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When Hollywood Ruled The Skies - Volumes 1 through 4 by Bruce Oriss


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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:56 pm 
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Django wrote:
Identifying aspect as in it's part of it's provenance. It is NAMED. It's not just a bu no.

Typical response from an attorney to typical comments from a creative person. ;) :lol: Hahaha!

Have you ever seen the CAF nose art panels in person? I have a feeling it might alter your perspective.


Yes, and I have seen the even cooler Halifax nose art panels in Ottawa. But you are right about the creative person's perspective; it's a touchy-feely view of history to consider these items historically significant. I have those moments as well, but today I happen to be feeling rational.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 2:13 pm 
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Django wrote:
I have a feeling it might alter your perspective.


doubtful

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 2:53 pm 
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i dont know anything about this P-47. Is it real? I mean the real Dottie?

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:07 pm 
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Nathan wrote:
i dont know anything about this P-47. Is it real? I mean the real Dottie?


Yes. http://www.dottiemaep-47.com/

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:11 pm 
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ktst97 wrote:
Django wrote:
I have a feeling it might alter your perspective.


doubtful


And why is that? For me at least, to be standing underneath those panels and seeing the real thing... was no less thrilling than standing at the end of the runway and having a B-24 scream overhead after takeoff. They are both a connection to the past where men far greater than I lived and died. When you look at Flak Bait's original paint... you feel nothing? :shock:

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:12 pm 
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Hey thats cool! :D Too bad its not a razerback. :lol: :hide:

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:14 pm 
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When you look at Flak Bait's original paint... you feel nothing?



Not unless you touch it! :lol: :P :wink:

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:31 pm 
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k5083 wrote:
Yes, and I have seen the even cooler Halifax nose art panels in Ottawa. But you are right about the creative person's perspective; it's a touchy-feely view of history to consider these items historically significant. I have those moments as well, but today I happen to be feeling rational.

August


I've only seen the Halifax panels online, not in person. The one thing about the CAF panels that may get lost to some folks is looking at the other side and seeing the interior of the aircraft complete with cables and wires. And one even has a drop seat on the side... and you realize (should be obvious) they all have operational histories. They're not just a piece of canvas hanging at the Art Institute or the Gugenheim that some (supposedly) famous artist painted (think of some of the lesser known collections). They are representative of the efforts of thousands of men and women during the war. Maybe the CAF panels are taken for granted because they have been around for so long after donation to the museum. They shouldn't be though.

And if the collecting of historical artifacts were more "rational", then museums (would there even be a need for more than one?) would be pretty boring and simplistic. The Dead Sea Scrolls are just old pieces of paper, right? :roll: :lol:

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:56 pm 
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Nathan wrote:
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When you look at Flak Bait's original paint... you feel nothing?

Not unless you touch it! :lol: :P :wink:


:D Actually, only if some comes off in my hands. That's why I rub hard. :D

Seriously, this is what conversations about historical importance so often boil down to in warbird circles: thrills, sentiment, and feelings. As if history existed just to give us an emotional rush. My question was what can we LEARN from nose art panels and the answer is pretty much nothing and so I conclude they are not important to preserve for historical purposes. Sentiments are important and if you want to preserve an artifact for those purposes, by all means go ahead, just don't pretend it's history.

Django wrote:
And if the collecting of historical artifacts were more "rational", then museums (would there even be a need for more than one?) would be pretty boring and simplistic.


Depends on whether you find it boring and simplistic to learn, or whether you need to feel emotions.

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The Dead Sea Scrolls are just old pieces of paper, right? :roll: :lol:


No. Most of them are parchment, some papyrus. See, you've learned something already -- paper didn't exist in pre-Christian Judea. And then there's the content of those scrolls -- they contain information we wouldn't otherwise know. That's history. Feeling thrills, or a connection to the greatest generation of Judeans circa 100BC, or whatever other jollies you might get from them are not history.

