Byzantine art is the symbolic system which was developed by the early Greek or Byzantine artists out of the Christian symbolism. Byzantine Art arose in South-eastern Europe after Constantine the Great had made Byzantium the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD and ornamented that city, which was called after him, with all the treasures of Grecian art.
One of the chief influences in Byzantine art was Christianity, and to a certain extent Byzantine art may be recognized as the endeavour to give expression to the new elements which Christianity had brought into the life of men. The tendency towards Oriental luxuriance and splendour of ornament now quite supplanted the simplicity of ancient taste. Richness of material and decoration was the aim of the artist rather than purity of conception. Yet the classical ideals of art, and in particular the traditions of technical processes and methods carried to Byzantium by the artists of the Western Empire, held their ground long enough, and produced work pure and powerful enough, to kindle the new artistic life which began in Italy with Cimabue and Giotto.
With regard to sculpture the statues no longer displayed the freedom and dignity of ancient art. The true proportion of parts, the correctness of the outlines, and in general
the severe beauty of the naked figure, or of simple drapery in Greek art, were neglected for extravagant costume and ornamentation and petty details. Yet in the best period of Byzantine art, from the 6th to the 11th century, there is considerable spiritual dignity in the general conception of the figures. But sculpture was of second-rate importance at Byzantium, the taste of those times inclining more to mosaic work with the costliness and brilliant colours of its stones.
The first germ of a Christian style of art was developed in the Byzantine pictures. The artists, who appear to have seldom employed the living model, and had nothing real and material before them, but were obliged to find, in their own imaginations, conceptions of the external appearance of sacred persons, such as the mother of Christ or the apostles, could give but feeble renderings of their ideas. As they cared but little for a faithful imitation of nature, but were
satisfied with repeating what was once acknowledged as successful, it is not strange that certain forms, approved by the taste of the time, should be made, by convention, and without regard to truth and beauty, general models of the human figure, and be transmitted as such to succeeding times. In this way the artists in the later periods did not even aim at accuracy of representation, but were contented with stiff general outlines, lavishing their labour on ornamental parts.
Byzantine architecture may be said to have assumed its distinctive features in the church of St Sophia built by Justinian in the 6th century, and still existing as the chief mosque in Constantinople. It is more especially the style associated with the Greek Church as distinguished from the Roman.
The leading forms of the Byzantine style are the round arch, the circle, and in particular the dome. The last is the most conspicuous and characteristic object in Byzantine buildings, and the free and full employment of it was arrived at when by the use of pendentives the architects were enabled to place it on a square apartment instead of a circular or polygonal. In this style of building incrustation, the incrustation of brick with more precious materials, was largely in use. It depended much on colour and surface ornament for its effect, and with this intent mosaics wrought on grounds of gold or of positive colour are profusely introduced, while coloured marbles. and stones of various kinds are greatly made use of. The capitals are of peculiar and original design, the most characteristic being square and tapering downwards, and they are very varied in their decorations.
Byzantine architecture may be divided into an older and a newer (or Neo-Byzantine) style. The most distinctive feature of the latter ia that the dome is raised on a perpendicular circular or polygonal piece of masonry (technically the drum) containing windows for lighting the interior, while in the older style the light was admitted by openings in the dome itself. The Cathedral of Athens is an example of the Neo-Byzantine style.
In the fine arts, carnation describes the colour of flesh and as such the parts of a picture which are naked or without drapery, exhibiting the natural colour of the flesh. Research Carnation
A comet is a small body orbiting the sun on an elliptical path with a long tail of dust and ice.
Some comets are only visible by the aid of the telescope, while others can be seen by the naked eye. In the latter case they usually appear like stars accompanied with a train of light, sometimes short and sometimes extending over half the sky, mostly single and more or less curved, but sometimes forked. In a comet which appeared in 1744 the train was divided into several branches, spreading out from the head like a fan. The train is not stationary relatively to the head, but is subject to remarkable movements. The direction in which it points is always opposite to the sun, and as the , comet passes its perihelion the train changes its apparent position with extraordinary velocity. The head of the comet is itself of different degrees of luminosity, there being usually a central core, called the nucleus, of greater brilliancy than the surrounding envelope, called the coma.
