Bards and Art

[kgauck]

After a while people would become acquaintes with it's presense and it would lose it's effect.

Why do you suppose this? The influence of historical art is far more potent than this. Before modern media, art patronage is the way rulers put forth their public image. While you can find several paintings of nobles, churchmen, merchants, thinkers, and artists, you certainly don't find enough suggesting that they lose their effect. Instead you find several works because the ruler wants a new effect (rulers often adopted very warlike images during war, only to shift to very peaceable images afterward) or because the ruler wants an image that resembles them.

Over very long periods of time you can see art removed, buildings remodeled, and changes being made. This is the useful life of art. But useful doesn't mean that its not working any more. Early in the life of Henry VIII, he might have art emphasizing his Catholic piety, his Spanish marriage, his youthful vigor, as well as other things he wants to project. At some point, Catherine is divorced, Henry has broken with Rome, and he's not young and fit, but the more familiar middle aged and fat. His early art is not so useful. It may still project Henry as a Catholic monarch with a Spanish bride and a friend of that agenda, taking part in that program. But if Henry doesn't want to appear that way, he must remove that art and replace it with art that identifies him as the single sovereign answerable only to God, Protestant, and unencumbered by any wife in particular. And this only considers a small part of Henry's policies and possible images.

Consider that some art is always kept around to associate the current dynast with former dynasts. Richard II surrounded himself with images of Edward the Confessor. Henry VIII liked to use images of Henry V. If Henry VIII is standing in front of a portrait of Henry V who is going to argue against policies reminiscent of Henry V's policies? Rulers already wield such power that people change their opinions to please the ruler, if the ruler begins to augment their power by using beautiful, magnificent objects of art to reinforce their policy choices, does it not follow that it becomes easier for the ruler to intimidate or persuade, and that it becomes harder to defy the ruler.

Since such effects are either skill checks or Will saves, its still possible for higher level characters, especially those with good will saves, like nobles and clerics, to keep their wits about them and make their points, but low level characters and those with poor Will saves will be humbled before greatness.

Although an appropriately great peice of art publicly displayed could have a permanent effect on revenues since visitors would come to see it.

Art tourism didn't begin until the late eighteenth century. A better analogy is the medieval pilgrimage, but the medieval pilgrim wasn't out to see art, but to see relics. The relics might be glorified by art, but in this role, the art is magnifying the relic, not an attraction in itself.

The comodification of art is really a nineteenth century thing.

[ploesch]

In a way I think you made my point for me.

Leaders change the art because they are looking for a new effect, or some effect. In your example of Henry VIII posing with a portrait of Henry V behind him. How many times do you think that would work before his councillors would sigh and wonder why the leader thinks that still works. They may still agree with the policies proposed because they are good policies, or from fear, but the art would no longer have an effect.

As you mentioned, the art is changed from time to time depending on the situation. So it follows that even you feel that the art loses it's effect after a time.

Do you reallly believe that perisians pass by the "arc de triumphe" and get bleery eyed on a day to day basis? No, we are adaptablecreatures and after a while it's just another peice of landscape. Something you may take pride in when talking with foreigners that aren't being overwhelmed enough for your tastes, but nothing you really even take notice of in your day to day life.

Maybe my Will save is just too high, but I just don't see how putting a statue in town square could have a permanent effect on morale of an entire province or town.

[kgauck]

How many times do you think that would work before his councillors would sigh and wonder why the leader thinks that still works.

I don't need to think about it. That's like thinking about how many teeth a horse needs and deciding that's how many he must have. Instead, I can study the use of art by patrons to control their image.

As you mentioned, the art is changed from time to time depending on the situation. So it follows that even you feel that the art loses it's effect after a time.

You might get that impression if you ignore what I wrote.

Do you reallly believe that perisians pass by the "arc de triumphe" and get bleery eyed on a day to day basis?

I believe people are still impressed by the legacy of Napoleon, and I think that his monuments help sustain his legacy. So while I think the term "bleary eyed" is a bit snarky, I agree with the statement.

Maybe my Will save is just too high, but I just don't see how putting a statue in town square could have a permanent effect on morale of an entire province or town.

No one said the effect was permanent, I did say the art is permanent. Depending on the effect you may just have to behold it, or you have to contemplate it. Some effects are passive and some are active, but in any event you have to see it, just as with bards you have to hear the song to be effected. The benefit may be permanent, but the effect is not.

[ploesch]

I don't want to be adversarial, but I think we are talking past eachother a bit.

I do understand that Art, when properly used can have an effect on the situation. What I am saying is that if you have the same peice(s) displayed all the time people will eventually get used to it.

For sake of argument, let's just say that when properly used art will have the intended effect every time. What I am saying is that realistically if you used the art in the same way every time those regularly exposed to it would become immune to the effect.

That's something that wouldn't be easy to define in game terms.

I hope that clears up what I've been trying to say.

[kgauck]

What I am saying is that if you have the same peice(s) displayed all the time people will eventually get used to it.

There is an old saying in agriculture: "The master's footsteps are the best fertilizer." The idea being that if the workers see the master is around, they do all their work and the harvest is good. If the master is no where to be seen, the workers slack off.

The purpose of the art is to remind the workers (or courtiers, subjects, diplomats, viewers) of the master. In the absence of an actual ruler, I agree the that art cannot keep people in thrall. But if the ruler is present (art acts, for the most part, as a modifier on the ruler's skills, so the ruler must be present to use his skills) art will always work because the work only says something about the ruler. Art simply augments what is already there in the ruler, it doesn't act in place of the ruler.

Court life is full of constant reminders of the pecking order. The ruler enters, everyone stands, when the ruler sits, others may sit, clothes (sumptuary pracitice) identify rank and precedence, who gets to address whom, and who must wait to be addressed, you can use a persons name, and who must use their title or office, all of these things are constant reminders of who is in charge. Art does that as well, but can also carry content about what the ruler stands for as well.

Rulers surround themselves with symbols for a reason. I don't think that people continue to love the ruler, but get tired of his crown. "Why does the duke still wear the crown? We all know he's the duke." The crown, an object of art, is a constant reminder of who the duke is, his magnificence, majesty, and rightful place in the order of all things.

[kgauck]

Towards the end of Elizabeth I's reign her Privy Council ordered that all unsanctioned and badly made portraits of the Queen be hunted down and destroyed; there had been such an appetite for her likeness that they were being churned out by incompetent artists, and these "disproportioned and unseemelie Counterfeites" debased the coinage of her politically crucial iconography.