Photography is full of clichés. I have always maintained that they are clichés because they usually work.
I stop at photographs of beautiful women (with our without
angel wings) posing on railroad tracks or by a Harley Davidson.
One often-used-cliché is the projection, a natural one with
real blinds, or an artificial one, using gobos, of Venetian blinds on a lithe
human body. Gobos, which were used frequently in Hollywood noir films, are metal discs with designs of clouds, blinds, etc which are projected with optical spotlights.
Because I am bilingual I think in two languages, Spanish and
English. I am constantly comparing the origin of words in those two languages.
In Spanish a blind is a persiana. You might think that this
has to do with Persians. I know that the
Spanish word comes from the French persienne. But as for the etymology of that
word in French I have not found its origin.
It all becomes that more interesting when to translate
Venetian blind to Spanish it is a persiana veneciana.
Worse still is a celosía (also a blind in Spanish) that
comes from the French jalousie. In Spanish celos translated to jealousy and a
jealous person is a celoso. I am perplexed at all these lovely confusions.
Gondolas used to be covered, either for shelter or for anonymity for assignations. The covering was made from a kind of oiled canvas called rasse which was exported to England in the 18th century and known as "Venetian". It was used to bind the slats on blinds – hence Venetian blinds.
Wikipedia
Gondolas used to be covered, either for shelter or for anonymity for assignations. The covering was made from a kind of oiled canvas called rasse which was exported to England in the 18th century and known as "Venetian". It was used to bind the slats on blinds – hence Venetian blinds.
Wikipedia