Comets were long regarded as supernatural objects, and usually as portents of impending calamity. Tycho Brahe was the first who expressed a rational opinion on the subject, coming to the conclusion that the comet of 1577 was a heavenly body at a greater distance from the earth than that of the moon. The general law of the motion of bodies, as well as his own observations on the comet of 1680, led Isaac Newton to conclude that the orbits of the comets must, like those of the planets, be ellipses, having the sun in one focus, but far more eccentric; and having their aphelions, or greater distances from the sun, far remote in the regions of space.
This idea was taken up by Halley, who collated the observations which had been made of all the twenty-four comets of which notice had been taken previous to 1680. The results were very interesting. With but few exceptions the comets had passed within less than the earth's shortest distance from the sun, some of them within less than one-third of it, and the average about one-half. Out of the number, too, nearly two-thirds had had their motions retrograde, or moved in the opposite direction to the planets. While Halley was engaged on these comparisons and deductions the comet of 1682 made its appearance, and he found that there was a wonderful resemblance between it and three other comets that he found recorded - the comets of 1456, of 1531, and of 1607. The times of the appearance of these comets had been at very nearly regular intervals, the average period being between seventy-five and seventy-six years. Their distances from the sun, when in perihelion, or when nearest to that luminary, had been nearly the same, being nearly six-tenths of that of the earth, and not varying more than one-sixtieth from each other.
The inclination of their orbits to that of the earth had also been nearly the same, between 17 degrees and 18 degrees; and their motions had all been retrograde. Putting these facts together, Halley concluded that the comets of 1456, 1531,1607, and 1682 were reappearances of one and the same comet, which revolved in an elliptic orbit round the sun, performing its circuit in a period varying from a little more than seventy-six years to a little less than seventy-five; or having, as far as the observations had been carried, a variation of about fifteen months in the absolute duration of its year, measured according to that of the earth. For this variation in the time of its revolution Halley accounted upon the supposition that the form of its orbit had been altered by the attraction of the remote planets Jupiter and Saturn as it passed near to them; and thence he concluded that the period of its next appearance would be lengthened, but that it would certainly reappear in 1758 or early in 1759. As the time of its expected reappearance approached, Clairaut calculated that it would be retarded 100 days by the attraction of Saturn, and 518 by that of Jupiter, so that it would not come to the perihelion, or point of its orbit nearest the 500 sun, until the 13th of April, 1759.
It actually reached its perihelion on the 13th of March, 1759, being thirty days earlier than he had calculated. Along with the period of this comet and its perihelion distance, the magnitude and form of its path were also calculated. Estimating the mean distance of the earth from the sun at 95,000,000 miles (the number which was at that time considered as the true one), the mean distance of the comet was calculated to be 1,705,250,000 miles; its greatest distance from the sun, 3,355,400,000; its least distance, 55,100,000; and the transverse or largest diameter of its orbit, 3,410,500,000. This comet, therefore, is a body belonging to the solar system, and quite beyond the attraction of any body which does not belong to that system; and as this is determined of one comet, analogy points it out as being the case with them all. In 1835 it again returned, being first seen at Rome, on August the 5th, and from that time continued to be observed until the end of the year in Europe, and through a great part of spring 1836 in the southern hemisphere.
The comet denominated Encke's comet, which has made repeated appearances, was first observed in 1818, and was identified with a comet observed in 1786, also with a comet discovered in 1795 by Miss Herschel in the constellation Cygnus, and with another seen in 1805. Its orbit is an ellipse of comparatively small dimensions, wholly within the orbit of Jupiter; its period is 1260 days, or about three years and three-tenths. It has been frequently observed since.
