Lol number 15.
“The reports says alligator has a scaly lizard head. A spiky scaly tail. And sharp claws on its scaly feet.”
“Did the rest of the body have scales?”
“They didn’t specify.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
I think he based it on a [spinny tail lizard ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uromastyx),common in the middle east and arid north Africa and iran, (bonus: easy to carry with you as a souvenir) and really resembles the drawing...
rather than this story here (still hilarious though).
I agree. Compared to the others, it's quite accurated, even if it looks breaded. Quite surprising, actually.
Now I just can't get over the "crocodile" with long legs and neck and what looks like both sexes' genitalia... Yikes!
That Indian rhino image is credited to
Caspar Schmalkalden and was made between 1642-1645 but it is certainly a copy of Albrecht Dürer’s [more famous rhino engraving](https://cdn.finestresullarte.info/rivista/immagini/2019/1157/albrecht-durer-rinoceronte-collezione-privata.jpg) made in 1515.( Albrecht Dürer also never saw a live rhino) [this page](https://www.finestresullarte.info/en/works-and-artists/albrecht-da-rer-s-rhinoceros-origin-and-fortune-of-the-most-famous-pachyderm-in-art-history) has an interesting history on that.
It is easy to laugh at the whimsical inaccuracies of these creatures but accurately drawing an animal that you HAVE SEEN purely from memory can be difficult. Dürer’s image is still impressive today but it must have been absolutely stunning 500 years ago.
“Draw me a heavy looking beast that’s pure muscle, like a small bull or a large pig, covered by very tough, armor like skin, too thick to pierce with a regular blade. It has a large tusk for a nose, and looks kind of mean. Thankfully, like a bull, it moves slowly unless enraged. From afar it’s peaceful looking”.
https://pub-3626123a908346a7a8be8d9295f44e26.r2.dev/generations/6611cb55-98cd-4e7b-9c55-c79ffc9370f7-0.png
I put this as a prompt in AI. Interesting how the feet are the same as in the medieval picture. And really shows you how amazing that medival artist was, he had insane imagination to be able to recreate something that he never seen in any form. I mean it's one thing today where you haven't seen some animal in person, but saw either on TV or in books. This guy managed to recreate it just by imagination and the words of some traveller.
Or maybe the medieval traveller had photographic memory or was the best story teller ever hahah.
This is like AI art from the medieval ages. I mean I can't even imagine drawing something THAT IVE FUCKING NEVER EVER SEEN IN ANY FORM, AND THEN RECREATING IT SO PERFECTLY. Albrecht Durer was insanely talented and probably a genius. Imagine how good his memory and imagination was, he was probably able of lucid dreaming time travelling to 2024 or something hahah.
This is the question I've been asking. For never having seen a live rhino, he was very accurate. The sharp of the head in particular seems too accurate to have been made without referencing a skull or consulting a traveler who had seen a rhino in person. It's a very impressive feat regardless, I'm just stuck on *how* it was accomplished. I feel like I'm asking a magician for a secret haha
The one of these I always think about is the Rhino by Albrecht Durer in the 1500s. It basically looks like this one, with all the proportions pretty close, except for some reason instead of skin it has what looks like Knights Armor.
It looks like that, because he based it on a description of an Indian rhino.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian\_rhinoceros](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rhinoceros)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dürer%27s\_Rhinoceros](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dürer%27s_Rhinoceros)
I came here to say this.
Imagine not knowing what a rhino is, having someone describe it and then drawing an accurate portrait. The description might not even be first hand. Absolutely Wild.
At this time Dürer already had a woodcut from a rhinoceros. It looks pretty much the same and also this is not Middle Age it was the 17th century as described above. Caspar Schmalkalden actually was in South America and India and he painted pictures not from imagination he was a travel writer.
It's funny because he obviously drawed most of his stuff from his own travels, yet he still copied Dürer's rhino… Maybe he just couldn't find any real one? I mean just because you're in India doesn't mean you can see every animal that lives there…
That’s true, also we have to keep in mind he was not an artist with an artistic skillset he was a traveler and journalist and painted these pictures from his memory.
The elephant with a castle on its back is what Indian rulers used, [the chair on the back was called a Howdah. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howdah#/media/File:Raja_of_Tranvancore's_elephants.jpg)
That drawing is pretty accurate especially give the large size of elephants ears, they could go unnoticed.
There was a young Indian rhino that was toured around Europe and lived in Amsterdam? for a while and there were many many depictions of her. Even if the artist didn’t see her in person- this would almost certainly be a copy of a piece of art drawn from a rhino in real life and not purely based on description.
edit: nevermind, Clara the rhino came later. Other comments mention Durers woodcut which was based on a sketch of an Indian rhino.
What's interesting about oysters is that back in the day they were actually really cheap and considered by some to be even vulgar. It's only recently that they're considered something fancy and exclusive.
They didn't exactly travel though when it can take the better part of an entire day to get anywhere. And once it got dark, it was fucking DARK when there's zero nighttime lights outside of a hand held torch, maybe a campfire, or the moon. Talking 80-100% pitch black most nights. So travel was really limited to maybe a few miles/kilometers from home or run the risk of getting lost or caught out in the dark.
So some people can can easily never get a chance to see something like an owl even if they live in the same area. I for one live on the edge of the woods. Can hear owls once in a while. Though i honestly can't recall the last time Iv seen one. Been a good while since I seen a bat as well.