August


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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 4:19 pm 
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Typical black and white viewpoint! :lol:

Of course I feel a connection. Don't you? It's something I am passionate about. Why else would we be here on WIX? It's absolutely history. History is more than just dry facts.

What do you learn when you look at a Caravaggio painting? Or an Edward Hopper painting? A glimpse into the time period that they were created hopefully. Granted, these are singular one of a kind paintings vs a mass produced aircraft. But said aircraft has something in common... a one of a kind painting... which should be preserved.

Why is a Greek vase important historically? They used vases. We use vases. The Romans used vases. The Egyptians used vases. There are millions of vases in the world. What can you learn by looking at this vase fragment? It was a vessel to hold food or water. Who cares, right?

Image

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Well, you're talking more about art now than history. I don't think anyone seriously argues that the Caravaggio or Hopper paintings have value as historical relics/documents. They are aesthetic masterpieces. The Greek vase is a slightly different matter -- an piece of art from a society with relatively limited written records can tell us things that those records might not -- but I'll accept your premise that many are of limited historical value. Never mind history; preserving art is not such a bad thing. WWII nose art is an interesting category of folk art and it is nice that a few pieces survive, as well as a very extensive photographic record.

I still don't accept that any of this is history. True, history is not just dry facts. Some of the facts are excitingly moist and squishy. But it is about facts. I don't accept that it is about emotions and sentiment. And this is not just an academic argument because, as JDK periodically points out, whether you want to preserve information versus get a better emotional experience leads you in different directions in terms of conservation, preservation, restoration and operation decisions. The warbird and air museum communities tend to be very interested in maximizing the emotional connection even if it means destroying historical information. To me that means they are almost entirely about something other than history.

August


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They are indeed aesthetic masterpieces, but is daily life for people in 1934 or 1598 the same as for you and I? No? You can see this by studying the subject matter... and gaining historical perspective. A glimpse into history.

As for the vase...

k5083 wrote:
The Greek vase is a slightly different matter -- an piece of art from a society with relatively limited written records can tell us things that those records might not -- but I'll accept your premise that many are of limited historical value. Never mind history; preserving art is not such a bad thing. WWII nose art is an interesting category of folk art and it is nice that a few pieces survive, as well as a very extensive photographic record.

August


Aha! There's that word "art". :lol: Is it art? It's a piece of a utilitarian object decorated by someone. Much like the P-47 in question is a utilitarian object decorated by someone. Should the greek vase fragment not be in a museum because it has no historical significance. It's merely a common utilitarian object with some decorations. Why bother spending days and days digging in pits trying to find any fragment of historical importance? Why not pound it into dust and make new bricks for some strip mall somewhere? Because it has historical significance. As art. As historical record of the Greeks. In my view, the nose art panel is similar to the vase fragment. An important piece of the whole that should be preserved.

I can see nose art, and trench art, etc being categorized as folk art in the most basic sense. Does it matter that one of the B-25s in the Doolittle Raid was called the Ruputured Duck? Does that have historical significance? That is part of the historical fact of the mission. How deep into history should we go? Is that just minutia? History can be defined as the study of human affairs. One particular human painted his plane and took part in one of the most important missions of the war. That's not history?

We still have people living that were part of WWII. What about 200 years from now when all we have are the stories and whatever artifacts survive, like for example the American Revolution? Perhaps that is why you don't see it as history per se. It's too recent maybe? Would a painted shield with some kind of hearaldry from some forgotten knight have any historical significance? Or is it just an old piece of metal that would make a good table top?

I agree with you on the warbird operators not being too concerned with actual history. But hopefully that is changing with restorations like Happy Jack's Go Buggy. It's becoming more en vogue for the restorers to consult the historians. It's taken a long time to get to that point. Everyone benefits. And by saving that cowling with that nose art, they have a chance to preserve it for education along side hearing the mighty roar of the engine and seeing it high overhead.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:17 pm 
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Django wrote:
Why is a Greek vase important historically? They used vases. We use vases. The Romans used vases. The Egyptians used vases. There are millions of vases in the world. What can you learn by looking at this vase fragment? It was a vessel to hold food or water. Who cares, right?

