Editing The Arts

==The Arts==

An outbreak of hypnotic dances, injury-causing artworks and disease-ridden poetry has caused hundreds of deaths, as the duel of "honor" between the Flowing Rhythm Clan and the New Artistic Martials mars the Lord's Crossing Bicentennial Celebration of Pasiap. The duel was ended by the unaffiliated Lord Mnemon Darryn of Vuchar, who challenged all comers to find a subject or pentameter that he couldn't work into an epic-form poem. The victorious end result, Night Faeries, is set some decades ago and tells of the nightly march of the Fair Folk through the lands of man. A sweeping cast of satyrs, nymphs, dark sprites, and elves torment the peasant hero, Tomass. Eventually, Thomas is brought before Slaugh, the dark queen of the faerie court, and is about to be enslaved as her consort when he is rescued by Leedal Endar.

The grand old man of the Imperialist Revival School, V'Neef Sodat, has had an unusually quiet year, producing only 16 sculptures, 48 landscapes, 2 portraits of close personal friends, a restricted report titled A Study of Whispers: Investigations through conversation into the Unbroken Rushes, five books containing 16,000 haiku, each reflecting on social harmony during the different seasons, and the usual yearly updates to his collections of legal precedents, key decisions of the Deliberative and official changes to the calligraphy for the Empress' High Realm. He also extensively annotated the critically acknowledged historical work of his former apprentice, Cathak Goffrey, The People of the Monolith. 

His position is being challenged by Captain Tepet Urbensi, unofficial leader of the Curse L'Grande School. Refusing to officially retire and still serving his tenure as a mere scalelord in the 34th Legion, Captain Arnhold is famous for disturbingly evocative depictions of the members of the Wyld Hunt dying at the hands of shining anathema. His series of Jarrack, the Bloody slowly bleeding out among the corpses of over 300 imperial troops, mere steps away from the tomb of his earlier reincarnation, known as “The Greatest Threat”, was especially popular among certain sections of the Dynasty, and especially House Leedal.

Urbensi's dragon-sister, Cynis Falen Chervail, has sponsored turning the semi-autobiographical work of unExalted dynast, Mnemon Ghou'la, The Tales of a Gentleman's Gentleman: Stories from a Brother's Keeper into a prose theatrical performance. This satirical and sly tale of a dynastic scion watching his Exalted brother loose the family fortunes while making his own fortune on the side the work is borderline scandalous, but it is careful always to focus it's criticisms and to end with an almost mockingly metatextual variant on the classical ending, where the exalt saves the family and the upstart suffers for his presumption. Like the book the play derives from, it is incredibly popular among the patrician class, quoted to the point of exhaustion.

Beyond his evocative paintings, Urbensi has shown himself this year to be a master composer and musician with a new Eastern-style opera. His work, Der Tragedaire dre' Pantheus Hereticora, written in Hundred Kingdom five-four-five time, spoken in Wood Tongue and telling the story of the death of a local pantheon at the hands of ignorant Scavenger Lords with a First-Age weapon, is self-described as "a tragic novel writ in music," and is so moving, an instant legend has arisen that he sold his soul to some Eastern devil so that he could compose it.

In writing this piece and performing it for the Empress with the help of sixteen Angyalka, he clearly triumphed over his rival, Cynis Meris Yvandi of the Imperialist Revival School. Yvandi's four-hundred piece orchestra, Symphony Draconis was well-received, but was quickly forgotten after Urbensi's friend, Nellens Hylion, criticized it as lacking everything except technical merit.

Yvandi recovered face somewhat by sponsoring Leedal Catala Cordelia's lateral move into sepia-colored landscapes as the budding new talent took a short break from her travel-guides to prove her skill at the other Sixteen Inkstained Arts.

In something closer to her traditional works, Leedal Catala Cordelia's edited the book, Love Songs, by Cathak Zemora's Lost Egg wife, Lady Yakanti Blackstone of Bergovista. This anthology of popular works is dedicated by Cordelia to a mystery lover, and by Blackstone to her former lover, the archon, Rowan of Bergovista. Rowan died while assisting the city militia in attempting to apprehend the still-free murderer, Hamilken. Despite the public disapprobation, Blackstone visits her loves grave in Sijan regularly, and claim that Rowan sometimes speaks new verses to her from the afterlife.

This subtle and heady battle between the Imperial Revival School and the Curse l'Grande School is, as always, completely lost on the peasants and citizenry but, also as always, the movements of the dynasts utterly shape their loves through their entertainers stealing off their betters and dumbing the work down. As such, the marketplace jugglers, the kintraki dancers (traditional face-paint mime show actors) and wandering balladeers seem to vacillate between the newer works set in the East, starring moody tragedies and ironic comedies about glorious and beautiful young things fucking, making mistakes and dying and the last decades staples of warm-hearted pastoral comedies and morality plays.

