“Oh, but Mallory, aren’t you being sort of deliberately obtuse, calling out a bunch of thirteenth-century illuminating monk dudes for drawing goofy-looking deer, knowing as we do that medieval art was only semi-representational and more concerned with iconography than naturalism?” No. I am not. “Okay, but are you willing to concede that maybe there are more kinds of deer than the, like, one American kind you have only ever seen?” I am unwilling. Let us proceed in mocking of the artistic attempts of the centuries-dead.
how many antlers do deer have, should I bother looking out the window to check mmmmmmmm
better just fill in the head until there’s no room left because of the GLOBE OF SPIKES I feel pretty certain most deer are sporting
Deer: they wear their hair in a jheri curl and also have two large artichoke stalks sprouting up directly from their brainpan, deer facts
Antlers aren’t wavy though????
“I bet a deer could hold its head up if it were carrying antlers the exact same actual length as its body, probably, due to deer spinal columns being composed primarily of GRANITE and STICK-TO-ITIVENESS”
NOPE
Antlers are also not LEAVES
That is a JOE CAMEL FACE on a MADE-UP BODY with a VENUS FLYTRAP on its forehead
“how long are deer necks, roughly the same length as deer bodies, right? with a ribbon for support, fantastic”
Antlers: Two Crooked Drinking Goblets?? – The Middle Ages’ actual best guess
[Images via]
Tags: animals, artwork, poking gentle fun at medieval art, using the term medieval pretty loosely here
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I feel like somebody here has to bring up the Irish Elk.
Definitely settles the granite-spine argument, that there is some dense bone support.
Moose???
Irish Elk as requested!
Thanks!
Total Eclipse of the Elk?
A Møøse once bit my sister
Watch out or you’ll be sacked.
Mynd yoo, Møøse bites can be very nasti.
In response, someone else will bring up that the Irish Elk has been extinct for approximately 8000 years.
They all died out when their heads got too heavy to carry around anymore.
8000 years and still the silliest looking deer on the block,
I stand corrected: @Emma Stanford has discovered the silliest looking deer on the block. A million props.
Isn’t the theory that they were the sexiest looking deer on the block?
Cave painting version of Irish Elk FTW:
Oh man those antlers just look like terrifying wavy hands.
So do the real ones on the skeleton!
That Joe Camel one is like the Brokeback Pose of medieval art. The throat has somehow ended up on the back of the deer’s head?
While we’re at it, what exactly is sprouting from the rabbit’s butt in that one? At first I thought it was more of the background foliage, but there is clearly blank space between the back feet and the ground, so nope. Or is all the underbrush actually rabbits in disguise? Hmmmm.
I think it’s feathers. An early Easter bunny, maybe?
I am choosing to think it’s an alien rabbit with tentacles.
Deer number 3 appears to have only one eye. Also I heartily approve of all the deer with the sassy lolling tongues, and that cross-eyed leopard.
But for real what is this artistic convention of deer having their tongues sticking out? Have these people only ever seen dead deer and they assume that’s what their faces do all the time?
I also want to know the answer to this.
I did not find that out. I did discover this, which is worth quoting in full:
“The stag is the enemy of the snake. When the stag discovers a snake, it spits water into the hole where the snake hides, draws the snake out with its breath, and tramples it to death. If the stag is ill or old, it draws the snake out of hiding and swallows it. The stag then finds water and drinks large amounts of it to overcome the poison, and is renewed. When the stag is renewed it sheds its horns. Some say that the stag cures its ills by eating crabs it finds in the water.
Stags live for a long time; their teeth reveal their age. When Alexander the Great wanted to see how long stags lived, he captured many and had them marked. The marked deer were captured one hundred years later and were still healthy.
When stags must cross a river to find food, they swim in line with one stag’s head resting on the rear of the one in front; when the front stag tires, it moves to the end of the line to rest. When stags are struck by arrows, they can shake them off by eating dittany. Stags hear well when their ears are erect, but not when their ears are lowered. They marvel at the sound of a reed pipe, and can be caught by a hunter playing one.
Stags are lustful, but the female deer can only conceive at the rising of the star Arcturus. The deer gives birth in dense woods, and teaches her young to flee over high places. When they hear hunting dogs bark, they change direction to the other wind to keep the dogs from scenting them.
