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Very good post!

I think all your examples have something in common, aside from horror vacui: function is no longer the main concern, showing status is. As you say, when swords were useful they weren't quite as ornate.

I'm not sure if the modern web is too different!

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~chaote wrote:

Thanks for the post, that is food for thought...

Concerning the displayed weaponry, I find it quite interesting how we went from mere functionality in the middle ages to a baroque era where weapons are created to show off, and back to the mere functionality of murder nowadays. You could almost interpret baroque times and the 30-years-war as a phase where people aestheticized the tools of war and their surroundings in an effort to blind themselves to the cruel nature of their present reality. "memento mori", after all.

But my above statement is from a very Central European perspective. The folks collectively summed up as "vikings" nowadays have decorated their ships and houses with "bloat" even during medieval times, and examples of bloatism can be found throughout all kinds of other cultures as well, including those westerners and easterners wiped out/assimilated over time. Places of worship being the obvious examples.

All in all, I don't think that bloat is a bad thing, just a side effect of... well, of what? Are we painting our web with golden bloat because we are so rich we can afford to show it, or are we trying to hide something really ugly under the paint?