-1226).

It is on this day in 1209 the St. Francis founded the Order of Friars Minor, more popularly known as the Franciscans. The queerness of St. Francis is only just being examined and discussed in any great detail among academics. After writing my Advent article I looked further into what research was being done and my original opinion has changed slightly.

Throughout his life St. Francis expressed a flexibility of gender labels used for himself and his beliefs. He adopted the names of Lady Poverty and Mother. The first of these came about from a divine encounter contained in his first biography written by a contemporary and acquaintance, Thomas de Celano.

The encounter occurred when St. Francis was travelling with a doctor friend to Siena. Along the road they were met by three poor women. The one thing that astonished Francis and the doctor was that the women were identical, like triplets.

The women bowed to Francis as he approached them and they said “Welcome, Lady Poverty”. Thomas de Celano writes that this greeting delighted St. Francis as he had renounced his privileged and wealthy background to pursue a life of poverty. Thomas writes that Francis was delighted to be referred to as Lady Poverty.

Francis asked his friend to give the women some money and then continued on their way, but Francis glanced back and was astonished to see that the women had disappeared. The countryside was quite flat and featureless but he could not see where the women had gone. Francis and his friend agreed that it was “a marvel of the Lord”.

Medieval writers such as Thomas de Celano often peppered biographies of saints with apocryphal, and sometimes fantastical, stories to illustrate their subject’s sanctity. This encounter doesn’t appear in Francis’s own writings, or in early biographies of him.

Modern queer academics claim the encounter as St. Francis being met by the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Christian doctrine) in female form. Thomas de Celano doesn’t make this connection. Surely Francis would have mentioned something as significant as believing these women were the Holy Trinity. He said nothing. Academics have an answer for that, the usual answer when you don’t have to prove of your theory – deliberate suppression by the Church.

These three women have always been identified as the allegorical figures of Obedience, Poverty and Chastity, and were depicted frequently throughout medieval Christian art. Academics who support the Holy Trinity theory point us in the direction of one panel from an altarpiece painted in the 1400s by Stefano di Giovanni di Cossolo (known as Sassetta) from the convent of San Francesco in Sepolcro, Tuscany (below).

The panel has always been accepted as St. Francis meeting Obedience, Poverty and Chastity. Some academics claim it depicts the female Holy Trinity. There’s no evidence in the painting to indicate this. If you look closely, and it’s difficult to see on this image, as the women drift off into the sky they are holding something. These are objects that were associated with Obedience, Poverty and Chastity throughout the medieval period. Not one of those objects is associated with the Holy Trinity. It is clear who these women are and who they are not. They are NOT the Holy Trinity, and academics have invented Church suppression to justify their false interpretation to fit their claim (it reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” and the equally false interpretation of St. John as a woman and the “Da Vinci Code” nonsense).

This is where my opinion has changed since my 2019 Advent article. I am not convinced by the interpretation of the painting, or other supposed evidence, presented by the academics that indicate St. Francis ever met a female Holy Trinity.

We don’t need to invent queer aspects of someone’s life story like medieval biographers did. St. Francis shows his place on the queer spectrum without it. There was his close friendship, perhaps romantic relationship, with Brother Elias de Cortona (c.1180-1253).

Unfortunately, there is so little information about Elias before he joined the Franciscan Order that researchers, once again, jump on the “suppression and Church conspiracy” bandwagon. Thomas de Celano doesn’t introduce Elias by name until late into the first of his three-volume biography of Francis, after the Franciscans had been founded. He makes it clear that Francis and Elias were very close friends, writing that they loved each other “with great affection”.

Brother Elias does appear in a couple of other biographies from his time. From them we surmise that he was born the son of a mattress-maker and became a teacher. He may also have become a notary in Bologna before joining the Franciscans.

In Thomas de Celano’s biography there’s mention of a companion of St. Francis before the first named reference to Elias. Thomas describes this friend as someone Francis “loved more than any other”, and of the “great familiarity of their mutual affection”. In fact, in exactly the same terms as he used for Brother Elias’s relationship. So, could they be the same person?

This is not unlikely. Francis and Elias lived a century before the patriarchal homophobia of the Church began to dominate, and intimate same-sex friendships were not unknown. When St. Francis renounced his wealth and possessions he also renounced his family and friends – except, perhaps, Elias de Cortona.

There’s still so much we don’t know about their relationship. Sadly, Elias’s absence from written records may have more to do with the Franciscans objecting to the way he ran the Order after Francis’s death than any deliberate suppression of his same-sex relationship with him.

