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I was pretty ignorant before visiting Arundel. I'd never seen or visited a castle before outside of books and movies etc. and I mostly thought it was a museum dedicated to preserving things from times past. And so I paid the (very fucking pricey) entry fee, went in, and took my time and honestly loved it. I loved it. Opulent, filled with splendour, and then I was chatting to a volunteer and she said these words:
'The Duke of Norfolk still uses these (historically preserved) rooms to entertain, they live in another part of the castle.'
And you know, maybe if I hadn't been so sick, I would have done a cursory amount of research to realise that we were essentially the poor people paying money to the landed fucking gentry to help preserve their classist fucking monstrosity. But unfortunately, I realised when it was too late.
It was also grossly colonialist. There were so many items they'd simply taken from other countries. A stone foot from a Roman or Greek sculpture that one of the Dukes just had to have, no matter what. A sculpture of the Virgin Mary stolen from South East Asia. But of course they never use the word 'stole' though they were very open about how looting and pillaging the spoils of war is totally fine, of course.
So, Glen got a handbook re: the art and everything. And I know what most of these paintings and sculptures are and who they're by, but I'm too mad to put those details in. I don't really think it deserves it. I don't think people should be allowed to live in places like this, no matter how much money they have, and I don't think they deserve to have so much money in the first place.
Eat the rich. Fuck classism, which is still so deeply entrenched in the UK culture it's fetid (even down to 'oh they have an X accent, you know what that means' like, it's just an accent? Calm your tits, classist assholes?
SO. Presenting Arundel, the home of the Duke of Norfolk (or one of them, anyway). Splendid. Huge. Grand. Grotesque. Filled with real Van Dyck paintings etc. Established in 1067 (still keeping some of its original Norman features, including the Keep), and developed into a Gothic style later, and still a paean to the terrible ways humans treat each other in an attempt to have more than the other person. It is awe-inspiring, but horrid, too.
( Front, initial interior and the Main Hall. )
'The Duke of Norfolk still uses these (historically preserved) rooms to entertain, they live in another part of the castle.'
And you know, maybe if I hadn't been so sick, I would have done a cursory amount of research to realise that we were essentially the poor people paying money to the landed fucking gentry to help preserve their classist fucking monstrosity. But unfortunately, I realised when it was too late.
It was also grossly colonialist. There were so many items they'd simply taken from other countries. A stone foot from a Roman or Greek sculpture that one of the Dukes just had to have, no matter what. A sculpture of the Virgin Mary stolen from South East Asia. But of course they never use the word 'stole' though they were very open about how looting and pillaging the spoils of war is totally fine, of course.
So, Glen got a handbook re: the art and everything. And I know what most of these paintings and sculptures are and who they're by, but I'm too mad to put those details in. I don't really think it deserves it. I don't think people should be allowed to live in places like this, no matter how much money they have, and I don't think they deserve to have so much money in the first place.
Eat the rich. Fuck classism, which is still so deeply entrenched in the UK culture it's fetid (even down to 'oh they have an X accent, you know what that means' like, it's just an accent? Calm your tits, classist assholes?
SO. Presenting Arundel, the home of the Duke of Norfolk (or one of them, anyway). Splendid. Huge. Grand. Grotesque. Filled with real Van Dyck paintings etc. Established in 1067 (still keeping some of its original Norman features, including the Keep), and developed into a Gothic style later, and still a paean to the terrible ways humans treat each other in an attempt to have more than the other person. It is awe-inspiring, but horrid, too.
( Front, initial interior and the Main Hall. )