People who eat venison are protected from fever because stags are never feverish. The smoke from burning stag antlers is deadly to snakes. A drink made from the tears and the heart bones of a stag is a cure for troubles of the heart.”
*speechless*
That leopard is actually a pretty correct depiction of the now-extinct European forest lion. The only known taxidermied forest lion resides at Gripsholm Castle in Sweden and looks like this:
Front view:
Hmm. I’d have chalked that up as bad taxidermy, but as you point out it does match with the illustration. Interesting – thanks!
It’s a common misconception! But really, what’s more likely?
a) the Swedish king is gifted a strange animal hide brought from a faraway country and decides to have it mounted, but can’t get ahold of a taxidermist who has ever seen a lion
or
b) it is a local lion mounted completely correctly, as befits a king
Clearly, the answer is obvious.
It’s an amazingly well preserved hide for a type of lion that became extinct in 100AD, but I guess that’s the wisdom of the ancients for you.
When deer #4 with the granite spinal column is standing still, the antlers must be at like a perfect 45-degree angle to the ground. Seems legit.
It’s an Ergonomic Elk, possibly from IKEA. Really.
picture 3: little known fact–deer penises are in fact just tufts of fur, hence compensatory tongue-lolling. #themoreyouknow
This may be the ASD ignoring your clever joke, but no! That is demonstrably untrue!
https://makloox.zoohaven.com/other/images/deer_ma…
MY EYES!!!!
All of the animals in #2 look so exasperated.
I feel like the deer in #2 is actually the least problematic element of the entire painting. Are we not even going to talk about the monk kind of levitating side-saddle next to the giant blue alpaca?
Can we just talk about everything that is happening in #3? I mean, first of all that deer is clearly drunk. Also, the lady riding it a) has dragon wings, b) is carrying a bloody spear, c) has a hawk perched on her arm like it’s NBD, d) seems to have made a crown out of her own hair, e) is my hero.
Bareback and sidesaddle to boot!
The leopard is the derpiest leopard ever to derp, I think.
Could be worse: http://www.themarysue.com/lion-taxidermy/
MONK #1: what do you think, how should i show that thing about camels
MONK #2: you mean their built-in saddle notch
MONK #1: no the other thing
MONK #2: their impressive water retention
MONK #1: yeah that
MONK #2: idk, your the artist, figure it out with your colors
MONK #1: blue perfect done
I love how Mallory now has to insert all these pre-emptive disclaimers so as to not piss off the hordes of art historians that lurk in the commentariat. As an art historian, I approve.
Lurking art historian here. Thoroughly concur.
In the Joe Camel picture, do those horses have CLAWS, or are thye wearing CLEATED HORSESHOES?
Oh yeah, definitely cleated horseshoes. I see those all the time.
more like “derr”
if you ask me
just a little joke
Submitting this dude in the corner here as exhibit F
(Bodleian MS. Laud Or. 233, fol. 117v, <a href=”http://viewer.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/icv/page.php?book=ms._laud_or._233&page=242)” target=”_blank”>http://viewer.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/icv/page.php?book=ms._laud_or._233&page=242)
OH MY GOD! I want to travel back in time and embrace the person who illuminated this manuscript. They’ve captured the essence of deer(?)dom! Five shooting stars.
This was a later marginal doodle, and I like to think that the smudges are because the doodler was so horrified they turned the page before the ink had time to dry. Don’t know why, though. A+ work, as you say.
Or the smudges are symbolic of the swiftness of the doodled creature: like, “hey, I must rush to join my more detailed, less rhomboid friends.”
And there are more! http://viewer.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/icv/page.php?book… This doodler is the gift that keeps on giving. My grade here is a B+ [b for lack of smudges, + for bunny ears]
Nevermind, I think I have found the best one: http://viewer.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/icv/page.php?book…
I feel like I finally have proof of one of my former lives.
IT’S WEARING A CAPE!! The smudges are actually the speed lines.
Eye have no eye deer.
I once saw an A+ exhibit at the National Museum of Wildlife Art about how clueless artists were to what a buffalo looked like. They were hilariously bad. This isn’t the best example, but it’ll do.
Is… is that not what buffalo look like?
Ah, I should clarify–the exhibit highlighted that most artists could get the general shape, but when it came to the faces, all bets were off. