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Entry tags:
( closed ) love is not love which alters when it alterations finds,
WHO: Valentine Nicasus Maxence Mérovée Olivier de Foncé & Magni An Fjorleif O Talonhold
WHAT: a meeting of ARTISTS
WHEN: a time
WHERE: memorial garden, Kirkwall
NOTES:
WHAT: a meeting of ARTISTS
WHEN: a time
WHERE: memorial garden, Kirkwall
NOTES:
( Avvar may not be a common sight in High Town, and certainly not in the Memorial Gardens. Magni knows this, and much as she might have her long, dramatic moments of pause concerning a great deal Lowlanders get up to and their faith, she respects the gardens and what they stand for.
She had come here to set down a piece of rock in the gardens amongst some of the others - a stone for one of those of Varmas & Co, one not known to have died in Kirkwall, but feared to have done so. Certainly he had not been heard of since that day. The rock is one from the Frostbacks, set down discretely in the back of a flowerbed where it could not be disturbed, before Magni withdrew to simply take in the peace of the gardens.
It was a place of reflection, perhaps of inspiration, but she finds herself stopping short as she squints at the largest fountain, the centrepiece, assessing it. Her arms are crossed, she looms a shade closer to seven feet tall than six, and her skin is speckled with black dust from the forge.
None of that matters, though, because she feels like that fountain isn't on centre. )
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[Val, disgusted, tosses his measuring tape into the grass around the fountain. The oath ends in a string of swearwords in Orlesian. He gives the base a little kick.
He has come all this way in the hope that someone has corrected the offending measurements. After all, he has been away for some time, at the tourney. Surely someone with some sense has corrected the egregious error of design.
But they have not!]
They have not! [--he repeats, aloud.] They do nothing!
[Moved to anger, he whips around to the nearby figure also standing in the garden.]
Nothing!
[--he repeats, again, before he takes full stock of the vision he faced with. He must look up, in order to do so, adjusting his gaze. Up.]
Mademoiselle. Your pardon. It is the fountain-- [Because he is not that worried about offending anyone, nor is he ready to give up on his anger, for anyone, not when that fountain yet stands as it does.] An offense to the very order of design.
no subject
She bends to pick up the measuring tape and dusts it off, holding it out in offering, still silent. It’s a habitual problem, the silence, and usually she’s content to let people speak and just be quiet, because talking a lot is tiring. )
I wondered if my eyes deceived me. ( Her voice is quiet and rough, as she turns to look at the fountain again. ) I do not know enough of the construction of these - is it a fault by the hands that made it, or pieces that were put together poorly?
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[Val accepts the measuring tape, but his attention is on the monstrosity. That is, the fountain. There is nothing monstrous about the Avvar woman, except perhaps her height, but in a good way.]
What your eye has caught is a violation of Bondeaulx's Three Laws of Design, which is a formalization of the minimal acceptable space ration observed by default in nature. It is a travesty. The inept architect that designed the offense--well, the poor soul was likely born and educated in Kirkwall. One must make do with the tools one is given, and if one is given only poor tools...
[Val sighs, full of tragedy and disgust.]
You are clever to have spotted it, mademoiselle. Tell me, have you any informal training, in design?
[Because it's gotta be informal.]
Hopefully from some learning that was not acquired here.
no subject
( Design of a sort, presumably not the manner of design he's thinking of.
She inspects it intently, mouth snagged unhappily at the corner as she considers this... abomination. ) Weapons must be perfectly balanced.
( Balance, design, it fit together. And as for Bondeaulx, she is committing it to memory, contemplative as she pulls away from this distressing sight, to look back to the Orlesian. )
Perhaps it is a fault in the Free Marches. You were at the tourney, in Wycome?
( Because there were some eyesores there, new friend. )
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[And that is a compliment. But anyways--]
Even a weapon must have something of the order of the ratios that Bondeaulx identified. It is for balance as much as it is for aesthetic. You are correct to draw the connection.