Interesting discussion (I'll take this over gasps of 'awesome' any day).

One quick response. A vase can tell you something critical about how to build a replica ship - the Trireme Olympias in the Greek Navy, for instance.

August makes many good points; and so does Django. Dottie May's nose are is both utterly trivial and an important (rather than 'priceless', I should have said 'irreplaceable', perhaps) example of genuine, original folk art of the period.

History is as fashion driven as anything else; it fits into the greater recognition and focus on 'ordinary' peoples roles in history; and in the shift from the kings, battles, generals approach. Like the (IMHO) over-emphasis on minorities in history it's just one facet of the raw data of one bit of history, but like a single jigsaw pice, cumulatively it's important. The CAF's collection of original nose-art is (IMHO) one of the most important preserved items in aviation preservation, as it tells us what we want to learn about some if their everyday lives; just like the tins of their 'chow' or box brownie photos. (I believe we over rate historical documents and governmental edicts - as we know, they don't always gel with the will of the people afterwards, and are often whitewash over a messier reality - history needs to include all of that.) On their own, they are of limited use, but like pottery shards or coins cumulatively help date a site, the selection tells us a lot of what was acceptable art at the time; that they felt driven to make it, and how it was done (and why Vargas should've demanded royalties!)

As someone married to an art historian, they have a particular interest; any artist will be interested as to how they were created in war zones (the Pacific being particularly challenging) and what paints and techniques were used. That gives us a different 'connection' to those people, perhaps emotionally driven but no less real than the political connection of other history.

Oh, and incidentally, specifically Renaissance paintings do tell us a lot about life, politics and so forth of the time; usually more than the documents from the period. Hopper's paintings are already held as a critical insight into the era of Amertican history, even used as illustrations in textbooks.

What's included (in art, and nose-art) and also not shown, is crucial to the social mores of the time (like the difference between Gulf War art and W.W.II nose art).

It's trivial - just as trivial as everything else.

;)

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:23 pm 
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Somerone was quicker than me - sort of 'snap' with Django!

Olympias: http://www.hellenicnavy.gr/trihrhs_en.asp

A vase shard depicting a Greek hero (don't they all?) was a vital clue in a naval architect being able to work out the relations in the three rows of oar-holes.

The ship was then used to prove that what the Ancient Greeks claimed was possible with Triremes was indeed doable, unlike later historians statements that they were exaggerations. Given that the Greek domination was based on naval supremacy, their design of Trireme was crucial in that, and given the cultural and political legacy of Ancient Greece, that pit shard has a lot to help us with in understanding. Quite the 'horseshoe-nail'!

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 Post subject: Re: ??
PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 7:44 pm 
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Jack Cook wrote:
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However, teasing about knowing something can have the same effect as telling!

Plus it makes you look bad, pisses folks off and get threads going sideways :idea:


No what makes you look bad is when you talk trash on something everyday then someone tells you that there may be a change coming, and instead of being happy you complain. How can we sit here and say oh you were teasing me with that, when people will post pics here of warbirds being sold and say I can't say who owns this yet, or some other mystery like it's a B-2. I'm sorry I brought it up, but boy I learned a lessosn about WIX here. Some of you just like to complain about the NMNA and NMUSAF no matter what.
Now in this thread we are talking about a P-47 that has nose art panels that were still in displayable condition. Originals from WWII. And we are destroying that history in the name of making it a flyer, and most are O.K. with that. If that was a static museum that did that, dear god, you all would be losing your minds. Why not just strip Flak Bait if there is no history in the paint. There are things to be learned from that nose art such as how it was applied, the style, and how it held up. I can't even believe some of you are saying that this is not a big deal. I thought this is what we were supposed to stand for.

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