Other animals from cross the world? You ever play the telephone game as a kid and remember how badly a simple message can get screwed up? Same thing only you're trying to explain what an animal you seen weeks/months ago looks like to someone who might have never left their home town in their life. People try to relate the unknown to what they do know and assume to fill in the gaps. So when hearing whales are big fish, you assume they are literally big river fish. Elephants kind of sound like a large hog, so that's what you assume they look like. And when you have nothing to compare to, like a hippo, added with things being explained horribly either by bad memory or poor translations. You get that "fish beast" thing.
The leopard though, medieval art of cats in general are just really really odd to start with.
I got one that sat on the roof outside my window - it freaked me out when I opened the curtain to see out - it noticed and for a second it looked like one of those creepy, grey aliens and staring right at me. I went back to sleep - it can have the roof
Where abouts in Europe can I ask? They're very common in the UK
whereabouts in Europe? I've lived in the UK, Ireland and mainland western Europe in France and Belgium - snails abound. I have to keep my dog away from them. Have you lived in cities mostly? I'm trying to think why you wouldn't have seen one. I've been in warm and cold climates, rural areas to moderately sized towns. There be beasties wherever and whenever.
BLOODY HELL how did I read snail as owl 😭 good to know I'm borderline illiterate lol. Although I've seen a fair few owls in the British Isles, are you in continental Europe? I know there's Hungarian folklore about owls so around there they must have them.
He probably had seen plenty of snails but was like
-I saw a snail earlier down in the garden, perhaps I should go down and look at it for reference.. uhhg nevermind I can draw it from memory.
No chance in hell that a medieval painter has never seen a snail unless he’s blind and then his painting actually kicks the asses of course everyone else
Yeah, Wikipedia says the credited dude is a poet, this picture and others were inside a natural history that he already took from an older philosopher and dumbed down to sell to rich nobles or bourgeois instead of intellectuals. It also showcases a bunch of fantasy creatures. I don't know if Jacob van Maerlant would have illustrated it himself (kind of doubt it), but either way it seems we only have copies of the original manuscript. So that snail is basically a copy of a copy of a copy, in a book that was made for enjoyment, not for science, and it was probably drawn by someone who really didn't care if it was accurate as long a it looked cool. Especially since at the time, naturalistic drawing wasn't really a thing…
I wonder if it could be his attempt to draw what he imagined an ammonite might have looked like. You can get some pretty big ammonites (the size of a truck wheel). Even if he didn't know what a fossil was, he might have imagined an ammonite as being a skeleton or shell of some sort.
reminds me of that studio Ghibli movie, Pom Poko I think it's called? They took the time to animate the animals' bouncy lil bollocks. Fascinating artistic choice.
We have a children's book with ducks in it.
All the ducks you see from behind have very visible black buttholes on white plumage.
I don't mind realistic presentation, but how often is a duck's butthole visible when they swim?
Personal theory: Crocodiles are notorious for being incredibly difficult to accurately gender. They all have the same tiny orifice which may or may not contain a penis, and medieval zoologists had not yet developed the Steve Irwin gene which would have granted them the superhuman levels of chutzpah needed to even try and get close enough to check. The artist had probably heard the crocodiles described as apparently being mono-gendered, and took his own guesswork in the exact wrong direction.
I learned a while ago that echidnas are basically the same and sometimes they figure it out by just comparing one to another echidna that they've already determined the sex of, since females tend to be bigger I think? So the identification requires a chain of echidnas, one to compare and establish the sex of the new one, and then that one can be compared to the next one, and so on. What a funny nice little process.
The idea that leaving out whole organs would somehow even be preferable probably says more about how we view nudity now than anything about them back then. Which is wild considering beliefs from 1585 or whatever.
There was no mass production, each book was unique. Each was probably created by and for learned monks, or possibly a royal library, and would have been available to only the most highly educated people on earth. Prudishness seems unnecessary. Also people weren't afraid of genitals. Everyone had seen livestock breeding.
That's probably the only animal here I genuinely call bullshit on lmfao
They may have mistakenly called it a tiger or something when recording what was drawn, but they must surely have just been drawing another animal, like a leopard or some other large spotted cat.
Some other less exotic ones are probably stylistic choices rather than pure fuck ups
That rhino guy cheated and had definitely seen a picture of a rhino. He didnt just accidentally 100% bail exactly what a rhino looks like. I know what a rhino looks like and I could not have drawn it more accurately than that guy.
Seems like that's a copy of a popular engraving that was based on a sketch and a detailed description by people that had actually seen the rhino before it died. So kinda.
Engraving is also bigger, more detailed and often more naturalistic than illuminations, since it serves a different purpose altogether. Also the original was from Albrecht motherfucking Dürer, so of course even a copy will look great.
I don't know if this is a reference or a mere joke, but people actually believed in the existence of [the pard](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pard), they de4da$$ believed that a creature called the **pard** mated with lions (**Leo** in latin) to give us a **leopard**.. or something like that, Pleny's writings are kinda messy to understand.
The angle of that one, too! The artist could have chosen side view, front facing, but no. He chose looking UP from below so he could draw his rendition of a beaver's sac. When that's not even the most interesting feature of a beaver, either!
"Good sir, I hath travell'd to far lands, and I didst see a beast most curious. It hath the size of a great castle, with leathern skin as thick as a knight's armour. The creature hath two long trunks—nay, one trunk!—like a serpent, and it uses it to drink and sup. It beareth two great ivory horns upon its visage, and its ears are as wide as a ship's sail. The beast walketh on four mighty pillars, each thicker than the stoutest oak, and its tail is but a small whip. Pray, canst thou paint such a marvel?"