[He tucks the measuring tape back in the small pouch at his belt, before he favors her with a sad smile.]
And to draw the same conclusion toward the tourney. For you can only be speaking of that shoddy facade that stood above the box-seats at the jousting field, yes? With its-- [He makes a disdainful gesture, a flourish.] I could not tell the style that they were attempting to emulate. Perhaps a crude version of the spandrels popularized during the Towers Age? Their attempt, it fills me with deepest disgust.
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I think it can be elegant, done well.
( The "done well" is a key note, mind. Certainly one needs to begin doing things poorly to eventually be able to do things well. Generally she would hope that for a tourney or a memorial garden that a city's most qualified would be employed, and perhaps they were. )
Avvar, we have different... design. In my travels to Orzammar, though, I have seen very impressive architecture. There is much I have not yet seen in the lowlands.
( She makes an unhappy sound, more dissatisfied than sorrowful. Not nearly so expressive as her present company, it seems. ) Those facades were... poor. The attempts to show the grandeur of Wycome seemed like overcompensation.
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[Warmly, Val smiles. It is so much better talking about Orzammar]
You have been? How marvelous. I have not seen for myself, but have heard great things about the feats of construction achieved there. Frochu--a mentor of mine, at the University--authored a book of great repute after studying the Orazammarian work with columns. I think it has not been translated outside of Orlais, or else I would ask if you had heard of it--though of course, firsthand experience and a glimpse with your own eyes, this cannot be outweighed by a book, no matter how great.
Of course, my firsthand experience with dwarven architecture is much older, when we were around Kal-Sharok some years ago. It is frankly unreasonable to expect anything of Wycome to compare. It would be as if I sought to compare-- [Val makes a show of looking around to seek an example, and then lets his gaze fall back on the Avvar--oh of course, how silly of him, why did he not see it from the start!] --well, you, let us say--to a small dish-rag. One is alive, wonderfully made, marvelously proportioned and breathing and clever and a miracle of the Maker's design. And the other is inanimate. Sodden. Sad. No matter upon what pedestal it is placed, the dish-rag remains a dish-rag.
no subject
( Reading isn't really part of her skillset. She is not normally so talkative - this is strange, for her, and she thoughtfully rubs her throats as he relays about fine books and university and studying. It is very different in these lowlands. Not bad, she thinks, just very different.
She would say as much right away, rather than just pondering on it, but then he mentions something very very interesting. )
Kal-Sharok? That must be wondrous to see somewhere... believed lost for so long, let alone one of the Great Thaigs.
( And she rubs her jaw for a moment. ) The differences are what make the world so rich, what can give so much inspiration for design. Without inspiration, design could become... stagnant. Did Kal-Sharok inspire you?
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To be expected, yes.
[Because yes of course there is little emphasis or weight given to books, that's to be expected when dealing with the Avvar. No judgement. It's just a little sad, really; a strong oral tradition is beautiful in its own way, but it cannot possibly compare to books, and so on and so forth.]
I hope to see Ozammar myself one day. I will be sure to set an appointment with you, once I have. Though if you have any sketches of its design, I would love to see them, if I might. I would be more than happy to share some of mine from Kal-Sharok. Many can be found in a paper I published a few years back--I will write the library-- [the University library, of course; it needs no introduction] --and request a copy for you. Even if you are no great reader, you can appreciate the sketches at least, hm?
[He's all smiles. If this might be interpreted as a kind of sideways insult, whoever did that interpreting would be so wrong.]
From those studies and the formal paper, though--yes, you are right to guess it: Kal-Sharok was a source of great creative inspiration to me. The innovations created by its founders, so many years ago--aqueducts, and the movement of water, have ever been a great interest of mine, and the dwarves of Kal-Sharok rely on a series of pumps that draw water from deeper below the ground--and sometimes from lakes above ground, if you can believe such a thing! What is more, their aesthetic design is unparalleled. It is as if these ancient people saw fit to wed functionality with beauty. True innovation, by my standard.