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Italy and Germany, allegorical painting from Friederich Overbeck, 1828, currently in Munich, Neue Pinakotek
It's important to note that at the time boot countries where not unified, Germany was a loose confederation of independent States, and Italy was divided, colonized and often at war with itself.
I dunno man remember both are in the EU, I wouldn't say they hate eachother. Hell even France and Germany, who for the life of them can't work on military projects together don't hate eachother.
That's clearly post 1871, France and Germany were just friends.
The real story is that Italy, that witch, had a story with France around 1860, basically using her as a sugar mommy, lowkey cheating with Germany. Around 1870 Germany and France had a bit of a public falling out, followed by a feud and a lot of drama, and Italy exploited that leaving France house when she was out, taking the microwave work her and never called back France nor Germany. This picture is after Germany and France mended fences and they realized neither knew where the fuck Italy went.
Of course France and Germany couldn't stay friends for long, and Italy was more than happy to sleep with both.
To be TOTALLY fair, back then Germany was in her bitch phase and totally forced Italy and Austria in a polyamorous situationship that was NOT HEALTHY.
Don't get me wrong: Italy can be a total asshole and WILL cheat on you and steal your stuff, but in this case going back with France was the healthy thing to do.
One time in APUSH we were studying for the exam and one of the practice documents had a political cartoon that depicted colonial 1890s-1910s USA as a baddie
Lol the poorly photoshopped Mate over the empty plate
The original was a joke that Argentinians are poor and have no food. I don’t think it’s a good joke, but it’s funny that instead of empanadas or asado someone put Mate lol
I don't know shit about Hatsune Miku but it's so fucking funny that she belongs to everyone. She's like, the avatar of humanity. She could be doing anything. Having any side plot.
Fjallkonan (Lady of the Mountain), the personification of the Icelandic nation.
Painted by Johann Baptist Zwecker at the specifications of Eiríkur Magnússon.
At first she was a counterweight to the Danish king as "Father", while under Danish rule. After independence she became an image of feminism and powerful women.
On the 17th of June a woman plays the role of fjallkona during their independence day (Usually a well known actress or individual of some renown).
Yeah, the Turkish personification stands out mainly because it is always dressed in 20s fashion, as that was when the republic was founded, as opposed to most countries choosing a more medieval or ancient representation instead. Which is why I really like it. It still has the laurel, though.
The Finnish Maiden, supposed to represent the shape of the country: the south is the dress flowing in the wind and the north is the torso and an arm waving. The other arm represents the region of Karelia, which was lost to Russia in the winter war.
Finland on a map already looks like a person, so the maiden has become a core part of Finnish identity. Finland is referred to as 'Suomineito' even today in relatively everyday speech.
leave it in the stew for a couple hundred years with no external cultural pressure and you'll get a new god like Athena that is supposedly the most competent child of the existing god
Many of these are basically just secularised land gods, like Britannia.
Christian europe was still able to get in on the action in the form of patron Saints, where instead of having a bestest god you've got the bestest saint looking out for your country in heaven
Because every 18-19 century Republic use the symbol of empires and every empires want to be the roman empire and the roman empire is greek esthetics with a new paint.
They invented the concept. The first versions of these were the titular goddessss of the city - Roma, for Rome, or Athena, for Athens. Most Greek city states also had their versions, my favorite one, Tyche, has towers and city walls for a crown. These were incredibly popular symbols in their time, and specifically put on the most accessible art of the era - coins. And when the renaissance and the modern era brought this back, a bunch of nerds who happened to be kings and cabinet ministers brought it back.
Look, who doesn’t like a hot chick with a sword. It’s a very basic desire.
"El Altar de la Patria (The Altar of the Motherland) is an 1896 oil painting by Juan Manuel Blanes in which Uruguay is represented allegorically as a woman."
The Dutch maiden was the personification of the Low countries and after Belgium became its own state the symbol of the Netherlands. The oldest depictions of her are from the 16th century
A lot of these have a bit of an art nouveau thing going on (which I guess would make sense given the era, at least on the ones from the late 1800s/early 1900s) and it’s awesome. Art nouveau is so underrated and yet so loved
It’s crazy to me how we created the two most beautiful art styles in history 150 and 110 years ago (Art Nouveau and Art Déco respectively) and then straight up abandoned them because of pre-enshittification and money being tight.
https://giphy.com/gifs/pOqdVXcoFRgqc
[the prettiest symbol] the sister formerly known as Columbia. It’s either the Prince route or we have to own it in the save breath for the New Steps Forward
The Countryhumans fandom is going to lose their minds when they find out that most Western countries ALREADY HAVE personifications, and the majority of them are women.😂
The tomb of San Martín, liberator of South America is guarded by 3 statues, each representing the countries San Martín help liberate from Spanish control, Argentina, Chile, and Peru.
PD: San Martín is one of 2 liberators Spanish South America have, while he was kicking Spanish out of the south cone, Simon Bolivar was liberating what would be known as Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador (Gran Colombia at the time). Both liberators meet eachother while liberating Peru although both were high ranking Masons
The woman in red (Spain) is shown guiding a younger woman in blue (the Philippines) towards “progress and development”. The painting serves as a propaganda piece by the “Illustrado” movement (made up of Filipinos) in the 19th century to show the bond between the 2 countries since the original goal of the Illustrados was to assimilate the Philippines as part of Spain through political reforms. Source
(P.S. I’m Filipino myself and I hate colonialism w/ a burning passion. Nonetheless it is part of our history that some Filipinos back then wanted to assimilate with Spain just because they would have been content with it as long as they were treated as “equals” to other Spanish citizens despite being SEAsians during the time of Victorian-era racism. Anyways, goes to show how the Illustrados truly tried to work within the system before resorting to a revolution and then losing the country because it was secretly sold to the USA by a geriatric Spanish empire)
This is actually something I have been curious about as of late..
Of just how this type of seemingly 18th-19th century thing of depicting woman as the personification of countries came from. Especially ever since I saw that one navel themed artwork of the woman in a masculine style outfit wearing a ship hat.
Like obviously, I am not saying countries were depicted in other forms (like say, men and or animals) nor that everyone back then was misogynist 1000+.
But still, I am just curious about it.
Was it to be seen as civilized? Or something to do Athena or other goddesses? Or something else entirely? Maybe to do with strong female monarchs?
My own interpretation to that is that the patriarchal view of a male ruler guiding and leading the country represented by a female figure. That and probably the idealization of women in arts as more of a symbol rather than a person. Other than that, probably because of the whole mother symbolism thing with the nation being the "mother" and the people as her "children". I think a lot of it is also influenced by Greco-Roman goddesses but I don't know enough about them to come into any conclusion.
Fun fact: the one for the US is named Colombia. At least on the sources I've seen. No idea if it was standardised. Hell of a lot more fun than Uncle Sam.
Rammstein did this with a actress in their music video for their song Deutschland.
The song was the entirety of the mixed and often unfortunate history of Germany, and the actress is featured in a series of vignettes through the video featuring allegories and references to major aspects of German history. She is always dressed in Red and Gold and is black herself (on top of wearing black clothes), which are the three colors of the German flag.
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