RatCreature's Journal

To entice myself to tackle the background of my trekreversebang piece, I've been looking at Vulcan screencaps: to try to get a handle on Vulcan art and design in general, to help me draw background and decorations. I'm trying to decide what styles Vulcan stuff resembles, and on Enterprise in particular it seems somewhat Art Deco inspired, like if you look at this screencap of Vulcan buildings. Similar vistas in Reboot movie are less clear in that direction, but I can't place them otherwise either (I'm not really good at recognizing art styles).

I also looked at the other movies, but the Vulcan design there seems very stark, with not much in the way of decoration, except for the clothing with their robes and hats and such. Some of those seem kind of Asian-influenced maybe? But I couldn't say whether they resemble anything in particular, as I'm rather clueless about Asian art and design. TOS the series itself with the special effects of tv design being what they were at the time is not all that inspiring. I mean, in Amok Time we see that stone henge like circle with that elongated hexagonal gong, and T'Pau sitting on a chair (I can only assume that it seemingly being made of wood on a planet that does not have much in the way of trees makes it so special, otherwise it is rather sucky as far as impressive thrones go).

Back to the newer designs, in both the Reboot movie and in Enterprise we see quite a number of monumental statues (kind of like that giant Jesus statue in Rio, which I think is art deco too). Is there any canon that gives an explanation as to why they love monumental statues, or whom these are depicting? I'd assume at least some may be Surak, especially the ones from Enterprise that seem to stand around serenely, but there are also some with weapons and in the Reboot movie in their underground chamber some of them seem to carry weapons too, so I guess they are older pre-Reform? Or maybe a reminder not to forget the past. Are there any common interpretations? I mean, usually gigantic statues are around for a reason besides being decorative. And do you think they would put up some with weapons again when they are settling on their new planet, or would they stick with peaceful ones when they rebuild?

Anyway, overall there doesn't seem to be a single Vulcan style, which I guess makes sense as there isn't a single Human style either, and the examples are from different time periods too. Do you like any particular design choices for Vulcan better? Or find them more sensible than others? Any insights?

Then a few days ago I asked on a canon questions comm about the Vulcan scripts, but it seems we really don't have any info what the few samples we see mean. Also nobody seemed to know of any Vulcan symbols besides the IDIC one.