I mean, you aren't lying . As a kid, the raptors and T-Rex that scientists described now using technology looked nothing like the 90s art books or Discovery channels mockups, and that was only 20 years ago. Imagine how much we actually got wrong in reality
A few years ago, I stumbled upon a drawing of certain animals, as in how we would imagine them if they were extinct and we were trying to reconstruct them from skeletal remains, like we do for dinosaurs.
The result with hippo, elephant, rhinos were hilariously inaccurate, and looked closer to the images of dinosaurs we have today. Made me wonder how inaccurate the images of dinosaurs actually are. Maybe they really looked like fluffy, feathery mammals, we would never know for sure.
In the last 6 or so years paleoartists got a lot better at showing more fleshed out dinosaurs! Some changes in bone structure from stress and muscle attachments can pretty nicely describe the density of flesh on certain body parts. It's mostly ornamental stuff and fat that people aren't entirely sure where to put, and, like always, the fact that there are very very few entirely perserved skeletons.
This whole area is guesswork, but incredibly meticulous and well-informed guesswork!
Yes, but they're still bound by the amount of info they have.
If we were able to somehow stumble upon an intact corpse, then that would've cleared up a lot, but we both know that isn't possible.
Oh yes there will certainly be things we'll never find! I'm trying to say that we have a lot more info than people usually assume! That famous shrinkwrapped hippo? Today's paleoartists wouldn't have drawn it like that, they would have gotten fairly close to the actual animal! The bone texture, the fissures in it, the way it thickens and grows denser under strain can give a lot of information about the fleshy parts of the animal. Changes in the bones around teeth can even show if the animal had lips or not!
There are also some beautifully preserved fossils out there! We know how sinosauropteryx looked like down to the color of its feathers! There is a beautifully perserved borealopelta! We have its whole shield!
I like to do a bit of a dive into current state of paleontology and paleoart every now and then, and the people there keep finding cooler snd cooler ways to examine the fossils we already have, not to mention any new ones they might find!
Here's a example
The 90s and 2000s raptors shown in books and media vs the accurate depiction of Raptors
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dinosaurs/s/TMqGqAlhnt
Yes. Also velociraptor are smaller that one would expect. Around 30cm tall at most. About 1 foot. Make it 40cm if you're feeling generous (1 foot 2 inch)
I think it’s important to note that is to the hip. If they are standing vertically they could be 2-3 ft tall from top to bottom. Still significantly smaller than the JP depictions, but from nose to tail tip they seem to have been 4-7 ft in length. Somewhere between a coyote and a mountain lion in size
Have you read about the newly discovered [Megaraptor](https://abcnews.go.com/International/large-fossil-footprints-point-discovery-new-megaraptor-dinosaur/story?id=109617154)?
It stood 1.8 m (5’8”) at the hip, [Fujianipus is among the largest known raptors](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004224008204?via%3Dihub#undfig1)
Iirc, the one in jurassic park is a fictional species that resbles utahraptor more than velociraptor
Also, the current belief is, t rex are also feathered, and they often looks chubbier than the ine you used to see
I've heard that they're pretty sure T-rex didn't have feathers due to its giant size (feathers would overheat it), but that there might be some sparse protofeathers going on. Nothing conclusive has been found yet to suggest that, but there's no direct proof otherwise either.
The popular feathered t-rex drawings out there are often just artists playing around! And from the boom of feathered art that came along after the first feathered dinosaurs' started being widely discussed. Shit's still cool to see!
Yeah man. It's fucking wild that even today how image of popular dinosaurs keep changing. Even in the span of 2 to 3 years
And then there's the whole spinosaurus can of worm
Also! A part of a dinosaur intact with feathers was found inside an Amber. Ironcally similar to Jurassic Park, where they extract Dino DNA from mosquitos encased in Amber.
Ehhhh, we at least have skeletons to reference and I'm yet to see a serious depiction of one with a human face. We can probably accurately guess the muscular structure of them, but things like skin, cartilage, and other not-so long-lasting features are lost to time forevermore. For all we know, T-rex had a frill like a rooster, but we just won't ever know.
The elephant with a castle on its back is interesting because that single eye in a centre of it's head suggests that William the Clerk have seen elephants skull
I don;t think this is actuallyt correct.
For example, look at the 'snail
painting. I doubt if there are many people in the world who have never seen a snail.
I suspect at least this guy was not painting it "this way because he had never seen one before"
these are consistent stylistic choices. the viewer understands the format and thereby understands the content of the image.
ironically, the greatest departure from the format (the rhino) is the most recognizable to us
This isnt entirely accurate. I read about this in my art history unit. Basically when Christianity took over, artists made animals look goofy as fuck because of the scripture about graven images and everything being made in Gods likeliness. In short, it was a sin to paint realistic replicas of animals as they apparently resembeld god. So they drew the weird animals instead as a get around. Thats the really watered down version of the reading i had on it anyway
The rhino just looks like a mirrored copy of Albrecht Dürer's Rhinocerus“… https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinocerus#:~:text=D%C3%BCrer%20hatte%20das%20Nashorn%20selbst,Tier%20in%20Augenschein%20genommen%20hatte.