Meanwhile, several Immaculate monks have co-written a public decree decrying the waste, hubris and disrespect for the Empress found within the masterpiece of Ragara Calel Porthello, current genius of the Juche' School. At Qwan Falls, outside Juche, now stands the single-largest statue in the lands, rising eight-hundred feet from the local lake. Carved in it's entirety from Porthello's own fists, the perfectly lifelike statue is of the legendary Shogun Aelluvian at his most vital, his blade and armor plated in real black jade.

Also, though it barely qualifies as art, the latest in The Battle for the Threshold series by the anonymous Passionate Rose- The Thunder of the Gods- has been released. Along with the Sijanese Romances (including The Dead Travel Fast, Dead But Not Forgotten, and Love Lies Dying); the Glorious & Inimitable Adventures of Sikandi, Scion of Sesus (including Sikandi in the Nameless City, The Armor of Hesiash, Danger in the Skies! and Sikandi & the Blood-Apes of Bythria), these novels are tawdry and of no use to serious scholars. They are, however, beloved by the slowly growing semi-literate classes of the major cities.


==Rules about Representational Art==


That is one of the areas the books have contradicted themselves on more than a few times. Originally, the faith was described as completely aniconic- no images or sculptures of any thing unless you were a dynast, and even then only if you were a risk-taker or it was a special circumstance. The editions vary over whether it is very good or very bad to make an icon of the Immaculate Dragons.

As such, I'm making my own rules based on pieces from both editions and the other books, mixed with some classy Byzantine history lessons.

Slaves cannot make any representational art whatsoever. There is a catch pushed through the Deliberative and through the Order's orthodoxy cops, however, to make artisan-slaves retain full value- a slave that works under the instruction of a master is not considered to be making the art. Instead, they are the tools of the master, and can make what he would be allowed to make.

Peasants are allowed practically no representational art- animals, gods, monsters, landscapes and people are all prohibited by law and tradition. To make or even look at an image of any being or creature (which includes places clearly associated with creatures) is to venerate the being, and thus is improper worship. They may own representations of the Elemental Dragons, and can receive special dispensations from a monk or a dragonblood to own an image of the Empress or of their direct dragonblooded master. Such requests are granted as a matter of policy, assuming the image is properly respectful. Similarly, on religious festivals, they may be granted special dispensations to watch morality plays where actors take on the roles of gods or famous people, and they may be briefly shown statues or paintings of the patron deity of the day. Some very rare works of art are considered national treasures, and every peasant is considered to have dispensation to see them. This category is meant for large statues of the five immaculate dragons inside immaculate temples, but over the centuries, the rules have been twisted so that the upper classes use this loophole to put their art where the peasants might see it without worrying about a heresy charge.

Citizens are allowed to make no representational art, but have limited access to limited forms of representational art. However, the rules regarding landscapes and portraits are not enforced at all, and every citizen is considered to have full dispensation to watch all plays and performances that have the Order censorship board's seal of approval. Similar rules apply for paintings and statues. Basically, they can look at the art the monks approve- this means that if they can afford a patrician artist, citizens can have a painting of a boat in their office, or a picture of their wife and kids. They'll never see a picture of a man on a horse, or of a leviathan crashing down on a ship, but they can have some few dabs of color and talent in their lives. Also, one of the inalienable rights of citizenship is the right to see and make icons of the Immaculate Dragons as well as the Elemental ones. 

What this censorship also means is what citizens can't have is pornography, excessive violence or excitement in their art. This is one of the main drives behind the burgeoning literacy of the peasant classes- the only secure way to get a hold of exciting images is to read them, and so young boys buy your pulp novels and read it to their friends while they all jerk off or cheer or whatnot. Text isn't a representation, after all.

Patricians are prevented from having icons of any kind, but because they are considered to have the good sense to be able to distinguish a representation from an icon, they can make representational art that is not iconic. Therefore, they can make and own pretty much any kind of art, as long as it doesn't involve directly representing a god, monster or animal. The prohibition against representing or owning a representation of animals and monsters causes all kinds of problems for patrician artists and art collectors, for sure, but they've found tricks to get by. Patricians can also observe plays, operas, paintings and sculptures of gods, monsters and the like, with appropriate dragonblooded supervision. The core philosophical difference between Sodat's Imperialist Revival School and the young Turks is over what sort of stuff patricians are exposed to. The Imperial Revivalists focus on showing patricians the Immaculate Dragons in action against evil-looking hook-nosed Anathema and showing the Empress save the Realm in all sorts of fights, while the new bloods show gods, monsters and demons in all their horror and gory glory without making much of a moral point, bending the rules to best express their themes and motifs.

