Just a few days ago I was reading "Thinking with demons," an excellent history of ideas about witchcraft in Europe, and was struck by the following passage about a 16th century drawing of three witches by Hans Baldung Grien:
Informing everything in the scene, and establishing iconographically that it is indeed a scene of witchcraft, is the gesture of the witch who, bent on one knee, stares backwards at the world through her own legs. According to a contemporary German proverb those who adopted the pose would be sure to catch sight of the devil. This is perhaps the reason why the motif is also found among the monsters and devils who populate two widely separated versions of that most demonological of picture subjects, the temptation of St Anthony—those of Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1490s) and Jacques Callot (1635).
So it was fascinating to learn from this news article that "There are also regions of Japan where the folklore says that one can see ghosts, the world of spirits and demons, or the future by looking upside down through one’s legs."
These are even cooler. The paintings don't necessarily "modern" as much as the people in the paintings look modern.
I've never seen something so old that was so effective at bringing people to life in a way that I could relate to so immediately.
They must have been tremendously effective in their original function as funerary portraits. I was lucky enough to see several of these at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and I stood there looking at them for a very long time.
I have read (though I can't cite a source at the moment) that what is sometimes taken as limits on talent/skill/material limits on medieval art was more often a stylistic choice.
Comments
Just a few days ago I was reading "Thinking with demons," an excellent history of ideas about witchcraft in Europe, and was struck by the following passage about a 16th century drawing of three witches by Hans Baldung Grien:
Informing everything in the scene, and establishing iconographically that it is indeed a scene of witchcraft, is the gesture of the witch who, bent on one knee, stares backwards at the world through her own legs. According to a contemporary German proverb those who adopted the pose would be sure to catch sight of the devil. This is perhaps the reason why the motif is also found among the monsters and devils who populate two widely separated versions of that most demonological of picture subjects, the temptation of St Anthony—those of Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1490s) and Jacques Callot (1635).
So it was fascinating to learn from this news article that "There are also regions of Japan where the folklore says that one can see ghosts, the world of spirits and demons, or the future by looking upside down through one’s legs."
A less enigmatic explanation, for other citizens who do it a lot, mostly when they more than 14 months old: https://adailydoseofmom.com/baby-bending-over-looking-throug...
This seems to be the drawing in question
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witches_%28Hans_Baldung%29
But where is the witch described in the passage? I don't see anything like it.
I think it's this one:
https://www.mediastorehouse.co.uk/fine-art-finder/artists/un...
Ah yes, obviously that one, thanks!
Black marks for Google and Kagi, both of which found "The Witches" instead of "Three Witches".
This is oddly modern looking for being 500 years old.
How about these https://egyptiangeographic.com/en/news/show/333
These are even cooler. The paintings don't necessarily "modern" as much as the people in the paintings look modern.
I've never seen something so old that was so effective at bringing people to life in a way that I could relate to so immediately.
They must have been tremendously effective in their original function as funerary portraits. I was lucky enough to see several of these at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and I stood there looking at them for a very long time.
I have read (though I can't cite a source at the moment) that what is sometimes taken as limits on talent/skill/material limits on medieval art was more often a stylistic choice.