> > It occured to me after talking
> > to some of my players (and a
> > startled inspection of Storm
> > Tribe and Thunder Rebels) that
> > there really wasn't any sort
> > of god or goddess for those
> > who wish to be artists...
>
> I asked a similar question at Convulsion several years ago and Greg's
> answer included that pure artists were likely to be drawn to Donander,
You know, I've been thinking about this, and I think that the answer is actually very simple.
What is Heortling Art ? It isn't painting, it isn't classical sculpture, etc.
It's tapestry and ceramics, tatooing and jewellery, dress and poetry, wood sculpture and icons (Hi Simon), music, song, acting, and dancing.
I think it's obvious though, from a reading of TR, that the core Heortling art is tapestry weaving, and that the main Heortling god of art is Ernalda herself (see top of TR p. 180).
Ernalda the Weaver (specific subcult not published in TR, possibly an oversight, but maybe because all Ernaldans are Weavers) is the true source of what we would think of as Heortling Art, because it is she who creates images of beauty and meaning on her loom, and she is the creator of the deepest sources of aesthetic experience and pleasure. Children learn many of their first myths from these tapestries as their elders explain the meanings of the stories, people, creatures, gods, and places depicted.
The wooden icons of TR and ST are obviously offshoots and more durable versions of those images, but without the benefit of the sacred power of the Loom.
Heortling tatoos are similarly derived from Ernalda's Tapestry, as is much of their jewellery, although in forms even more stylised than the wooden icons..
Ceramics carries similar images as those used on tapestry, wood, and skin, all three.
Dress and poetry, music, song, acting, and dancing are forms attempting to recreate the patterns of Ernaldan loomwork in the action and structures of life, and the art forms described above also have that function.
It follows that Nandan is also an artist god, as he is the male Weaver. It also follows that "all" Heortling artists are women.
> IIRC. Plus, of course, most crafters would decorate their products,
> some extraordinarily beautifully.
There is of course much merely decorative Heortling art.
> And finally, anything sufficiently
> well made (i.e. someone put their soul/spirit/essence/whatever into
> its making) could become magical in its own right. So a Heortling
> could paint a great ritual...
She would IMO be more likely to weave one ... :-)
Finally, ob-painting, art forms linked to Sight are linked with the element of Fire, and are therefore more likely in Solar culture than elsewhere (and Lunar culture of course).
I also imagine the Carmanians as having a rich tradition of pictorial art, dramatically setting characters and events in the opposition of Light and Darkness ...
Something like RW baroque art ?
Anyway, that's enough.
Julian Lord
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