Dynasts are is a weird middle ground between Dragonbloods and patricians, as they are neither fish nor foul. They often live with the Host, and thus will see what the Host see, but they lack the enlightened minds of Princes of the Earth. The case law for what is blasphemy in their case is rare and confusing, and when it comes up, someone is usually truing to hurt an enemy.

Dragonbloods can make representational art of anything. They and they alone can make art including animals, demons and gods. However, they are duty-bound not to venerate any such beings, and it is up to the Order, the Empress and the Incorruptible Observers of Spiritual and Cultural Integrity (the Imperial Censors of the Thousand Scales) to decide what counts as appropriate and what doesn't. More leeway is granted for operas only dragonbloods and dynasts will ever see than for a statue intended for the citizens, say. Armor is a key example, since it is worn everywhere and seen by everyone from the troops through to the slaves- Devout and traditional dragonblooded use abstract images representing the elements or the houses on their armor, for example, while wild and hedonistic young rebels wear armors shaped to look like gryphons and manticores armors. Meanwhile, a helmet shaped like a wolf's head with glowing red eyes would get you arrested. 


So, to answer your actual question: As a Dragonblooded artist, Lady Cordellia can paint just about anything she wants. The basic day-today rules are:
* She needs to be very careful that when painting the Empress, the Immaculate Dragons and the Elemental Dragons, she shows proper respect and enlightenment. No parody or even realism here, only devotion.
* She can freely make landscapes and portraits, but she needs to show basic diligence in keeping peasants away from them altogether unless she has special dispensation from the Incorruptible Observers
* She can make works involving gods and animals, but she must be very careful, both in how she represents them and in who she lets see them. Such works could only be sold to another dragonblood, and only with the incorruptible Observer's approval.

I didn't realize this till just now, but in 2nd Ed, it seems that painting has been clearly moved out of the grasp of Performance and into the world of Craft. Now, the question is, which Craft? Obviously, painting is either a matter of Air (which already covers Calligraphy, certainly) or Wood (which covers flower-arranging and knitting). I'd allow a practioner of either Craft to paint, though stylistically it'd be different.


==The Sixteen Inkstained Arts==


The theory of the Sixteen Inkstained Arts was invented by the Empress' former favored child, Iselsi in 167 RY and has been part of Realm culture ever since. The theory states that 16 specific noble activities divided into four subgroups are actually different expressions of the same basic principles. Basically, the theory suggests that the ink and quill are means of making static incarnations of arrangements within the soul. The arts are, therefore, about learning to hold an emotional state or mindset for the duration of ones work, and how to accurately imprint that mindset into the paper so that readers will be guided to attain the state themselves. The four substates are the basic mindsets. It is a very popular theory, and has been employed in the development of Charms, in texts and treatises on the duties of the higher classes and, most critically to it's success, it is fully incorporated into both the structure of the Spiral Academy's syllabus and the organization of the relevant divinities in the Department of Humanity. 

The Arts of Character
- Writing formal critiques of other works of art
- Writing histories, records and accounts
- Clear calligraphy
- Writing personal letters

The Arts of Duty
- Formal Accounting Practices. Included accounting ledgers, business reports and business proposals. This doesn't cover bureaucratic comprehension so much as strong mental arithmetics, clear expression, honesty, where headings go and even drawing neat and aesthetically pleasing balance sheets in the ledger.
- Writing legal pleas and legal motions for the courts or the Deliberative
-Writing instructional and informational texts
- Drawing technical plans (for everything from First-Age manses to the internal organs of a sick cow)

The Arts of Focus
- Painting iconic subjects (includes portraits)
- Painting abstract works
- Formalized poems, usually short in nature. Includes the haiku, obviously, but also all other such styles
- Translating things into High Realm or Old Realm (translating from those languages, or between other languages, isn't considered an art. It's a trade.)

The Arts of Passion
- Writing Epic Poetry (including free-verse epic poetry, which replaces/includes novels, and most classic forms of theatre, bardic performance)
- Writing sheet music and lyrics and personally conducting groups of musicians
- Writing scripts for plays, kabuki dances and comedies (blurry line between this and some kinds of epic poetry. As a rule of thumb, this is for the lower classes while epic poetry is for the higher classes) 
- Stylized calligraphy


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