Hi Jon,
Whilst pursuing one of my minor hobbies (the life and times of Leonardo da Vinci) I stumbled upon this drawing done by the great man probably in 1513, intitled 'Studies of cats and other animals.' All well and good - I see several cats, something looking like a lion and perhaps a couple of bears fighting. But what is that thing just below and to the right of the middle of the drawing? I know Leonardo did several drawings of costumes and set pieces for theatre, one of which a large dragon, but he usually labeled his drawings and made various notes about them. But this creature is just inserted in between all the 'regular' animals. Ideas anyone??
Lars
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3 comments:
It is meant as a "Real" dragon I suspect-Dragons were still "Real" animals at the time. I suspect it is a stylized drawing representing a large monitor lizard from Egypt or the Near East-you could get drawins of "Dragons" from those areas in the 1500s and they were presumably meant to represent large monitor lizards.
The proportions of the creature are about right for a monitor, but the twisting of the body is unnatural and comes from "Arty" tradition. Not to say really "Artistic" because it was always pretentious: ordinary crocodiles were also shown with corkscrew coils in the same manner. So were ordinary dolphins.
Best Wishes, Dale D.
And there's another oddity just to the left of center at the bottom.
I'm a country boy and the only things I've ever seen with corkscrew tails is...pigs.
Yeah - What's all this wierdness?
And there's another one to the left of center at the bottom.
I'm a country boy and the only things I've ever seen anywhere with corkscrew tails are...pigs. And these aren't pigs.
DaVinci was nothing if not accurate in his drawings. Now I'm curious, too.
What's with those critters?
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