At the end of the day what can we say about St. Francis of Assisi? He had a close, probably physical, relationship with a companion in the days before he founded the Franciscan Order, who may have been Brother Elias de Cortona for whom he adopted the title of Mother. He believed that the figure of Poverty had affirmed his life as a poor friar and adopted the name Lady Poverty for himself. There’s no evidence that met a female Holy Trinity. There is a very queer aspect to St. Francis’s life and it helps to reveal more about the use of gender and sexuality labels in the medieval period. We are only just starting to understand the medieval world.

Love is Love

I hope everyone is feeling some love today. The covid pandemic has made many of us realise just how much people mean to us – families, partners, friends. Even though today’s St. Valentine’s Day is, as I’ve said before, is the wrong saint on the wrong day I think we need it anyway. There’s no better way to spread the love around than to look at one of the most famous images of love that has inspired many copies. It’s the image contained in the US postage stamp shown above – “Love” by gay artist Robert Indiana (1928-2018).

Despite using the word “love” this work has generated regret, dispute and anger. Let’s start at the beginning.

This iconic work began with two people in love. In the 1950s Robert Indiana met Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015), an abstract artist who was a member of the Ghost Army that I wrote about last November. The two artists fell in love. Ellsworth became a sort of mentor to Robert, and Ellsworth’s Minimalist style was a great influence on Robert and the creation of “Love”.

The romantic relationship began to break down at the start of the 1960s, mainly over disagreements over Robert’s use of lettering in his work which Ellsworth said had no place in art. Of the two it was Robert who felt the separation the most.

In 1964 Robert came up with a work which was a direct ancestor of his famous “Love”. In that year he met the fashion designer Larry Aldrich at one of Andy Warhol’s parties. Robert had heard that Larry was going to display his private art collection in public. The display was to be housed in an old grocery store in Ridgefield, Connecticut, which had more recently been used as a Christian Science church. The church had moved out and the building was now vacant. Robert indiana, who had ben raised as a Christian Scientist, suggested to Larry that he include a new work by Robert inspired by his church experience. Christian Science churches are generally quite plain and Robert remembered one church just had the motto “God is love” painted on a wall. Robert’s new work for Larry reversed the motto to read “Love is God”, the words placed in a circle at the centre of a square that was standing on one corner.

During 1965 the Museum of Modern Art in New York approached Robert to design a Christmas card for them. What he produced was the iconic image of “Love” which has become the most popular card the museum ever produced. Robert produced several different colour variations for the Museum and the familiar red letters with blue and green background is the one they chose. Robert then went on to produce series of paintings and other works using his colour variations for an exhibition at the Stable Gallery in New York.

In 1969 Robert created the first sculpture of “Love”. This was in metal and was a direct copy of the red lettering in the Museum of Modern Art’s Christmas card. The sculpture was displayed at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Since then several more sculptures have been made and are situated in various cities (and in various translations of the word “love”) all around the world. Wikipedia has a list of them here. Perhaps there’s one near you and you didn’t know.

In 1973 “Love” was used as the basis for a postage stamp by the US Postal Service, the stamp that is shown above.

Although “Love” has become an iconic work Robert Indiana expressed some regret at having created it. In 2014 he was interviewed by National Public Radio in the USA in which he said: “It was a marvellous idea, but it was also a terrible mistake. It became too popular.” In fact, it became so popular that it is said to have become the most appropriated and plagiarised work of American art. This is because of the uncertain copyright laws that were in place at the time “Love” was created.

More strict copyright laws came into force in the USA in 1978 which would have given Robert Indiana full ownership rights to “Love” had they been in force in 1964. And copyright law and ownership disputes over Robert Indiana’s work is an issue which is still effecting “Love” to this day.

For several years the Morgan Art Foundation and America Image Art have been battling to secure or remove all copyright on “Love” and Robert’s other works. The Morgan Art Foundation registered “Love” as one of their copyright trademarks, claiming that Robert Indiana made an agreement with them giving them the copyright and exclusive reproduction rights to all of his work made between 1960 and 2004. America Image Art, on the other hand, claim that Robert stated several times publicly that he didn’t want his art to be copyrighted, and that “Love”, as well as work produced with them was in the public domain and always had been. The legal battle between them is ongoing.

But let’s end with an argument. You remember I said earlier that Robert Indiana produced colour variations of “Love”? Well, one of these variations was a 12-piece screen-printed version made in a limited edition in 1966 called “The Book of Love”. The colour variations include yellow lettering and a black and white version. Each “Love” is accompanied by a poem. In December last year one copy of “The Book of Love” series went up for auction at Bonham’s in London. It sold for £92,750.

Of course, no-one can put a price on real love, and I hope you all receive some priceless love today.

