Revival History

 1890S WOMAN CARRYING CHARCOAL A very cheerful Japanese working woman, with one of her breasts exposed, is carrying three huge packs of charcoal on what appears to be a country road. During the summer, women in the countryside often had much of their body exposed when they worked. Many men wore only a loincloth. Even in the city. This was especially the case for laborers and poor farmers. Prudish Western visitors, used to Victorian morality, generally were greatly shocked by all this nudity and frequently wrote about it in their diaries and letters. Nineteenth-century English travel-writer Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904), who in 1887 (Meiji 20) travelled deep into Japan’s heartland, described in her book Unbeaten Tracks her surprise upon seeing the scarce clothing of the people: I write the truth as I see it, and if my accounts conflict with those of tourists who write of the Tokaido and Nakasendo, of Lake Biwa and Hakone, it does not follow that either is inaccurate. But truly this...

‎A portion of a Roman fresco depicting people doing something rather ambiguous from a villa found in the gardens of the Farnesina on a Tiber river enbankment. It is thought to have belong to a friend or relative of the Emperor Augustus, perhaps even Agrippa himself, and dates to the 1st century BC. This room, called Triniculum C, has mainly a "black color (atramentum), made from a mixture of charcoal and glue, was resistant to smoke from the fire and soot from the lamps" per the National Roman Museum - Palazzo Massimo in Rome where this is on display.