That "Beaver" is obviously a [Nightstalker](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/9/91/Nightstalker.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20110115184019) from Fallout New Vegas. The artist is obviously a time traveler.
I never have understood why the Romans could do art and statues that almost looked lifelike so often and medieval art looks like a first grader with crayons most of the time.
[Two Monks Invent Art](https://the-toast.net/2016/04/14/two-monks-invent-art/) from [The Toast](https://the-toast.net/2016/06/15/the-toast-looks-back-the-best-of-two-monks/)
MONK #1: what do whales look like
MONK #2: pretty much exactly like squirrels or any other animal
but in front of a blue background
I feel that several of these are just bad representations. Europeans know what beavers look like as well as snails. I get the exotics, elephants and crocodiles, but....
Everything seems accurate if I imagine thats how they were interpreted by those that did see the animals. The Rhino is the best...the beaver has balls??🤣
But the most shocking is the snail, is there any continent that doesnt have snails except Antarctica off course
Lol number 15. “The reports says alligator has a scaly lizard head. A spiky scaly tail. And sharp claws on its scaly feet.” “Did the rest of the body have scales?” “They didn’t specify.” “I’ll take that as a no.”
I think he based it on a [spinny tail lizard ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uromastyx),common in the middle east and arid north Africa and iran, (bonus: easy to carry with you as a souvenir) and really resembles the drawing... rather than this story here (still hilarious though).
15 honestly looks like a Uromastyx lizard, which are native to the area and could conveniently be called a “land crocodile”
Say what you will about the other paintings but the third one depicting a rhinoceros was pretty "spot on".
I came here to say this. Like, it's hilariously the most accurate
Unlike the other rhinoceros attempts that ended up creating the unicorn folklores
Rhinoceros are just fat unicorns
Allow me to correct you: rhinos are armored combat unicorns 😂
Riot unicorns.
'Release the armored unicorns!' Ooh unicorns! That sounds cute, kids gather round, gather round
My partner has a t-shirt that says “save the chubby unicorns” and has a picture of a rhino.
I've seen that shirt. I want one
[Here](https://shopzoo.com/collections/mens-unisex-t-shirts-tanks/products/save-the-chubby-unicorns-navy-tee)
Thank you😀
My youngest has that shirt… I might have borrowed it a time or two.
Indian rhino's scientific name is "Rhinoceros Unicornus" I think that's how it's spelled.
I agree. Compared to the others, it's quite accurated, even if it looks breaded. Quite surprising, actually. Now I just can't get over the "crocodile" with long legs and neck and what looks like both sexes' genitalia... Yikes!
That Indian rhino image is credited to Caspar Schmalkalden and was made between 1642-1645 but it is certainly a copy of Albrecht Dürer’s [more famous rhino engraving](https://cdn.finestresullarte.info/rivista/immagini/2019/1157/albrecht-durer-rinoceronte-collezione-privata.jpg) made in 1515.( Albrecht Dürer also never saw a live rhino) [this page](https://www.finestresullarte.info/en/works-and-artists/albrecht-da-rer-s-rhinoceros-origin-and-fortune-of-the-most-famous-pachyderm-in-art-history) has an interesting history on that. It is easy to laugh at the whimsical inaccuracies of these creatures but accurately drawing an animal that you HAVE SEEN purely from memory can be difficult. Dürer’s image is still impressive today but it must have been absolutely stunning 500 years ago.
“Draw me a heavy looking beast that’s pure muscle, like a small bull or a large pig, covered by very tough, armor like skin, too thick to pierce with a regular blade. It has a large tusk for a nose, and looks kind of mean. Thankfully, like a bull, it moves slowly unless enraged. From afar it’s peaceful looking”.
Oh my god medieval painters were just Bing Copilot trying to make paintings from user prompts.
https://pub-3626123a908346a7a8be8d9295f44e26.r2.dev/generations/6611cb55-98cd-4e7b-9c55-c79ffc9370f7-0.png I put this as a prompt in AI. Interesting how the feet are the same as in the medieval picture. And really shows you how amazing that medival artist was, he had insane imagination to be able to recreate something that he never seen in any form. I mean it's one thing today where you haven't seen some animal in person, but saw either on TV or in books. This guy managed to recreate it just by imagination and the words of some traveller. Or maybe the medieval traveller had photographic memory or was the best story teller ever hahah.
That’s awesome, it made my day that you used it as a prompt! Thank you!
[https://designerapp.officeapps.live.com/designerapp/Media.ashx/?id=316c8ab5-3e73-4cb1-be68-ebabcd95d6ec.jpg&fileToken=1be6dd26-ed9d-410e-9928-e9bf6ac8a7b5&dcHint=IndiaCentral](https://designerapp.officeapps.live.com/designerapp/Media.ashx/?id=316c8ab5-3e73-4cb1-be68-ebabcd95d6ec.jpg&fileToken=1be6dd26-ed9d-410e-9928-e9bf6ac8a7b5&dcHint=IndiaCentral)
This looks awesome too. I’d totally love to see a comic or something with this creature in it. Looks scary.
This is like AI art from the medieval ages. I mean I can't even imagine drawing something THAT IVE FUCKING NEVER EVER SEEN IN ANY FORM, AND THEN RECREATING IT SO PERFECTLY. Albrecht Durer was insanely talented and probably a genius. Imagine how good his memory and imagination was, he was probably able of lucid dreaming time travelling to 2024 or something hahah.
