Why did medieval artists depict animals looking so goofy and silly?
>>5109552how else would you depict an animal that you have never seen in person?
>>5109552The world used to be goofier and sillier.
Think of medieval art as storytelling. It's like written communication for the illiterates and not so much about making something look as good as possible.
No reference pics and also not all ancient artists were talented.
>>5109659>No reference picsthis. most of these drawings were made by monks that never seen the real thing.
Everyone talks about why they sucked but no one considers if it was never their intention to look lifelike and instead is just old style toons.
>>5109666Check em'
they had no reference images
>>5109684So why do cats in medieval art look so bad despite them being everywhere?
>>5109685>despite them being everywhereHistorical revisionism at its finest
>>5109685That's because they weren't.
Sweden's Royal coat of arms made in the 14th century
>>5109685They were rather infamously killed en masse during the black plague
>>51099544 lions and 13 crownsisn't that a bit much?
Imagine never ever seeing an elephant and a dude asks you to draw a big ass creature with a long ass nose, two long spikey things, flappy doohickeys, and the melancholic eyes of a fallen angel.
>>5110145you might not know this but cats are a highly effective plague vector and are fully incapable of routing rodent infestationsthey are however effective at transmitting rodent borne diseases to humansblack cats are bad luck because you cant see if they have fleas or cysts or blood on them until its too late
>>5110229it's absolutely crazy how shit cats are for anything.they brought dogs into the mills and those fuckers killed every single rat in a few days, meanwhile cats over here in ancient tapestries giving tea to rats.
Close enough.
>>5110278This is my favorite>massive horses with tusks and a trumpet on its face>also men ride in tiny castles on their backs
What's even happening?
>>5110364Alexander the Great in his glass diving bell, from a famous medieval tale (the Alexander Romance, a late antique work that was rewritten dozens of times later)
>>5110384Here's another version from the 12th century Roman d'Alexandre
>>5110274AYOThis goofy ahh spider be eating fly ass!!!!!YOOOO!!!!!!
>>51095521. Many animals were large and fat because farmers were commissioning advertisements. It's the equivalent of food companies faking ads in modern times. 2. Horses float because before the invention of video photography, nobody could figure out exactly how they stepped
>>5110384>>5110387Very cool, I didn't know this tale. Thanks.
>>5110391>2. Horses float because before the invention of video photography, nobody could figure out exactly how they steppedCorrect.
Brutal mogging incoming. Close your eyes monk sisters.
However...
>>5109552That's how they used to look 600 years ago
>>5110391brainless retard moron idiot dipshit loser
>>5110274I don't get this one. There are spiders everywhere. How come this artists rarely saw a fucking spiders in order to draw it like that?
>giraffe
okay, that's a bit better
>>5109566this
>>5110586>>5110585lol
>>5110568bat
>>5110585>>5110586china's contemporaneous artists shit all over them
>>5110586>>5110703I like how both are obviously male.
>>5110578Draw a spider right now if it's so easy
>>5109666Satan has spoken
>>5110719
>>5110731Silly spidy.
>>5109685they look fine in turkic and chinese art where they were far more common
>>5110703debatable
I wonder how they would have drawn dinosaurs
>>5111314dragons
>>5110283>>5110281Kind of fascinating. It's kind of similar to how animals can't undersrand their own reflection in the mirror. Like the artists could not compehend the animals faces and just saw human faces instead to even grasp what they were seeing
>>5111314I love this art. I can imagine the description being something like "a lizard that stands on two legs with bull horns and no arms" and the artist coming up with this
>>5110279wtf is their problem
>>5110586>A strange and wonderful Animal. Of it's kind never seen by us. This animall is called Gurnappa and is from the ground up to its head taller than five men.
>>5110234Yeah you need to be infected by a brain parasite to like them
>>5110234Cats don't kill off vermin but actively deter when present in an area as vermin like mice instinctively hide when they know a cat is about as there is always a risk of a catching one of them for sport. That's why you have sayings like:>when the cats away, the mice come out to playIt's actually quite literal in terms of context. But in terms of actual pest control dogs are better in everyway.
>>5110278You see a few 'castle on an elephant' things around in England, not sure what it's all about though.
>>5109552Whales are my favoritehttps://www.reddit.com/r/MedievalCats/comments/okvwy6/can_we_talk_about_medieval_whales/My guess is, illustrator never studied animals larger than dogs or pigs IRL. When tasked to depict whale does some research (check prior art) give it a go.
