Queerinthian?

Posted by baad lamb

Not apocrypha, but one of the five orders of perriwigs worn to King George’s coronation , as satirized by William Hogarth (was this the first Wigstock?). Only one of the many fascinating things learned from this review of the new exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art. (Your click will enlarge this nicely:)

From the NYTimes article:

And a 1761 print by Hogarth skewers the fashionable jargon of classical architecture and mathematics that must have been the rage of the court: he diagrams the elaborate “Perriwigs” worn to King George’s coronation, showing the hairstyles “Measured Architectonically.” They are ordered with Latinate precision, ranked from the “Episcopal” to the “Queerinthian” and assessed according to an “Athenian Measure.” One wig, the show’s label points out, even “has the distinct appearance of a sheep’s rump.”

Like the satire throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, you need to be an expert on British history and the (then lowly) profession of architecture to fully appreciate all the nuances in this print. But as with the delightful “Narchitecture”, certainly the portmanteau “Queerinthian”, whether in the modern vernacular or as understood in 1761, needs no explanation or annotation. (Dear C-mon, maybe next year’s Basel Frazzle will include a sub-category, with pictures: Queerinthian Narchitecture.)

Question to self: are two portmanteaus together a fourtmanteau?

Feeling Further Fascination? While looking for a picture to perfectly illustrate Queerinthian Narchitecture, I googled “Gay Drug Lord” and found no useable pic, but did find this…