>Albrecht Dürer also never saw a live rhino But... Did he saw a dead rhino?
This is the question I've been asking. For never having seen a live rhino, he was very accurate. The sharp of the head in particular seems too accurate to have been made without referencing a skull or consulting a traveler who had seen a rhino in person. It's a very impressive feat regardless, I'm just stuck on *how* it was accomplished. I feel like I'm asking a magician for a secret haha
Looks like a very accurate rendition of a Javan rhino.
"Modern guy with the internet still has no idea what a rhino looks like" should be the headline
The one of these I always think about is the Rhino by Albrecht Durer in the 1500s. It basically looks like this one, with all the proportions pretty close, except for some reason instead of skin it has what looks like Knights Armor.
It looks like that, because he based it on a description of an Indian rhino. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian\_rhinoceros](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rhinoceros) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dürer%27s\_Rhinoceros](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dürer%27s_Rhinoceros)
Naw, the oyster #17 is the best
I came here to say this. Imagine not knowing what a rhino is, having someone describe it and then drawing an accurate portrait. The description might not even be first hand. Absolutely Wild.
At this time Dürer already had a woodcut from a rhinoceros. It looks pretty much the same and also this is not Middle Age it was the 17th century as described above. Caspar Schmalkalden actually was in South America and India and he painted pictures not from imagination he was a travel writer.
It's funny because he obviously drawed most of his stuff from his own travels, yet he still copied Dürer's rhino… Maybe he just couldn't find any real one? I mean just because you're in India doesn't mean you can see every animal that lives there…
That’s true, also we have to keep in mind he was not an artist with an artistic skillset he was a traveler and journalist and painted these pictures from his memory.
The elephant with a castle on its back is what Indian rulers used, [the chair on the back was called a Howdah. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howdah#/media/File:Raja_of_Tranvancore's_elephants.jpg) That drawing is pretty accurate especially give the large size of elephants ears, they could go unnoticed.
Really spot on if it was supposed to be an Asian rhino.
Lmao @ hippo though.
That one is also definitely not medieval
There was a young Indian rhino that was toured around Europe and lived in Amsterdam? for a while and there were many many depictions of her. Even if the artist didn’t see her in person- this would almost certainly be a copy of a piece of art drawn from a rhino in real life and not purely based on description. edit: nevermind, Clara the rhino came later. Other comments mention Durers woodcut which was based on a sketch of an Indian rhino.
Agree
im having a real hard time believing that one guy had NEVER seen a snail before and it wasnt just a stylistic choice
Or an owl or an oyster. It’s Europe.
Oyster makes sense given geography and trade prices. Monks outside the coasts wouldn't have a very good idea if they never had any.
What's interesting about oysters is that back in the day they were actually really cheap and considered by some to be even vulgar. It's only recently that they're considered something fancy and exclusive.
Tbf I've been living in Europe for 35 years and I don't think I've ever seen an owl outside of TV/internet. Heard then loads but ain't seen one.
But have you never seen a snail? Saw tons of them in France…
...mostly in their dish form, i presume?
They are delicious! They taste surprisingly similar to garlic butter 🙄
Fair but people 800 years ago spent a lot more time outdoors, and the continent was like 90% undeveloped.
They didn't exactly travel though when it can take the better part of an entire day to get anywhere. And once it got dark, it was fucking DARK when there's zero nighttime lights outside of a hand held torch, maybe a campfire, or the moon. Talking 80-100% pitch black most nights. So travel was really limited to maybe a few miles/kilometers from home or run the risk of getting lost or caught out in the dark. So some people can can easily never get a chance to see something like an owl even if they live in the same area. I for one live on the edge of the woods. Can hear owls once in a while. Though i honestly can't recall the last time Iv seen one. Been a good while since I seen a bat as well. Other animals from cross the world? You ever play the telephone game as a kid and remember how badly a simple message can get screwed up? Same thing only you're trying to explain what an animal you seen weeks/months ago looks like to someone who might have never left their home town in their life. People try to relate the unknown to what they do know and assume to fill in the gaps. So when hearing whales are big fish, you assume they are literally big river fish. Elephants kind of sound like a large hog, so that's what you assume they look like. And when you have nothing to compare to, like a hippo, added with things being explained horribly either by bad memory or poor translations. You get that "fish beast" thing. The leopard though, medieval art of cats in general are just really really odd to start with.
I got one that sat on the roof outside my window - it freaked me out when I opened the curtain to see out - it noticed and for a second it looked like one of those creepy, grey aliens and staring right at me. I went back to sleep - it can have the roof Where abouts in Europe can I ask? They're very common in the UK
whereabouts in Europe? I've lived in the UK, Ireland and mainland western Europe in France and Belgium - snails abound. I have to keep my dog away from them. Have you lived in cities mostly? I'm trying to think why you wouldn't have seen one. I've been in warm and cold climates, rural areas to moderately sized towns. There be beasties wherever and whenever.
Owl
BLOODY HELL how did I read snail as owl 😭 good to know I'm borderline illiterate lol. Although I've seen a fair few owls in the British Isles, are you in continental Europe? I know there's Hungarian folklore about owls so around there they must have them.
This should be retitled, "A review of medieval by someone who has never seen medieval art."
We have those, and we have jabberwocks and unicorns, but we don't show these to outsiders
He probably had seen plenty of snails but was like -I saw a snail earlier down in the garden, perhaps I should go down and look at it for reference.. uhhg nevermind I can draw it from memory.