Another comet, the history of which is of the utmost importance in the latest theories regarding the connection of these bodies and the periodic showers of shooting-stars, is one known as Biela's comet, discovered in 1826. It revolved about the sun in about 6.75 years, and was identified as the same comet which was observed in 1772 and in 1806. Its returns were noted in 1832, 1839, and 1845. In 1846 it divided into two, returned double in 1852, but has not since been seen, the Supposition being that it has been dissipated, and that it was represented by a great shower of meteors that were seen in November 1872. One of the most remarkable comets of recent times was that known as Donati's, discovered by Dr. Donati of Florence in 1858. It was very brilliant in England in the autumn of that year, and on the 18th of October was near coming into collision with Venus, The year 1881 was remarkable for the number of comets recorded. During that year no fewer than seven comets, including the well-known short-period comet Encke's, were observed. Research Comet
Engraving is the art of representing objects and depicting characters on metal, wood, precious stones, etc, by means of incisions made with instruments variously adapted to the substances operated upon and the description of work intended.
Impressions from metal plates are named engravings, prints, or plates those printed from wood being called indifferently wood engravings and wood-cuts. While, however, these impressions are not altogether dissimilar in appearance, the processes are distinct. In plates the lines intended to print are incised, and in order to take an impression the plate is daubed over with a thick ink which fills all the lines. The surface is then wiped perfectly clean, leaving only the incised lines filled with ink. A piece of damp paper is now laid on the face of the plate, and both are passed through the press, which causes the ink to pass from the plate to the paper. This operation needs to be repeated for every impression, for the wood block, on the contrary, the spaces between the lines of the drawing are cut out, leaving the lines standing up like type, the printing being from the inked surface of the raised lines, and effected much more rapidly than plate printing.
Engraving on wood, intended for printing or taking impressing from, long preceded engraving on metals. The art is of eastern origin, and at least as early as the 10th century engraving and printing from wood blocks was common in China. We first hear of wood engraving being cultivated in Europe by the Italians and Germans in the 13th century. For a hundred and fifty years, however, there is small indication of the practice of the art, which was at first confined to the production of block-books, playing cards, and religious prints. In the 15th century the art of printing from engraved plates was discovered in Florence by Maso Finiguerra.
Engraving had long been used as a means of decorating armour, metal vessels, etc, the engravers generally securing duplicates of their works before laying in the niello (a species of metallic enamel) by filling the lines with dark colour, and taking casts of them in sulphur. The discovery of the practicability of taking impressions upon paper led to engraving upon copper plates for the purpose of printing from.
The date of the earliest known niello proof upon paper is 1452. The work of the Florentine engravers, however, was almost at once surpassed in Venice and elsewhere in North Italy by Andrea Mantegna, Girolamo Mocetto, Giovanni Batista del Porto, and others. In Marc Antonio Raimondi, who wrought under the guidance of Raphael, and reproduced many of his works, the art reached its highest point of the earlier period, and Rome became the centre of a new school, which included Marco da Ravenna, Giulio Bonasone, and Agostino de Musis.
In the meantime, in Germany the progress of the art had been not less rapid. Of the oldest school the most important engraver is Martin Schongauer. He was, however, surpassed a generation later by Albert Durer who excelled both in copper and wood engraving, especially in the latter. Among his most famous contemporaries and successors were Burgkmair and Lucas Cranach. The Dutch and Flemish schools, of which Durer's contemporary Lucas van Leyden was the head, did much to enlarge the scope of the art, either by paying increased attention to the rendering of light and shade, and the expression of local colour, as in the case of Cornelius Cort and Bloemart; or by developing freedom and expression of line, as in the case of Goltzius and his pupils.
Rubens influenced engraving through the two Bolswerts, Vorstermann, Pontius, and de Jode, who engraved many of his works on a large size. Towards the end of the 17th century etching, which had before been rarely used, became more common, and was practised with great success by Rembrandt and other painters of that period. In France Noel Garnier founded a school of engraving about the middle of the 16th century; but it produced no work of any high distinction until the reign of Louis XIV, when Nanteuil's pupil Gerard Edelinck and Gerard Audran flourished. The former was skilled in using his graver to produce colour effects, the latter is famed for his engravings from Nicolas Poussin and Le Brun. But these were all surpassed about the middle of the 18th century by Wille, a German resident in Paris.
