Yoon Ji-Hye as Ma-hyang in Kundo: Age Of The Rampant, available now on DVD.
The plot? Robin Hood via a spaghetti western transported to the Joseon Dynasty. There’s actually not a whole ton of kick-ass archery, but if you like swashbuckling, morally-grey-area historical action epics you’ll have a blast.
These pictures are from a Chinese scroll dated around 1426-35, depicting entertainments in the Eastern Park of the Imperial Palace, probably under the Xuande Emperor, the fifth of the Ming Dynasty. They show in exquisite detail a group of archers shooting at targets on poles, targets which spun to indicate hits. The archers wear special overskirts to protect their silk robes. Note the soft tips on the arrows – the rest of the scroll, twenty feet long, depicts games similar of football, golf and polo in addition to archery. Note also the recurved (reflex) bows, the beatific smiles, the waiting around, and air of relaxed enjoyment, in what appears to be a head-to-head competition. Some things haven’t changed all that much in 600 years.
These photos are ©The Infinite Curve and were taken at the British Museum exhibition in Dec 2014.
(via George Takei).
Some really nice clean work from Ms. Stiller (yepyep) over on Flickr, who is a kyūdō practitioner herself. I like the way she has tightened up the framing to really catch the calm before the draw; the potential. The classic image of an archer – for millennia – is at full draw with the bow taut, the person and the weapon poised at the critical moment. Sometimes it’s good to see something else.
According to click-hungry cultural accumulator Buzzfeed, arrows were one of the tattoos that simply everyone got this year – and it pulled a few pics off Instagram to prove it (below). Archery-based tattoos have been popular for a long time, but the ornate, feathery ‘Indian-style-arrow’ tats, somewhere between an actual weapon and a symbol, do seem to be on the rise.
The arrow, of course, has many different symbolic meanings: from masculine power and warfare, to love, movement and direction – the softened, more feminine designs here seem to indicate that people are projecting the latter. A broken arrow traditionally symbolises peace, and crossed arrows symbolise friendship. Anyway, have a look:
There’s plenty more archery tattoos out there, you can start here and here and here and go from there. Although my friend Eva at my club still has my favourite (below) going round her upper arm – it ends in a stone point. If you’ve got some archery ink, feel free to share.
Arrowheads as art installation – neolithic projectile points found in Britain, up on the wall as part of the Jeremy Deller ‘English Magic’ exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate on the east coast of England.
There is always something magical about stone tools; the lack of decay means they retain all their form and function even after thousands of years in the ground. These objects don’t fade or wither. They’re still good to go.
Deller uses ‘English Magic’ to explore mysterious acts and ‘magical’ transformations in British society – its people, myths and folklore as well as its broad cultural, socio-political and economic history… the exhibition weaves a mythical narrative through moments and events from Britain’s shared cultural memory, moving back and forth between the past, present and an imagined future.
The exhibition is on till 11th January 2015. If you can, go.
So I got tipped off about this incredible audio documentary about sound design in sport, on the 99% Invisible radio website. Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011, it explores modern sports broadcasting and the various techniques used to heighten the atmosphere. In some cases, the sound design employed entirely changes our perception of what the sport is ‘about’. If you have time, it’s worth listening on headphones, or at least in stereo:
The amplified sound of a ball bouncing on grass at Wimbledon over a hushed crowd, with just the faintest trace of reflections from the court, is as much an essential sensory part of the Championships as the white clothing and the beautiful green grass filling the screen. This was brought home to me last year when I watched a game under the closed roof of Centre Court, which was only installed in 2009. Since an outdoor court effectively becomes an indoor court, the reverberations change completely, and it suddenly feels alien and strange. Memory and expectation become part of the audience experience (and indeed, the players experience too).
Other TV sports, such as darts, with the heavily amplified thud of the dart hitting the board over a tense crowd ‘hush’ turn out to be enhanced by sample trickery. The sliding sports at the Winter Olympics are similarly tweaked to improve the audience experience, and curling, with its distinct vocal repertoire and constant team communication is one of the few sports where the entire team are miked up individually. For a different experience, Olympic diving now switches to underwater microphones along with an underwater camera shot as soon as the athlete hits the water; to catch the bubbles and the isolation of the diver returning to the surface.