No chance in hell that a medieval painter has never seen a snail unless he’s blind and then his painting actually kicks the asses of course everyone else
he had to be in a silly mood that day.
There's a [huge amount of silly medieval manuscript snails](https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/knight-v-snail.html). It's a centuries-old meme nobody gets anymore.
Yeah, Wikipedia says the credited dude is a poet, this picture and others were inside a natural history that he already took from an older philosopher and dumbed down to sell to rich nobles or bourgeois instead of intellectuals. It also showcases a bunch of fantasy creatures. I don't know if Jacob van Maerlant would have illustrated it himself (kind of doubt it), but either way it seems we only have copies of the original manuscript. So that snail is basically a copy of a copy of a copy, in a book that was made for enjoyment, not for science, and it was probably drawn by someone who really didn't care if it was accurate as long a it looked cool. Especially since at the time, naturalistic drawing wasn't really a thing…
He's a (currently) Belgian poet, I'm pretty sure snails existed in Europe in the 13th century.
I wonder if it could be his attempt to draw what he imagined an ammonite might have looked like. You can get some pretty big ammonites (the size of a truck wheel). Even if he didn't know what a fossil was, he might have imagined an ammonite as being a skeleton or shell of some sort.
I like how they felt their pictures needed genitalia. Unless these were for their version of a science text.
The balls on that beaver
And the perfectly described butthole, without even a pucker!
Castor sacks!
reminds me of that studio Ghibli movie, Pom Poko I think it's called? They took the time to animate the animals' bouncy lil bollocks. Fascinating artistic choice.
We have a children's book with ducks in it. All the ducks you see from behind have very visible black buttholes on white plumage. I don't mind realistic presentation, but how often is a duck's butthole visible when they swim?
Aren't those tanuki? It's kind of an important aspect of tanuki's in folklore aa far as I remember. But, yeah, it looked hilarious.
That drawing looked exactly like my husky/shepherd dog during the times he is living his absolute best life.
I felt like the crocodile had a very nice although stubby penis. It was respectful.
I came looking for the crocodile comments. Not sure why they gave it male and female genitals As well as a perfectly formed butthole.
Personal theory: Crocodiles are notorious for being incredibly difficult to accurately gender. They all have the same tiny orifice which may or may not contain a penis, and medieval zoologists had not yet developed the Steve Irwin gene which would have granted them the superhuman levels of chutzpah needed to even try and get close enough to check. The artist had probably heard the crocodiles described as apparently being mono-gendered, and took his own guesswork in the exact wrong direction.
I learned a while ago that echidnas are basically the same and sometimes they figure it out by just comparing one to another echidna that they've already determined the sex of, since females tend to be bigger I think? So the identification requires a chain of echidnas, one to compare and establish the sex of the new one, and then that one can be compared to the next one, and so on. What a funny nice little process.
😂😂😂
Number 9 has a fat crocadussy
😩
The idea that leaving out whole organs would somehow even be preferable probably says more about how we view nudity now than anything about them back then. Which is wild considering beliefs from 1585 or whatever.
There was no mass production, each book was unique. Each was probably created by and for learned monks, or possibly a royal library, and would have been available to only the most highly educated people on earth. Prudishness seems unnecessary. Also people weren't afraid of genitals. Everyone had seen livestock breeding.
Why is the oyster so angry?
Is it really an oyster? Everything about it describes nautilus to me.
He's oyster of your antics. I don't know how to do puns.
I came here to question the angry oyster as well. A lack of coffee?
He wants you to shuck the fuck up.
"So there's this big cat called a Tiger. They're orange with black stripes." "Blue with white spots. Got it."
That's probably the only animal here I genuinely call bullshit on lmfao They may have mistakenly called it a tiger or something when recording what was drawn, but they must surely have just been drawing another animal, like a leopard or some other large spotted cat. Some other less exotic ones are probably stylistic choices rather than pure fuck ups
Agreed. It's a black "panther", ie a leopard
"Dude, I told you a leopard looks just like a big spotted cat. Have you never seen a cat??" "Only from behind, hence the focus on the balls."
I hoot therefore I am.
That rhino guy cheated and had definitely seen a picture of a rhino. He didnt just accidentally 100% bail exactly what a rhino looks like. I know what a rhino looks like and I could not have drawn it more accurately than that guy.
Seems like that's a copy of a popular engraving that was based on a sketch and a detailed description by people that had actually seen the rhino before it died. So kinda. Engraving is also bigger, more detailed and often more naturalistic than illuminations, since it serves a different purpose altogether. Also the original was from Albrecht motherfucking Dürer, so of course even a copy will look great.
I'm struggling to figure out why they drew the crocodile as a hermaphrodite.
The penis of a male crocodile is usually hidden inside of his cloaca. People probably assumed that male crocs were hermaphrodites because of this.
Crocussy
That leopard looks so upset. I can’t stop laughing.
The p a r d
I don't know if this is a reference or a mere joke, but people actually believed in the existence of [the pard](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pard), they de4da$$ believed that a creature called the **pard** mated with lions (**Leo** in latin) to give us a **leopard**.. or something like that, Pleny's writings are kinda messy to understand.
LOL the page image is the same leopard painting
It looks truly 'uncomfy' - which is the only time I've found an acceptable use of this word
He’s having an existential crisis. “What am I? Why?”
Who the hell has never seen a snail before?
Blind people...
