
Why Are There So Many 17th Century Paintings of Monkeys Getting Drunk? - benbreen
https://resobscura.blogspot.com/2017/05/why-are-there-so-many-17th-century.html
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_yvjs
I like the following anecdote of Darwin's (though it's from quite a bit later
in time):

Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee, and spiritous
liquors: they will also, as I have myself seen, smoke tobacco with pleasure.
(6. The same tastes are common to some animals much lower in the scale. Mr. A.
Nichols informs me that he kept in Queensland, in Australia, three individuals
of the Phaseolarctus cinereus [koalas]; and that, without having been taught
in any way, they acquired a strong taste for rum, and for smoking tobacco.)
Brehm asserts that the natives of north-eastern Africa catch the wild baboons
by exposing vessels with strong beer, by which they are made drunk. He has
seen some of these animals, which he kept in confinement, in this state; and
he gives a laughable account of their behaviour and strange grimaces. On the
following morning they were very cross and dismal; they held their aching
heads with both hands, and wore a most pitiable expression: when beer or wine
was offered them, they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of
lemons. An American monkey, an Ateles, after getting drunk on brandy, would
never touch it again, and thus was wiser than many men. These trifling facts
prove how similar the nerves of taste must be in monkeys and man, and how
similarly their whole nervous system is affected.

\- "The Descent of Man"

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1_player
This reminds me of one of my favourite documentaries on baboons:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAy8LUmXPmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAy8LUmXPmo)

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PhilWright
I am impressed that you like baboons so much that you have developed a
preference for a favorite documentary about them. This conjures an image of
you having a shelf full of many different baboon documentaries but having one
set aside as the favorite.

~~~
1_player
Ha! There should be a comma after "documentaries". Unfortunately, this is the
only one I know about baboons :)

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pnathan
[http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/insight/cutler_monkey/c...](http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/insight/cutler_monkey/cutler_monkey01.html)

a little understanding of art history would indicate that the appropriate
thing to do is understand the context for monkeys at the time of painting.

e: I don't mean to be _overly_ snarky here, but most Renaissance/Enlightenment
art is done in a symbolic language, and objects depicted are words, with the
arrangement often in a particular grammar, with the context serving as part of
the message. It's not particularly difficult to learn this or to access basic
symbolic meanings. I don't think the author (hi there), has done enough due
diligence. Sorry, Author.

~~~
erdle
dont worry, ex wife is an art history professor ... 0 chance anyone on here
will say something that is widely accepted in academia.

~~~
jschwartzi
More importantly, what statements would actually be widely accepted?

It's poor form to post such a blithe dismissal without explaining what we're
missing.

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reneherse
Interesting article, but anyone using the Blogger platform should know that
the UX on a touch interface is a nightmare. There's roughly a 2 out of 3
chance that any action taken to zoom in on the page or an image will result in
navigating away from the current post.

Blooger is one seemingly moribund service I wish Goggle would spend some dev
time on.

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benbreen
Author of the post (and blog) here. I agree with you. I keep assuming that
Google will update Blogger but it increasingly seems like it will end up going
the way of Reader and will just get ignominiously phased out someday. If
anyone has any suggestions of a good alternative, I'd be interested to hear
them.

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komali2
Self-hosted wordpress, etc

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ghaff
No. Self-hosted anything is not a good alternative for someone running on
blogger. The entire reason for using blogger is to not worry about any of the
things associated with hosting your own service.

(That's not to say you shouldn't self-host but it's not a great suggestion for
someone who made the decision to use blogger in the first place.)

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northisup
Because it's hilarious?

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anigbrowl
What makes it funny? you might find that the answer to that question is rather
more complex than you think.

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chris_st
We use Microsoft Link for our phone system at work (recommendation: NEVER use
MS Link).

My first thought was to compare it to "Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp" [1] which
was a slightly bizarre show in the 70's, mostly intended to be funny.

I didn't much like it then, and couldn't even watch a whole episode this year.
In discussing it with a co-worker, he pointed out that some people find
monkeys inherently funny, so they'd get a kick out of it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot_Link,_Secret_Chimp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot_Link,_Secret_Chimp)

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bipr0
Good and something fresh here. I think the reason behind this is humans means
us, becomes monkeys after heavy drinking.

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jejones3141
Oh... it's not just paintings. Check out Thomas Weelkes's "The Ape, the
Monkey, and Baboon", from _Ayres or Phantastick Spirits_. From what I read it
was intended to poke fun at certain regulars at the Mermaid Tavern.

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rl3
> _In other images, monkeys are also shown in the guise of alchemists and drug
> sellers ..._ "

If Vince Gilligan were to create a 17th century drama chronicling the
misadventutes of underworld simian alchemists who sell drugs, I would
complain.

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rl3
Rather, I would _not_ complain.

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tmpfs
Fermented Marula fruit maybe?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerocarya_birrea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerocarya_birrea)

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jejones3141
Because poker hadn't been invented yet?

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erdle
Carlos Slim has a few interesting monkey period pieces at his foundation's
museum in CDMX.

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xmlblog
Because artists have been depicting the political system for centuries.

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Xeoncross
True, "monkey" seems to have held up well since the 1800's:
[https://goo.gl/MEg99z](https://goo.gl/MEg99z)