Of course, many effects which are now essential to the character of sports broadcasting are denied to the audience who have actually turned up to watch. Although there’s stiil some things you can’t get through the TV. I was at Twickenham as a teenager to watch England v France in 1991, and the roar that went up when the England team ran onto the pitch has been imprinted on me for good. “Energy is pure delight.”, as William Blake wrote.
And yes, there is archery. If you want to skip straight there, it’s about 28 minutes in. From the 1990s onwards the Olympic event started using boundary microphones out on the field to catch the sound of the arrow in flight: a subtle, but engaging effect. The announcer, the crowd and the sound of the arrow striking the target become part of the experience. Personally I think they should bring back the heartrate monitor trialled at the World Cup Final in Tokyo in 2012, but apparently it wasn’t popular.
Finally, I will never forget being in the stands at London 2012, where I recorded just a brief bit of audio on my phone; part of the action at the women’s individual final. See what you can hear:
I wish I had had a microphone sensitive enough to pick up the sound in the stands at Lords: the eyelets on the flag rattling gently in the breeze against the metal flagpoles, casting a distinctive, exotic tinkling over the arena, and at the moments of greatest tension. It’s stuck there in my memory forever though. Wish I could share it with you.
Thanks to John Hirst for finding this.
Archery stamps from round the world across the 20th century. The image of a bow, usually at full draw, never loses its appeal – and the universality of that image works well at small sizes. Just look at this lot:
Archer using a hunting bow, designed by Belgian artist Émile Vloors (1871-1952), engraved and printed by American Bank Note Company, and issued for use in Belgian Congo in 1923.
Woman archer, printed by photogravure, and issued by Indonesia on May 15, 1996 to publicise the Olympic Games, held in Atlanta, USA.
Traditional archer, printed by lithogravure, and issued by Bhutan on May 16, 1962.
Woman archer, designed by Czech artist Jan Cerny, engraved by Jan Mrácek, and issued by Czechoslovakia on April 30, 1957 to publicize the World Archery Championships, held in Prague.
Stamp depicting a petroglyph of prehistoric archers found in the Ennedi Plateau, designed and engraved by Jean Pheulpin, and issued by Chad on November 19, 1968.
from Ajman
Lithographed in Moscow, 1927
Stamp depicting Rama, the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu in Hinduism, printed by photogravure, and issued by Indonesia on August 31, 1971 to publicize the International Ramayana Festival.
Cyprus stamp for Munich ’72 featuring the pictogram from the famous Otl Aicher set. Read a whole lot more about archery pictograms here.
Issued by Japan on September 6, 1996 to publicise the 51st National Athletic Meet.
Designed by Polish poster artist Waldemar Swierzy (1931- ), printed by photogravure, and issued by Poland on May 20, 1972 to publicise the Summer Games in Munich.
Designed by Russian graphic artist Yuri A. Lukianov, and issued by Russia (USSR) on June 24, 1971 as one of a set of five stamps publicizing the 5th Summer Spartakiad.
from Monaco for the Tokyo Olympics 1964
Woman archer and Mount Nantai, printed by photogravure, issued by Japan on October 11, 1980 to publicize the National Archery Meet, held in Tochigi.
Three archers (wearing some very interesting outfits) and target, designed by Chun Hee-ban, printed by photogravure, and issued by Korea on October 8, 1971 to publicise the 52nd National Athletic Meet.
Stamp depicting Admiral Yi Sun-shin (1545-1598), a Korean naval commander famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin war in the Joseon Dynasty, designed by Pak Choon-kyo, printed by lithography, and issued by Korea on October 1, 1949.
Engraved stamp depicting an archer, issued by Japan on August 22, 1954 as one of two stamps in a set publicising the 9th National Sports Festival of Japan, held in Hokkaido.
Kyudo based postmark from Japan.
Moldovan stamp celebrating Natalia Valeeva‘s bronze medal in Barcelona ’92 for the Unified Team.
Painterly London 2012 Paralympic archery logo. (I have a badge of this one…)
There’s many more stamps out there if you want to get Googling. Almost all of the above and much of the text information came from this incredible thread at stampcommunity.org, with special mentions for users rod222 and especially nethryk. The dedication of people on the internet to their particular craft never ceases to delight and amaze me. Thanks very much indeed.
