Today's subject in Daniel's World History class....Ivan the Terrible. Yeah, sure, the chapter starts out with Vladimir, sashays over to Ivan the Great, but then it gets right down to business with Ivan the Terrible.... He starts to make one feel good about pretty much any other political leader.
Ivan had more than a few bad/lethal habits. He liked to ride his horse through Moscow and slash away at innocent bystanders with a whip. If Ivan was offended by your face he would have it removed - at the neck. He took some of his advisors on a winter trip to the country...he stripped them naked and made them walk back to Moscow barefoot and naked in the snow(question: was it uphill both ways?) He killed his oldest son. He made a hobby of inventing new tortures. The list goes on and on.
Ivan had more than a few bad/lethal habits. He liked to ride his horse through Moscow and slash away at innocent bystanders with a whip. If Ivan was offended by your face he would have it removed - at the neck. He took some of his advisors on a winter trip to the country...he stripped them naked and made them walk back to Moscow barefoot and naked in the snow(question: was it uphill both ways?) He killed his oldest son. He made a hobby of inventing new tortures. The list goes on and on.
There is one thing that Ivan did that I like. A lot. He ordered construction of a cathedral. The Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin. Well, no one calls it that anymore, in fact, soon after it was built the locals started calling it "St. Basil's". Ivan had this glorious flight of fancy built around the same time the rest of Europe was going all ga ga over classical Greek and Roman architecture. You've gotta admit it's a whole lotta fun to look at.
3 comments:
I feel the same way about "Mad" King Ludwig and his fabulous castles. The fiscal conservative in me hates the waste of money--the humanities major just wishes he'd been madder.
I still am amazed at what political leaders tend to do with what is essentially our money. I mean noone ever calls me up to have me review the design for a new government building...they just go ahead and waste the money anyway because very very few modern structures live up to St Basil's. Does being responsible with our money mean it has to be ugly?
Unfortunately, being irresponsible doesn't guarantee beauty...beauty is at least some justification.
Look at San Jose. They paid $500,000 for what essentially looks like a pile of poo (see my blog back on October 13th if you missed that!). It seems that governments nowadays are more than willing to be sold on "modern" rather than "beautiful" because some high-brow artsy type tells them that "beauty" is not art.
I saw an ad somewhere last month that sums it up. "Art is what you can get away with".
Speaking of art, Daniel will be painting his still life today. We'll see if he gets away with it.
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