Homohoax: How To Fool The Nazis

Armies have always used hoaxes and deception to confuse and mislead the enemy. Camouflage is the most obvious method of concealment and the famous camouflage pattern was produced by the French army in World War I. By World War II a different technique to hoax the enemy began to be used extensively, and that was the manufacture of fake army vehicles and military bases, and some of the top lgbt artists of the era helped to hoax the Nazis. This technique wasn’t new. It has its roots way back to ancient Greece and the Trojan Horse, the ultimate disguised army personnel carrier. In the UK the technique was used most prominently by the British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate. Members of this unit were mainly artists, designers and prop makers.

Two lgbt members of the British war effort to hoax the Nazis at home and abroad were Robert Medley (1905-1994) and Oliver Messel (1904-1978).

The main area of operations for the Camouflage Directorate was in North Africa. The most significant deception operations were called Operation Crusader (November-December 1941) and Operation Bertram (September-October 1942). Their purpose was to get British and Allied troops around the German defences on the Egyptian-Libyan border.

Robert Medley, an established artist and theatre designer, was assigned to Operation Crusader. With his life partner, the dancer Rupert Doone, he founded the Group Theatre. In 1937 Robert founded the Artist’s International Association, an organisation which specifically promoted the works of socialist and avant-garde artists.

It was the socialist aspect of Robert’s life which caused concern to MI5 who thought he was too Communist-leaning. They blocked his appointment as an official war artist in France and instead Robert was chosen to record air raid precautions in northern England.

When this contract ended he was selected by the British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate to go to North Africa as part of Operation Crusader. There Robert designed camouflage and disguises for military vehicles and created a fake railhead and goods depot.

More extensive hoaxes were created for Operation Bertram, the deception leading up to the Battle of El Alamein in 1942 which Allied forces won. The captured Nazi general admitted that he had been fooled into thinking the Allies had more troops in the area than they actually did, thanks to Robert Medley and all the other talented members of the Camouflage Directorate.

Meanwhile, back in “blighty” (the UK), deception work was being carried out by Oliver Messel. As well as being a theatre designer Oliver designed masks and costumes. He also designed for films (he was nominated for an Oscar in 1960).

With the constant threat of a Nazi invasion the UK government devised a series of homeland defence strategies. One of these was the Taunton Stop Line, a line of defences which ran across the south-west peninsula of England (Cornwall and Devon). As with other Stop Lines around the country the defence line included small concrete machine gun posts called pillboxes. It was Oliver Messel’s job to disguise these pillboxes, which he did by making them look like caravans, haystacks, or heaps of coal. Many pillboxes survive around the country and are Grade II listed structures. Several of Olive Messel’s pillboxes also still survive.

Photo of pillboxes disguised by Oliver Messel, taken from the book “Indigo Day” by fellow artist and Camouflage officer Julian Trevelyan, published 1957.

Towards the end of the war the USA created its own camouflage division inspired by Operations Crusader and Bertram called the 603rd Engineers Camouflage Battalion, part of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, more popularly known as the Ghost Army. Two lgbt artists recruited were Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) and Bill Blass (1922-2002).

Ellsworth Kelly is best known for his abstract paintings with bold blocks of colours. For the Ghost Army he painted camouflage patterns on military vehicles and designed propaganda posters. Like most artists in the Ghost Army and the British Camouflage Directorate Ellsworth filled many sketch books with ideas and designs for hoax methods.

Both the British and American camouflage units sent their members to the front line. There was no other way the artist could design effective hoaxes without knowing the lay of the land, as it was often the terrain that dictated which deception techniques were best for the area.

Bill Blass was starting his career as a fashion designer when he enlisted into the US army in 1943. His artistic skills soon saw him assigned to the Ghost Army. After some training in the States, Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly and the rest of the Ghost Army travelled to the UK where they helped the British in creating fake D-Day landings called Operation Fortitude in 1944. All over Europe hoax military operations hid the true D-Day target of the Normandy beaches of France.

The Ghost Army then went into France after the D-Day landings and gradually moved south-east, constructing fakes and hoaxes along the way. Bill Blass provided deception techniques during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-5, and Ellsworth worked along the Maginot Line, a line of defensive structures like those that Oliver Messel worked on for the Taunton Stop Line.

There is no doubt that the wartime deceptions of Robert Medley, Oliver Messel, Ellsworth Kelly and Bill Blass contributed to the success in hoaxing the Nazis into believing something that wasn’t real. On this Remembrance Day, while we may not be able to gather around memorials, let’s give a thought this year to the work of artists, designers and craftsmen who were as much a part of front-line war as the soldiers.