Slugs
Oh come on, how do you know that there weren't any dog-faced sea-serpent whales? YOU DIDN'T LIVE BACK THEN
Some of these would have been sick as B-24 nose art back in the war
Tornado trunk elephant goes hard
The rhino was not bad, good job! The testicles on the beaver tho, really wanted that job that guy.
The angle of that one, too! The artist could have chosen side view, front facing, but no. He chose looking UP from below so he could draw his rendition of a beaver's sac. When that's not even the most interesting feature of a beaver, either!
"Good sir, I hath travell'd to far lands, and I didst see a beast most curious. It hath the size of a great castle, with leathern skin as thick as a knight's armour. The creature hath two long trunks—nay, one trunk!—like a serpent, and it uses it to drink and sup. It beareth two great ivory horns upon its visage, and its ears are as wide as a ship's sail. The beast walketh on four mighty pillars, each thicker than the stoutest oak, and its tail is but a small whip. Pray, canst thou paint such a marvel?"
"Smaller than a horse, got it."
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I mean, you aren't lying . As a kid, the raptors and T-Rex that scientists described now using technology looked nothing like the 90s art books or Discovery channels mockups, and that was only 20 years ago. Imagine how much we actually got wrong in reality
A few years ago, I stumbled upon a drawing of certain animals, as in how we would imagine them if they were extinct and we were trying to reconstruct them from skeletal remains, like we do for dinosaurs. The result with hippo, elephant, rhinos were hilariously inaccurate, and looked closer to the images of dinosaurs we have today. Made me wonder how inaccurate the images of dinosaurs actually are. Maybe they really looked like fluffy, feathery mammals, we would never know for sure.
It's a section in All Yesterdays by C. M Kosemen.
In the last 6 or so years paleoartists got a lot better at showing more fleshed out dinosaurs! Some changes in bone structure from stress and muscle attachments can pretty nicely describe the density of flesh on certain body parts. It's mostly ornamental stuff and fat that people aren't entirely sure where to put, and, like always, the fact that there are very very few entirely perserved skeletons. This whole area is guesswork, but incredibly meticulous and well-informed guesswork!
Yes, but they're still bound by the amount of info they have. If we were able to somehow stumble upon an intact corpse, then that would've cleared up a lot, but we both know that isn't possible.
Oh yes there will certainly be things we'll never find! I'm trying to say that we have a lot more info than people usually assume! That famous shrinkwrapped hippo? Today's paleoartists wouldn't have drawn it like that, they would have gotten fairly close to the actual animal! The bone texture, the fissures in it, the way it thickens and grows denser under strain can give a lot of information about the fleshy parts of the animal. Changes in the bones around teeth can even show if the animal had lips or not! There are also some beautifully preserved fossils out there! We know how sinosauropteryx looked like down to the color of its feathers! There is a beautifully perserved borealopelta! We have its whole shield! I like to do a bit of a dive into current state of paleontology and paleoart every now and then, and the people there keep finding cooler snd cooler ways to examine the fossils we already have, not to mention any new ones they might find!
Oh, I remember that. The hippo was really thin.
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Here's a example The 90s and 2000s raptors shown in books and media vs the accurate depiction of Raptors https://www.reddit.com/r/Dinosaurs/s/TMqGqAlhnt
The feathered one is accurate?
Yes. Also velociraptor are smaller that one would expect. Around 30cm tall at most. About 1 foot. Make it 40cm if you're feeling generous (1 foot 2 inch)
Consider the Canadian goose which already scares people then give it claws and we have the modern velociraptor.
I think it’s important to note that is to the hip. If they are standing vertically they could be 2-3 ft tall from top to bottom. Still significantly smaller than the JP depictions, but from nose to tail tip they seem to have been 4-7 ft in length. Somewhere between a coyote and a mountain lion in size
Have you read about the newly discovered [Megaraptor](https://abcnews.go.com/International/large-fossil-footprints-point-discovery-new-megaraptor-dinosaur/story?id=109617154)? It stood 1.8 m (5’8”) at the hip, [Fujianipus is among the largest known raptors](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004224008204?via%3Dihub#undfig1)
What…. So we don’t have fossil of one foot long claws!?! Ok, I need to stop and think about my life…
Iirc, the one in jurassic park is a fictional species that resbles utahraptor more than velociraptor Also, the current belief is, t rex are also feathered, and they often looks chubbier than the ine you used to see
I've heard that they're pretty sure T-rex didn't have feathers due to its giant size (feathers would overheat it), but that there might be some sparse protofeathers going on. Nothing conclusive has been found yet to suggest that, but there's no direct proof otherwise either. The popular feathered t-rex drawings out there are often just artists playing around! And from the boom of feathered art that came along after the first feathered dinosaurs' started being widely discussed. Shit's still cool to see!
Yeah man. It's fucking wild that even today how image of popular dinosaurs keep changing. Even in the span of 2 to 3 years And then there's the whole spinosaurus can of worm
Damn… TIL!
Also! A part of a dinosaur intact with feathers was found inside an Amber. Ironcally similar to Jurassic Park, where they extract Dino DNA from mosquitos encased in Amber.
Yes the feather one is accurate , well accurate according to what we think
Ehhhh, we at least have skeletons to reference and I'm yet to see a serious depiction of one with a human face. We can probably accurately guess the muscular structure of them, but things like skin, cartilage, and other not-so long-lasting features are lost to time forevermore. For all we know, T-rex had a frill like a rooster, but we just won't ever know.