Before the middle of the 17th century England produced little noteworthy work, availing herself principally of the work of foreign engravers, of whom many took up temporary and even permanent residence. The first English engraver of marked importance was William Hogarth, whose works are distinguished for character and expression. Vivares, a Frenchman by birth, laid the foundation of the English school of landscape-engraving, which was still further developed by William Woollet, who was also an excellent engraver of the human figure.
In historical engraving a not less remarkable advance was made by Sir Robert Strange, and Richard Earlom produced some admirable works in mezzotint. In succession to these came William Sharp, James Bazire, Bartolozzi, James Heath, Bromley, Raimbach, and others.
The substitution of steel for copper plates around 1820 to 1830 gave the power of producing a much larger number of fine impressions, and opened new possibilities for highly-finished work.
During the closing years of the 18th century line engraving attained a depth of colour and fulness of tone in which earlier works generally are deficient, and during the following century it reached a perfectness of finish which it had not previously attained. A picture, whether figure or Landscuape, may be translated by line engraving with all its depth of colour, delicacy of tone, and effect of light and shade; the various textures, whether of naked flesh, silk, satin, woollen, or velvet, all successfully rendered by ingenious modes of laying the lines and combinations of lines of varying strength, width, and depth. Among engraverswho have produced historical works of large size and in the line manner the names of Raphael Mrghen, Longhi, Anderloni, Garavaglia, and Toschi, in Italy; of Forster, Henriquel-Dupont, Bridoux, and Blanchard, in France; of John Burnet, J H Robinson, Doo, J H Watt, and Lumb Stocks, in England, stand pre-eminent.
Among historical and portrait engravers in the stipple or dotted manner the names of H T Ryall, Henry Robinson, William Holl and Francis Holl, may well be mentioned.
In the period 1820 to 1860 landscape engraving attained a perfection in Great Britain which it had not attained in any other country, or at any other time. Among landscape engravers the names of George Gooke, William Miller, E Goodall, J Cousen, K Brandard, and William Forrest hold the foremost places. In mezzotinto engraving Samuel Cousins is unrivalled.
In the period 1830 to 1845 various publications called Annuals, composed of light literature in prose and verse, and illustrated by highly-finished engravings in steel, were very popular. The engravings were necessarily of small size, and are generally of great excellence. A number of them both figure and landscape are executed with such finish and completeness as to be esteemed perfect works. The unrivalled illustrations of Rogers' Poems and Rogers' Italy after Turner and Stothard belong to this period. Many of the originals of the engravings in the Annuals were finished pictures of large size.
A great part of the difficulty in engraving on a small scale from a large picture, consists in determining what details can be left out, and still preserve the full effect and character of the original. The most noted engravers for work of small size are Charles Heath, Charles Bolls, W Finden, E Finden, E. Portbury, J Goodyear, F Engleheart, Henry Le Keux, E Goodall, and W Miller.
After 1870 many plates were produced by a combination of etching and dry point, a comparatively cheap and rapid process. Such works were fashionable and very popular with collectors. But while some of them have been excellent of their kind, the process is of limited resource, and the best works in this manner will not stand comparison with the masterpieces of line engraving. Through lack of encouragement, change of fashion, and the adoption of other methods of reproduction such as photography, line engraving rapidly becoming a lost art in Great Britain. The men who made line engraving famous died, and there was no sufficient inducement for younger men to pursue that art. In France and in Germany some able line engravers were still in practice at the start of the 20th century.
Line Engraving, as implied by the term, is executed entirely in lines. The tools are few and simple. They consist of the graver or burin, the point, the scraper, and the burnisher; an oil-stone or hone, dividers, a parallel square, a magnifying lens; a bridge on which to rest the hand; a blind or shade of tissue paper, to make the light fall equally on the plate, callipers for levelling important erasures, a small steelanvil, a small pointed hammer, and punches. In etching, the following articles are required: a resinous mixture called etching-ground, capable, when spread very thinly over the plate, of resisting the action of the acids used; a dauber for laying the ground equally; a hand-vice; some hair-pencils of different sizes, and bordering wax, made of burgundy-pitch, bees'-wax, and a little oil.