Putting Their Stamp on Design

One of the anniversaries I missed earlier this year was the 180th anniversary of the postage stamp in May. Even though many believe the postage stamp will become obsolete I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. Judging by the popularity of stamp collecting I also think that the postage stamp will live on as a collectors item long after its practical use has ended.

I’ve written one previous article on postage stamps, concentrating on the subject of AIDS and HIV awareness in stamp design. I also mentioned the most prolific collector of these stamps, Blair Coldwell Henshaw (1949-2002).

Members of the lgbt community have been depicted on thousands of stamps around the world. Among the most recent have been Harvey Milk on US stamps and actors Mark Gatiss and Andrew Scott on a set of UK stamps celebrating the BBC series “Sherlock”. There has also been members from many different sections of the community, ranging from the Emperor Hadrian to Mr. Gay Europe 2014.

Works by lgbt artists have also featured on stamps many times. I haven’t checked how many stamps have featured Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” but I expect it’s quite a few.

There have been a few lgbt artists who have designed postage stamps. These stamps are individual works in their own right and not reproductions of existing works. So think about this – by just buying a postage stamp designed by a famous artist, whether lgbt or not, you are buying an original work, albeit a tiny mass-produced one, for just a few pennies. Occasionally the design has also been made available as a full-size print or some other form without the country name or stamp price, but the original is still the postage stamp.

(left to right) postage stamps designed by David Hockney, Jean Cocteau, Sir Howard Hodgkin and two by Hubert de Givenchy.

Postage stamp design has its own requirements and specifications. Images need to be clear, have the price visible but not intrusive, and have the name of the issuing nation (except the UK, which shows the head of the monarch). A lot of postal services have their own design department who, as well as stamps, also design first day covers and promotional material.

One of the most prolific postage stamp designers who is openly gay is Sergio Baradat. Cuban-born Sergio is currently the Art Director of the United Nations Postal Administration (Global Graphics and Communications). His most recent design was to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox. The stamp was issued by the UN and World Health Organisation on 8th May this year.

Last year Sergio designed stamps depicting heritage sites in his native Cuba for the UN. He and his family left Cuba and moved to the USA (via Spain) when he was a child. Eventually they settled in Miami where his parents opened a pharmacy. Perhaps this is why they hoped their son would enter the medical profession. Instead Sergio’s heart was set on an artistic career.

Before becoming involved in stamp design Sergio worked as an illustrator and designer on many well-known publications, including “Vanity Fair”, “Time”, “Vogue” and “GQ”. In 2012 the UN Postal Administration approached him to head their design department, and since then Sergio has designed and overseen hundreds of stamps issued by the UN. In addition he has designed stamps for the USA.

Of particular significance to the lgbt community are his designs for a set of stamps issued by the UN on 5th February 2016. These were issued to promote lgbt equality, diversity and inclusion worldwide (shown below). The UN issues stamps in three languages – English, French and German – and in US dollars, Swiss francs and Euros. Sergio has always been influence by art deco of a century ago and the lgbt equality stamps show this influence clearly.

All of Sergio Baradat’s design have been for commemorative stamps and special issues. The general stamp used of each nation around the world is called a definitive. Enid Marx (1902-1998), a British lgbt artist, designed some of the most familiar definitive stamps of my childhood (shown below).

Although not nearly as prolific in stamp design as Sergio Baradat Enid produced sketches and preliminary designs for around a dozen UK stamps, both definitive and commemorative. She was first asked to submit a design in 1947 for a commemorative stamp for the forthcoming Festival of Britain in 1951. Her design was one of several submitted by other artists and hers was rejected by the Royal Mail Stamp Advisory Committee. However, she was asked to submit designs for the definitive issues shown above, which were accepted, and several other commemorative issues.

Among the other designs Enid was invited to submit were for stamps for the Queen’s Coronation in 1953, the 1958 Commonwealth Games, and National Nature Week in 1963. Her only commemorative designs that were accepted were those of the 1976 Christmas set, of which I’ll write more in my Advent series.

Enid Marx was much more than a stamp designer. She was a photographer, illustrator, textile designer, graphic artist and print-maker. She also wrote and illustrated a very popular children’s book during World War II called “Bulgy the Barrage Balloon”. In 1944 she was appointed Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts, an award given to designers who have “sustained excellence in aesthetic and efficient design for industry”.

Throughout the 180-year-long history of the postage stamp many lgbt artists and designers, known and unknown, have produced miniature works of art that most people throw away (those who use them at all). Thank goodness there are stamp collectors who make sure that these little masterpieces, important pieces of lgbt and social history, are not lost forever.