JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 155
Contrary to common belief and image saturation, the Mermaid was not
exactly a cuddly, whimsically enchanting, luxuriously beautiful
creature, as this woodcut from the British The MIrrour (1835) magazine
attests. The mermaid is old and world-wide, but in British
storytelling, it is mostly an ominous creature, creating havoc,
provoking doom and destruction, and perhaps even devouring ships (as
they could be enormous in size, 150 feet and up). The syrienic
beauties of John Waterhouse and Frederic Leighton et al,
with beauty and intrigue dripping from their brushes, had little to do
with most of the legends of these creatures. This is one of the most
fascinating of these images that I’ve seen–in a pitched battle between
The Kraken and this 150′ mermaid, I think that the she-demon would win.
The Mermaid–Not Exactly a Disney Creature, 1822
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
- Absurdist, Unintentional (1,452)
- Alphabets (136)
- American History: Western Exploration & Native Americans (120)
- Anticipation, History of (812)
- Architecture and Building (478)
- Art (108)
- Art History (684)
- Astronomy (324)
- Atlas of Dead Ideas (72)
- Atomic and Nuclear weapons (362)
- Aviation & flight (294)
- Bad Ideas (1,008)
- Beautiful books (62)
- Biology (24)
- Blank and Empty Things; A History of (726)
- Books–Great Cover Art (114)
- Books–title pages, beautiful (70)
- Books: Great & Lost in the Dust (24)
- Books: Title Pages, Unusual (30)
- Boredom, History of (22)
- Brevity and Complexity (102)
- Calculating (118)
- Chemistry (1)
- Chemistry, history of (32)
- Children's Art (46)
- Circles, Geometry (12)
- Color & its advanced Abuses (62)
- Color Theory (64)
- Computer Tech/History (258)
- Contraries (22)
- Cross-Sections (50)
- Daily Dose from Dr. Odd (168)
- Economics (16)
- Electro-LUXurious (42)
- Exploration (6)
- Fantastic Beasts and Tales (18)
- Fantastic Titles (90)
- Fear, History of (42)
- Future Punk (54)
- Future, History of the (624)
- German Design (28)
- Histories of Smallness (60)
- History (4)
- History of Dots (144)
- History of Goodbye (122)
- History of Holes (67)
- History of Lines (166)
- History of Memory (64)
- History of Nothing (94)
- History of the Future (690)
- How Fast Stuff Is. (6)
- Iconography (160)
- Imaginary and Impossible, Museum of the (28)
- Impossible Books (70)
- Industrial & Technological art (342)
- Information, Quantitative Display of (1,236)
- Inventions (132)
- Lines, History of (72)
- Literature (4)
- Magnifcent Mundane (28)
- Manuscripts (12)
- Maps, Cartography, History of Mapmaking (500)
- Maps/Diagrams of Imagination & Ideas (348)
- mathematics, logic (220)
- Medicine, History of (180)
- Memory, Historry of (24)
- Militaria (950)
- Mistakes, The Importance of (14)
- Music (24)
- Mythology (28)
- Naming Things (294)
- Outsider Logic (196)
- Patents (118)
- Perception (374)
- Perspective (398)
- Photography (290)
- Photography, history (138)
- Physics (117)
- Picture Post/Image Dump (10)
- Piles, History of (2)
- Politics, American (6)
- Poster Series (10)
- Prints–looking HARD/deeply at (558)
- Propaganda (110)
- Psychology (40)
- Quantum Theory (1)
- Questionable Quidity (52)
- Reference Tools (76)
- Science (14)
- Social History (293)
- Sports (10)
- Statistics–Fossil, Found, Odd, Forgotten (58)
- Strange Things in the Sky (82)
- Tech-Quiz (30)
- Technology, History of (835)
- Title Page Art, Beautiful (64)
- Travel (6)
- Uncategorized (309)
- What is It? (28)
- Women, History of (196)
- WORD art (30)
- World War I (496)
- World War II (55)
- Writing Systems (16)
- You Are There (12)
- Zoomology (50)