In engraving, the plate, which is highly polished and must be free from all scratches, is first prepared by spreading over it a thin layer of ground. The surface is then smoked, and the outline of the picture transferred to it by pressure from the paper on which it has been drawn in fine outlines by a black-lead pencil. The picture is then drawn on the ground with the etching-needle, which removes the ground in every form produced by it, and leaves the bright metal exposed. A bank of wax is then put round the plate and diluted acid poured on it, which eats out the metal from the lines from which the ground has been removed, but leaves the rest of the plate untouched. The plate is then gone over with the graver, the etched lines clearly defuned, broken lines connected, new lines added, etc. Sometimes the plate is rebitten more than once, those parts which are sufficiently bitten in the first treatment being stopped with varnish, and only the selected parts exposed to after-biting. Finally the burnisher is brought into play alternately with the graver and point to give perfectness and finish.
Such is the process for landscape engraving. In historical and portrait engraving of the highest class, the lines are first drawn on the metal with a fine point and then cut in by the graver, first making a fine line and afterwards entering and re-entering till the desired width and depth of lines is attained. Much of the excellence of such engravings depends on the mode in which the lines are laid, their relative thickness, and the manner in which they cross each other. In historical engraving etching is but little used, and then only for accessories and the less important parts.
In Soft-ground Etching the ground, made by mixing lard with common etching-ground, is laid on the plate and smoked as before, but its extreme softness renders it very liable to injury. The outline of the subject is drawn on a piece of rough paper larger than the plate. The paper is then damped, and laid gently over the ground face upwards, and the margins folded over and pasted down on the back of the plate. When the paper is dry and tightly stretched the bridge is laid across, and with a hardish pencil and firm pressure the drawing is completed in the usual manner. The pressure makes the ground adhere to the back of the paper at all parts touched by the pencil, and on. the paper being lifted carefully off, these parts of the ground are lifted with it, and the corresponding parts of the plate thus left bare are exposed to the subsequent action of the acid. The granulated surface of the paper, causing similar granulations in the touches on the ground, gives the character of a chalk-drawing. The biting-in is effected in the same manner as already described, and the subject is finished by re-biting and dotting with the graver.
Stipple, or Chalk Engraving, in its pure state, is exclusively composed of dots, varying in size and form as the nature of the subject demands, but few stipple plates are now produced without a large admixture of line in all parts, flesh excepted. A great advance, however, was made in stipple engraving by the introduction of large and varied forms of dotting in the draperies, the results almost rivalling line engraving in richness and power.
The Mixed Style is based on mezzotinto, which, still forming the great mass of shading, is in this method combined with etching in the darker, and stipple in the more delicate parts. By this combination a plate will produce a larger number of good impressions than were it done entirely in mezzotinto.
The wood best adapted for engraving is box. It is cut across the grain in thicknesses equal to the height of type, these slices being subjected to a lengthened process of seasoning, and then smoothed for use. Every wood engraving is the representative of a finished drawing previously made on the block; the unshaded parts being cut away, and the lines giving form, shading, texture, etc, left standing in relief by excavations of varied size and character, made between them by gravers of different forms. Drawings on wood are made either with black-lead pencil alone or with pencil and indian ink, the latter being employed for the broader and darker masses. It is now much the practice to photograph drawings made in black and white upon the wood instead of making the drawing on the wood block. When the drawing is put on the wood by washes or by photography instead of being entirely done by pencil lines, the engraver has to devise the width and style of lines to be employed instead of cutting in facsimile, as is the case when the drawing is made entirely in lines. The tools required for wood engraving are similar but more numerous than those of the engraver on copper or steel. Research Engraving
A hostess bar is a bar typified by employing attractive women, usually but not necessarily prostitutes, whose job is to entertain customers. Customers entering such a bar are required to purchase drinks, and if they require the companionship of a hostess, they are required to purchase her drinks also - usually a very expensive cocktail or glass of champagne. To retain the companionship of the hostess the client is required to buy more drinks for her. These drinks hostesses can consume at an alarming rate. Hostess bars are found in major Western cities, such as London and Paris. During the 1990s a variation on the hostess bar evolved, that of the table or lap dancing bar. At these venues clients can pay a female performer to perform a naked or more usually semi-naked striptease, at their table or on their lap. Often table or lap dancers will also double as hostesses, mingling with the customers and encouraging the purchase of drinks from the bar. Often hostesses and also dancers, are not employed by the bar, but pay the bar owner a rent in order to
work on the premises, receiving back a percentage of monies earned and earning tips from customers. Research Hostess Bar
During the 17th century it was claimed that witches possessed the
Mark of Satan on their body.
