bossel said:
Are we? Sorry, but I disagree. There are certain shared elements in the "West", but the same civilisation? That's like saying Japanese, Chinese & Vietnamese are one. Even in one country, like Germany, you can have a whole number of varying cultures.
I think you are confusing civilisation and culture. Don't tell me about cultural differences in Europe. As a Belgian, I know that in two towns 30km distant from each others, people can speak a different language and have a noticeably different culture, and that centuries of cohabitation don't erase those differences. I have also lived in Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain, and know France as well as if I were French. Yet, compared to North Africa, the Middle East, Japan, China, India or whatever, there are striking similarities between European societies. It's not just a matter of culture or language (otherwise India wouldn't even be a civilization in itself), but system, fashion, values, etc. As I said earlier, I am amazed that clothes and various technological advances evolved almost simultaneously in most of Europe since the Middles Ages (even before that).
It's harder to put Japan and China together as a civilisation, because Japan was isolated for most of its history, those countries never conquered each other or had significant blood exchange before the 20th century. We can easily say that Japan was heavily inspired by Chinese civilization, but the reverse is not true. In Europe, scientists, philosophers, royalties, etc. interacted across the continent more as if it was China or Japan during the warring state period, but were ultimately part of the same civilisation. Royalties intermarried so much they became a single family. Once a scientist discovered or invented something, it spread to other countries with lightning speed (but stopped at the borders of Europe, except the population colonies like the US or Australia).
Well, they're dead. Anyway, I doubt that I had many Greeks in my ancestry, perhaps some Romans, but the vast majority was probably Germanic.
This is because you fail to consider that the Roman Empire was not 100% (or even 10%) Roman/Italian in blood. Many Germanic tribes lived under Roman rule. Anyway, there would be no point in blaming France, Italy or Spain for reviving Roman architecture, as about all of them have at least some ancestor s (Celtic, Latin or whatever) that were Roman for over 400 years.
You don't deny any roots just because you don't copy ancient style. Should I wear some toga-like stuff, just because there may have been some Romans 2000 years ago who occupied the territory where my hometown is nowadays?
If you look at the evoluation of clothing since the antiquity (it is clearer since the Middles Ages), it is all a long evolution. Our clothes now wouldn't be such without that evolution.
There was no need to copy some nice pillars or cupolas from the past. They could have made up their own style.
Do you mean you have to reinvent things that "work". Should scientists throw away all their ancestors knowledge and start from 0 again ?
Well, I'm not easily impressed anyway, esp. not by fascistoid constructions which were created for the sole purpose of being impressive, but the Hagea Sophia or the Pantheon do not seem to be much less "imposing" than what you itemised.
Have you visited these places ? The Pantheon in Rome is really tiny even compared to the Court of Justice in Brussels. The Hagia Sofia was built in a very different style (Byzantine) and didn't really inspire neoclassicism.
Why not? They made up the bulk of the population, hence their clothing style(s) should be truly representative.
I disagree. Peasants had no means to wear good clothes. Therefore what they wore is not representative of the culture and creativity of the time.
Does it in Europe? Doesn't it in Japan? It really depends where & when you look, & which part of the population you look at.
If you look at people who had enough means (middle and upper class), then the difference is huge.
Hmm? Look at the pictures below from Muromachi, Momoyami & Edo. Quite a change.
I am not sure what you know about Japanese historical clothes, but apart from the Nara courtier, these are all styles that have coexisted. You have just chosen to mix men and women's clothes, courtiers and samurai ones. Those clothes are still worn nowadays (for wedding pictures, by Shinto priests, etc.). Which of the clothes in those I posted do you regularily see in the streets in Europe ? Note that I didn't take nobility or royalty clothes, which change even more (just look at the kings and queens paintings through the ages).
Anyway, again it depends on what you compare. Military developments in Europe were quite dynamic for a while. New weaponry, new tactics, new branches of service led to new uniforms & equipment. You would need a detailed study of let's say the clothing of lancers in some territorial army over time. This is hard because the situation is highly fluctuating in Europe, due to so many varying countries & shift of borders/governments.
I understand that the changes in uniforms reflected advances in technology and warfare-style. We all know that the "West" progressed dramatically from the Renaissance onwards, while Japan stayed basicaly the same until the Meiji Restauration (1867).
The situation in Japan was a bit more stable, I suppose.
Politically or militarily, Japan was not stable at all from the 14th to the early 17th centuries. After it was very stable until the late 19th. Yet uniforms/armours, and kimono didn't change in either period.
Where did I say that there was no major change in European fashion? I said "European "traditional" clothes haven't changed that much either." Fashion does not constitute tradition. Tradition as M-W defines it: "cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions"
That's not how I understood tradition. I meant clothes that were not worn anymore in daily life (maybe for festivals) but are part of the cultural heritage. In fact, from that definition, kimono are not completely traditional. They are still worn in daily life by some people (esp. elderly women and the few geisha that remain).
You have to differentiate between tradition (where I would add "representative") & fashion (of some aristocratic or monetary elite).
&, actually, your pictures are not representative in any way (hardly possible with such limited space, anyway). This is comparing apples to pears.
OK, so let me rephrase this. I feel you are arguing just for the sake of it, though. Fashion (of some aristocratic or monetary elite) has evolved a lot from decade to decade since the late Middle Ages (14th-15th centuries) in Europe, while it has remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century in Japan. Even from the late 19th century, it only changed because the Japanese started wearing Western-style clothes (a word still used to describe everyday clothes as "youfuku" ?m??). The Japanese themselves consider that truly Japanese clothes worn to this day are the kimonos, those that haven't changed much since the Heian period, and hardly at all since Muromachi.
I came to realise that when I watched "historical dramas" on Japanese TV. Whatever the century the story is set in, it is almost impossible to tell what age it belongs to (16th, 17th, 18th, 19th century ?), except for Heian because of the absence of samurai class and the longer hair of court ladies.
Yet, when watching a film on European history, as soon as I turn on the TV I know from the clothes they are wearing when the story happens, with an uncertainty of about 50 years until the 18th century, and 20 years from the 19th.
Btw, don't forget that in any society there is a range of different clothes worn by different people (by function or class) or just varying styles of the same clothes from the same period. For example, in kimono, you have the kosode, furisode and other "cut". There are also thousands of diffent colours and patterns, but the shape stays about the same (except for the 3 or 4 "cut" styles). I took this into consideration for Europe too. When I say that the 1780's style is different from the 1790's style, it is regardless of the colours and for the same kind of people. In the pictures above, I spent over 30min looking for pictures of middle-class (merchant, travellers...). There is just the late 17th century that includes military men (and civilians) as I couldn't find better. It would be much easier to look at the royalties or high nobility, or just the military. The changes are much more obvious. But I forced myself to be honest and take people of a similar status among the (upper-)middle-class. You just posted pictures of people of very different functions, even mixing males and females. The irony is that if you go to a shop for weddding pictures, they will have all of those you posted (and no others), except the Nara one.
