The fascination with oddities and curiosities can be traced to as early as the fourteenth-century in Europe. Seen in medieval carnivals, drawing rooms, royal palaces and cabinets of curiosities called Wudnerkammers, in which items were valued and exhibited for their lack of etymology and/or peculiar representations that juxtaposed the body beautiful against the grotesque. One cannot mention the creation of the freak show without also associating it with circus showman and hoax-businessman P.T Barnum (1810-1891) known for creating one of the world’s first circuses Barnum and Bailey. Barnum’s circus featured various acts and performances prominently oriented around the freak show and featured performers such as dwarf General Tom Thumb, microcephaly
Located in 1 East 70th Street, in New York City, The Frick Collection is an elegant and well maintained museum housed in the former residence of Henry Clay Frick, a successful steel and coke industrialist who amassed an incredible fortune during the 19th century in Pittsburgh. The museum is easily accessible by public transportation as various trains such as the N or the R lines stop nearby at 5th Ave and 59th Street. The collection is open six days a week operating from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sundays. Adults are required to pay $20 while students with valid identification are asked to pay $10. On Sundays, the collection institutes a pay as you wish format similar to that employed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It must be noted that children under the age of 10 are not permitted in the Collection. Tours at the museum are enhanced by an acousti...
When most people hear the name “Ringling” they think of the Ringling brother, known for their world famous circus. Besides their world-renowned circus, one of the brothers, John Ringling, had a vast collection of art pieces in his Florida mansion. His collection grew so big; he decided to build a museum to display his collection of art. The Ringling museum is located in Sarasota, Florida. The Ringling museum is comprised of multiple buildings. The museum itself, which holds all the art and has a gardens filled with sculptures and elegant architecture. Next to the museum is the circus museum, filled of wonders from their circus; and finally, john Ringling 's lavish mansion. I will focus on two specific pieces from the fine art museum. The Ringling museum has a
While analyzing through T.H Breen 's “Horses and Gentlemen: The Cultural Significance of Gambling among the Gentry of Virginia”, multiple aspects are established about the background of the particular gentry and also the significance of the leisure activities they participated in. When describing the colony, the people were made up of higher class individuals and mostly shared the same beliefs. The main cause of these actions fascinated Breen, and his article goes to answer why they found pleasure in such activities. Therefore, he then came to the concept that the gentry idolized two forms of living, materialism and individualism, both which possibly lead into the gambling behavior. I too agree with his observations of the colony and the idea that the leisure activities do portray a deeper sense of who they were.
Flannery O’Connor once said, “…It is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.” With this, O’Connor correctly uses the freak to symbolize her reoccurring theme of a grotesque viewpoint on the world, and such symbolism is used prominently in two of her short stories, ‘Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “Good Country People.” Within both stories, the freak awakens both the characters in the stories, and, in fact, the reader themselves, to the fact that they embody the same state as the freak.
Before there was the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey and their Greatest Show on Earth there was just P.T. Barnum and the Ringling brothers each with their own traveling circus. Barnum’s circus was originally known as P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Circus, which was unveiled as the largest American circus in 1870 and quickly became a hit (Barnum’s Timeline). Then in 1881 Barnum, James Bailey, and James Hutchinson partnered up to create P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth & The Great London Circus, which later became Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth in 1888 (P.T. Barnum). Sixteen years after Barnum’s death in 1891, the Ringling brothers bought out their competition, but the two shows continued to tour independently until they were finally combined in 1919 as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, The Greatest Show on Earth (Bailey and the Ringlings).
Writing on this topic, the old Schoolhouse Rock song “Three Ringed Circus” comes to mind. In the song, a young boy describes the system of government, like the title suggests, as a three ringed circus. Each ring connects to each other, with a bit of their own ring in that of the others. The rings are separate and whole, with a bit of control over what happens in the other rings. This metaphor accurately describes the system of checks and balances in the American government, to keep one of the “rings” of the federal government from taking total control. Though the Supreme Court has the final say on the constitutionality on any legislature from Congress or the President, each of those branches has their own different forms of control over the
In this essay I will attempt to stage the Boxing scene for the play of
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is one of the most popular shows in the United States. One of the founders of the circus, Phineas Taylor, or PT Barnum, did start running shows with a circus. Instead, he began with the famous American Museum in New York. He also became well known for forming a group of “freaks” who he would take on tour around the world. The American Museum became an incredibly popular entertainment venue in New York until it burned down in 1865 (Maher). A very popular modern equivalent of Barnum’s freak shows is the Venice Beach Freakshow. One major difference between Barnum’s freak show and the Venice Beach Freakshow was the goal of the owners. PT Barnum focused solely on making money and used people for money, while the Venice Beach Freakshow is focused on providing entertainment for visitors and treating the performers
Findling, John E. Historical Dictionary of World's Fairs and Expositions 1851-1988. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
The Circus Maximus has a lot of history due to all of the events that had happened over the years of the Circus Maximus, the concept of chariots speeding around a track to see which horse would come in first. A chariot was a two wheeled, horse drawn vehicle. It was invented in the west in about 2,000 BC. The Circus Maximus started in approximately 50 BC. The Circus Maximus was first used for public games and entertainment by the Etruscan king of Rome. He built the Circus Maximus and made it out of complete wood. It measured 621 meters in length and 150 meters in width. It was capable of holding about 270,000 spectators to watch the races ("Circus Maximus princeton.edu") In 81 AD, Emperor Domitian connected his new palace on the Palatine to the Circus Maximus so he could have an easier view of the races. This happened to be a large action because they had to change around the whole racing course to fit in his window where he could watch. In 64 BC, they had a fire started from ...
"Sarcophagus of the Spouses - Smarthistory." Smarthistory: a multimedia web-book about art and art history. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
Taxidermy in our current society is a profession that is rarely seen, primarily due to the animal protection laws and reserves present in the majority of countries, and the preference of our current population to see animals in zoos, rather than as ‘still life’. However, taxidermy during the mid-Victorian and early Edwardian era was a thriving industry with natural history objects including stuffed birds and hunting trophies being used as popular décor. The fire screen imaged on the left was created by William Plowman, a key taxidermist of the famous Rowland Ward Ltd. Company from 1874-1914. Fire screens were commonly used throughout the 19th century to protect the people sitting around the fireplace from the heat and sparks, as well as often
Howe, Irving. The Book of the Grotesque. Winesburg, Ohio Text and Criticism. Ed. John H. Ferres. New York : The Viking Press, 1966. 405-420.
in Russia in 1793 at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. By the early 19th
In Charles Dickens' novel "Hard Times", an alternative view of the Gradgrind-Bounderby way of life is presented by Sleary's circus people.