There were claimed to be two kinds of this mark: visible and invisible. Visible marks included moles, warts, birth-stains, supernumerary teats and spots of an unusual appearance. In an effort to find these visible marks, a woman suspected of witch craft was stripped naked and had all her hair shaved off. The witch finders claimed that the invisible kind of mark could be found because at that point the flesh of the victim was unsusceptible to pain, and would not bleed when punctured. If there existed on any part of the skin surface a spot that did not bleed when cut, then that was deemed evidence of a witch.
In searching for an invisible mark of Satan, a witch finder systematically pricked all parts of the victim's body so as to discover a spot that failed to yield blood, or until the accused woman ceased to cry out in pain. The test was usually successful because the torture was so severe that the woman would either pretend not to feel any pain so as to end the ordeal, or would become insensitive to pain and delirious. An account of such a trial appears in the 1785 edition of Beccaria's 'Essay on Crimes and Punishments':
'In the year 1652, a country woman, named Michelle Chaudron, of the little territory of Geneva, met the Devil in her way from the city. The Devil gave her a kiss, received her homage, and imprinted on her upper lip, and on her right breast, the mark which he is wont to bestow upon his favourites. This seal of the Devil is a little sign upon the skin, which renders it insensible, as we are assumed by all the demonographical civilians of those times. The devil ordered Michelle Chaudron to bewitch two young girls. She obeyed her master punctually, the parents of the two girls accusing her of dealing with the devil. The girls being confronted with the criminal, declared that they felt a continual pricking in some parts of their bodies, and that they were possessed. Physicians were called, at least men that passed for physicians in those days. They visited the girls. They sought for the seal of the devil on the body of Michelle, which seal is called, in the verbal process, the Satanical mark. Into one of these marks they plunged a long needle, which was already no small torture. Blood issued from the wound and Michelle testified by her cries, that the part was not insensible.
The judges not finding sufficient proof that Michelle Chaudron was a witch, ordered her to be tortured, which infallibly produced the proof they wanted. The poor wretch overcome by torment, confessed, at last, everything they desired. The physicians sought again for the Satanical mark, and found it in a little black spot on one of her thighs. Into this they plunged the needle. the poor creature, exhausted and almost expiring with the pain of the torture, was insensible to the needle, and did not cry out. She was instantly condemned to be burnt, but the world beginning at this time to be a little more civilised, she was previously strangled.' Research Mark of Satan
The Moulin Rouge is a revue theatre in the Montmartre district of Paris, France. Built in 1885 it became a dance hall in 1900, and became famous for its soft-porn revue shows of the 'cancan' immortalised in the posters and drawings of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Today, the revue shows are still soft-porn, with naked and semi-naked dancers prancing about to the sounds of music and accompanied by computer-controlled light shows, and interspersed with magic shows. Research Moulin Rouge
Pony girls is a form of adult sexual entertainment role play or fantasy in which women pretend to be a horse or pony (a pet for their master) while their sexual partner pretends to be the horse or pony's master (known as the top). Pony girls are, therefore, a branch of the bondage and domination, the animal training group of sexgames and frequently the sex play involves sado-masochism also.
The pony girl participant (also known as the bottom) takes her role play very seriously. Prancing on her legs, with her arms held close to her sides, the elbows extended forwards, and the wrists allowed to droop, in a fashion not dissimilar to a pony raised on its hind legs and prancing.
Elaborate attire is often employed to enhance the effect. A plume in imitation of the type of plume that is sometimes seen adorning a pony's head may be worn upon the head. Other participants prefer a headdress which includes imitation horse's ears. A fake horse's tail is worn behind, either held by being tucked into a belt or strap around the waist, or sometimes fitted with an anal plug for insertion into the pony girl's anus.