>Not having any real training beyond being able to write well enough to be trusted around paper>If actually you bothered to practice any sort of anatomy whatsoever it was probably adult humans and human faces, so you subconsciously keep trying to draw everything else humanlike>Literally interpreting descriptions like "it looked like a really big dog">you're only doodling for fun as a break from copying bibles all day anyway, who cares
>>5110283>cant thou givest me a nibble of thine food
>>5111637But then you still have vermin and you also have parasites everywhere, a rabies reservoir, and the single most effective plague vector that isnt a flea or rat itseld that readily transmits plague between flea infested rats and clueless humans (this is why black cats are bad luck)Just get rid of the rodents ffs. It is not the 1300s. We know they arent spontaneously generated by holy curses as punishment for our sins. Using cats as working animals is a completely pointless activity and the anger with which many cat people often defend it makes it sound like they are deeply ashamed of owning pets without purpose (due to their incelly, schopenhaueresque pseudo-intellectualism) or actually strongly dislike the realities of cat ownership despite wanting to like cats and need a way to cope
>>5110703>giraffe :|>giraffe, japan Ö
>>5109565
>>5111936That's pretty good all things considered
>>5111936I had a coloring book as a child with this drawing in it and i colored it green and purple for some reason
>>5111943Thanks doctor
>>5111943Thanks, Doc, almost missed today's
>>5111936I like how the wikipedia article for this repeats over and over that it's not an accurate representation, but like if you disregard the blatant embellishments it's pretty fucking spot on for what an indian rhino looks like.
>>5112065>if you disregard the bits that are wrong then it's rightI know what you're trying to say but come on man
>>5111936>On the first of May in the year 1513 AD [sic], the powerful King of Portugal, Manuel of Lisbon, brought such a living animal from India, called the rhinoceros. This is an accurate representation. It is the colour of a speckled tortoise,[1][d] and is almost entirely covered with thick scales. It is the size of an elephant but has shorter legs and is almost invulnerable. It has a strong pointed horn on the tip of its nose, which it sharpens on stones. It is the mortal enemy of the elephant. The elephant is afraid of the rhinoceros, for, when they meet, the rhinoceros charges with its head between its front legs and rips open the elephant's stomach, against which the elephant is unable to defend itself. The rhinoceros is so well-armed that the elephant cannot harm it. They also say that the rhinoceros is fast, merry and jovial.[26]Chat is this true
>>5112304What can an elephant actually do though? If you hug its hind legs it can't reach you with its truck, and its too sluggish to get away while you repeatedly pommel it from behind. If you stand to the side of its hind legs then it won't even be able to hit you with a back kick. If it raises its leg to perform a stomp then all you have to do is back off until it finishes its slam, then move back in to continue punching.
>>5110796That's Korean.Its common in Korean art to depict tigers (the aristocracy) as derpy dumbasses while the magpies (the commonfolk) are more dignified
What was the deal with rabbits riding snails back then?
>>5112547I have no idea, so I'm just going to make up an answer.My assumption would be one guy started drawing them just as kind of like a doodle, and then other people found them amusing, so they started adding more of them in books, and it just kind of took off as kind of a meme.
>>5109552you hear of a lion from a guy who read about it in a language he half understands by an author who himself never actually saw one with his own eyes. that's how.
>>5111732>not sure what it's all about though.War elephants
I'll drop in this one from a copy of Fior di Battaglia (a martial arts treatise by Fiore de'i Liberi)this page in the preface conveys four ideal qualities in the martial artist, each with an animal motif representing themstarting from the top and going clockwise:>Lynx (prudence)>Lion (audacity)>Elephant (fortitude)>Tiger (celerity)clearly they hadn't got much reference to work from with the latter two (I'd never have guessed that was even a tiger if it didn't explicitly say)
>>5112577the section on mounted combat at the end at least gives them an opportunity to redeem themselves with something they're more familiar with
>>5112578this one's from a different copy that was seemingly illustrated by a different artist, but I just wanted to include it because I think they were getting pretty tired of drawing horses over and over again by this point
>>5111580I'd be more inclined to just put it down to artist sameface syndrome: dude learned to draw exactly one (1) face and puts it on absolutely everything. Many such cases!
