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Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey
Yes, I understand what you mean, David.
I'm applying a very high Javanese standard to a piece of work that comes from an area where it is entirely possible these standards were unknown.
Its a bit like appraising a Pro Hart (popular Aussie artist), or a Grandma Moses by the same standards that would be applied to an old master.
However, the contrast was just too good to let pass. Even if these standards cannot be applied to blades from this area, the blades themselves can serve as very good examples to allow me to make my point.
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I may be stepping out on a limb here, because i admittedly do not know enough about peninsula blades to know what would or should be an acceptable or even preferred pawakan to the people that either of these blade would have been made for. Since you have brought up the art comparison Alan, there is the expression "Rubenesque" used when referring to some women. By popular Western standards of today such women might be considered fat and less desirable, but in their time and place they were the ideal. I also don't find your comparisons of Hart and Moses to the old masters acceptable. Grandma Moses (and i assume Hart) was an unskilled artist working in the style of folk art. I do not believe that there is any question as to the technical skill applied to the Tok Chu blade, just the aesthetics.
You say that you have used these two blades to comment on some very important aesthetic factors that may indeed be totally irrelevant. But if we can not apply these aesthetics to this style of keris then i am afraid that i miss your point. Since, as you say, trying to carry out this exercise on two Javanese blades would make it nearly impossible to distinguish a superb blade from a terrible one, i am not sure that i see how we can apply your comments at all. How can i take this information and apply it to other (Javanese?) keris, for instance, if the differences in these aspects of these keris would be so slight that my untrained eye probably wouldn't even see it? So why does it matter if the Tok Chu blade fails to meet Javanese criteria? Aren't we discussing apples and oranges here?