Harness straps, similar to those one might find adorning a real pony or horse are worn around the body, as is a bridle comprising a headstall, bit inserted in the mouth and reins. Sometimes blinkers are also worn, depending upon the preference of the participants. These components provide a sense of bondage and heighten the sexual sensations immensely for both the pony girl and her master. Some pony girls also wear boots in imitation of horse's hooves upon their feet.
Some pony girl games involve humiliation, with the pony girl being the master's pet, or pony slave, being forcibly trained and abused by the master from which both participants derive great sexual excitement.
Pony girl sexgames properly require to be played in the open air. The very nature of a horse demands a field or largish area of open space at least in which to conduct the fantasy. A typical session may include training, in which the pony girl properly attired is attached to a long lead, just like a pony when it is being trained, and trots around the master at some little distance in response to suitable commands such as trot and walk, etc.
Following training, a pony girl may be hitched to a small trap which she is then required to pull while the master sits in the trap and encourages the pony with the use of a whip, again, just like with a real pony. Other participants may attach a horse's saddle to the pony girl, who having adopted a posture on all-fours is then ridden by the master like he would ride a real pony. A variation of this is when the pony is a man and the master is a woman - a dominatrix. In this instance, sometimes the dominatrix, attired perhaps in full riding regalia, will ride upon the pony's shoulders with her feet resting in stirrups suspended by suitable harnesses from the man's shoulders or attached to his wrists which are in turn attached to a harness or belt passing around his waist.
By the very nature of the pony girl fantasy sex game, it is usual for the participants, and the pony in particular, to be in some degree of undress. Often the pony girl will be naked except for the leather straps - usually of black leather studded with silver metal coloured discs, rings and chains - and plumes, or at least with her breasts exposed. If the pony girl has pierced nipples, these nipple rings are frequently attached by chains to the headstall, providing her with further stimulation of the nipples during the fantasy. The feet are sometimes bare, but most often adorned with high-heeled platform shoes or custom ankle boots adorned to represent a horse's hooves. Rarely the pony girl will also wear imitation horses hooves gloves. But most frequently the hands are left natural.
Other participants may dress the pony girl in tight latex, or leather wear. In order to enhance the fantasy costume and attire are very important. The fantasy would be lacking realism if the pony girl wore simply street clothes and had a simple rope for reins. Instead, appropriate bondage wear is utilised to enhance the sexuality of the game. The master also is usually dressed up. Riding wear, such as jodhpurs, a riding hat and boots being popular, or else more common bondage master wear, such as tight latex or leather with high stiletto heeled boots enhancing the degree of menace and authority of the master.
During training the pony girl may choose the level of obedience she wishes to portray. A disobedient pony may be whipped, or shouted at. A well behaved pony girl may be fed a sugar cube as a reward, taking the sugar from the master's hand with just her mouth, just as one might reward a real pony. Appropriate pony-like noises are expressed by the pony girl, such as snorting like a pony which further add realism to the fantasy.
The pony girl fantasy may be played by two or more participants, and is often played by three with a single master and two ponies. Pony boys are a variation in which a man or men play the role of the submissive pony, and the master may be another man or more often a dominant female partner - a dominatrix. Research Pony Girl
Pressing to death or peine forte et dure, was a form of execution (though actually torture) employed in Britain during the 17th and 18th centuries for those accused of a crime who refused to plead in court. The victim was stripped naked except for his underpants, and tied to the floor spread-eagle before having as much stone or lead as he could bear being laid on his body. Each day the victim was given three morsels of barleybread, and every third day also kennel water to drink. This continued until the victim was dead. Sometimes a piece of sharp timber was placed under the victim' s back to hasten death. In 1726, a murderer, Burnworth, endured a pressure of nearly four hundredweights for one and three quarter hours before begging for mercy. he was subsequently tried, found guilty and hanged. Research Pressing to Death
Voyeurism is the act of obtaining sexual stimulation from secretly observing people naked, or while they are having sex. Voyeurs are frequently called a 'peeping Tom'. Research Voyeurism
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Byzantine Art