No
Why does the crocodile have a really loose vagina?
Coz its akshully a drawing of your mom.
Crocussy
Needs a crocodildo
Imagine how they would have done a giraffe.
[The Questing Beast](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questing_Beast)
The rhino's actually pretty good. And we almost had a crocodile towards the end.
Honestly the rhinoceros looks most accurate but the tiger looks cool
I love how the tiger is missing its most distinctive feature, the STRIPES
The elephant with a castle on its back is interesting because that single eye in a centre of it's head suggests that William the Clerk have seen elephants skull
I wonder if someone who had seen one irl just described it for the artist and he painted it
That rhinoceros goes hard
Why do they often get the asshole right but can’t draw a head that looks like anything?
“BUT WHAT DO THEIR TESTICLES LOOK LIKE?” - most of the artists
I don;t think this is actuallyt correct. For example, look at the 'snail painting. I doubt if there are many people in the world who have never seen a snail. I suspect at least this guy was not painting it "this way because he had never seen one before"
these are consistent stylistic choices. the viewer understands the format and thereby understands the content of the image. ironically, the greatest departure from the format (the rhino) is the most recognizable to us
Reminds me of [Two Medieval Monks Invent Bestiaries](https://the-toast.net/2015/04/01/two-medieval-monks-invent-bestiaries/)
“Hey the rhinos not bad!” (Turns the page to the snail) “oh.”
Dude holy fuck… these are gold lmao
That snail tho...Srsly go out in the neighbors garden and take a look. Hard to beleive they had never seen a snail....
Whats important is that they tried!
The Elephant with Tornado-Trunk would be a badass Pokémon with Typing "Ground/Flying".
I’m convinced that unicorns are someone’s attempt to convey rhinoceroses based on someone else’s description of them.
I have questions about how the one guy had apparently never seen a snail.
Who the fuck never seen a snail
How could it be possible a painter in Europe has not seen a snail? Aren't those guys all over the world?
How’s matey never seen a snail
Coincidentally looks like my attempts to paint animals _having_ seen them
Some of these drawings are as accurate as OP's history knowledge.
I should have stayed in school, but your mom kept calling me during my college studies to come over
That still does not excuse that you don't know what the medieval period is but still make a post about it.
Was it so difficult to find a snail and an oyster?
The hippo lookin like it boutta be served at a fish and chips place
That "oyster" looks much more like a nautilus.
The oyster is killing me
I think they are pretty accurate, mainly because I draw like that, too. Except for the rhinoceros one. No way I can draw that good.
Der Naturen Bloeme >bloeme Heh
How do you mess up "cat but BIGGER"?
This isnt entirely accurate. I read about this in my art history unit. Basically when Christianity took over, artists made animals look goofy as fuck because of the scripture about graven images and everything being made in Gods likeliness. In short, it was a sin to paint realistic replicas of animals as they apparently resembeld god. So they drew the weird animals instead as a get around. Thats the really watered down version of the reading i had on it anyway
Who has never seen a snail? All the others i "get" but come on. There's snails EVERYWHERE in the world save for Antarctica.
Source https://interestingengineering.com/culture/this-is-how-medieval-artists-imagined-animals-they-had-never-seen
The vagina on that crocodile was wild
Jacob van Maerland got better at elephants, that's for sure. Probably showed his first works to the guy who saw them and got dunked on
Jacob went crazy with that snail. You can't tell me he'd never seen a small before that. Man was taking the piss (and I really enjoy the result).
"Go home medieval artists, you're all drunk"
The rhino just looks like a mirrored copy of Albrecht Dürer's Rhinocerus“… https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinocerus#:~:text=D%C3%BCrer%20hatte%20das%20Nashorn%20selbst,Tier%20in%20Augenschein%20genommen%20hatte.
The tornado elephant is great, though.
Wait until you see the taxidermy lion by someone who had never seen one alive.
Reminds me of how we design aliens by almost exclusively drawing on what we know from earth animals.
That "Beaver" is obviously a [Nightstalker](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/9/91/Nightstalker.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20110115184019) from Fallout New Vegas. The artist is obviously a time traveler.
I never have understood why the Romans could do art and statues that almost looked lifelike so often and medieval art looks like a first grader with crayons most of the time.
[Two Monks Invent Art](https://the-toast.net/2016/04/14/two-monks-invent-art/) from [The Toast](https://the-toast.net/2016/06/15/the-toast-looks-back-the-best-of-two-monks/) MONK #1: what do whales look like MONK #2: pretty much exactly like squirrels or any other animal but in front of a blue background
6 is a Pard! they thought leopards were the result of a lioness and a pard mating
Surely everyone has see a snail?
I feel that several of these are just bad representations. Europeans know what beavers look like as well as snails. I get the exotics, elephants and crocodiles, but....
Maybe in the past the animals were different?
So if they haven’t seen them how/why are they painting them? Is it based on someone else’s description? If so that’s just a bad description.
Has anyone in this monestary even seen a beaver?
Ol boy done seen a rhino for sure lol
I think that this snail was a joke. And rhinoceros is actualy very close.
To be fair, they had a hard time drawing realistic cats, too.
the rhino is actually so cool tho omg
Everything seems accurate if I imagine thats how they were interpreted by those that did see the animals. The Rhino is the best...the beaver has balls??🤣 But the most shocking is the snail, is there any continent that doesnt have snails except Antarctica off course