This is my favorite WTF image in a long time. Dating from 1555, it’s a Renaissance image. I don’t officially know the story behind it, but there’s a good discussion of it on Reddit. Says sl99: ‘Flaisch macht Flaisch’ is from the old German proverb ‘Fleisch macht Fleisch, fisch machtContinue Reading
Today’s page is dedicated to those fans who have wondered when I’m going to put up more bizarre historical art. About 300 years ago, some genius Japanese artist gave us He-Gassen, or “the fart war.” I can’t make this up if I tried. Not quite safe for work. And thenContinue Reading
This semester is running me ragged, so frequently the last thing I want to do when relaxing is do even more writing than all already am. So, one of the ways I’m relaxing is getting back into artwork. The first image (above) came out of a friend’s Master’s thesis inContinue Reading
St. Margaret of Antioch, also known as St. Margaret the Virgin and St. Margaret the Martyr, is purported to have lived at the end of the 3rd century during the great persecution of Christians under the reign of Emperor Diocletian. Disowned for converting to Christianity, Margaret moved to the countrysideContinue Reading
We have no idea who painted this beyond it was someone in the Netherlands around 1586. Queen Elizabeth I of England was a longtime supporter of the Dutch. They were connected religiously, with both countries being Protestant, and also economically: the Dutch had the most lucrative trading markets in northernContinue Reading
Discarding Images, a common source of crazy medieval images for me, often labels their images in a very straight-forward manner, such as “Jupiter Castrates Saturn,” which is exactly what it sounds like, and is in no way safe for work. Every once in a while, however, I encounter an imageContinue Reading
DangerousMinds.net has provided this little gem: a college student has transcribed the musical notes painted on the butt of one of the characters in Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, which is arguably the most bat-shit crazy painting of the Renaissance. So…is this best played on an ass trumpet?Continue Reading
As explained here, medieval artists have very little interest in image backgrounds. However, as we get further into the High/Late Middle Ages, we see more and more of it, until artwork starts turning more realistic in general, and then we start seeing environment. Often they aren’t particularly relevant. Look atContinue Reading
Through most of the Middle Ages, artwork had a decided lack of environment. If you weren’t familiar with medieval Christian Art, you’d have a hard time knowing what the image at right even is, much less where it is happening. What I see: Man with a bad bleach job andContinue Reading
Originally, this post was going to be simple pretty straightforward. Today, I came across this: This is, of course, all of the Doctors from Doctor Who re-enacting Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper. When people do these, I always wonder how much thought they put into who they put where. Clearly, itContinue Reading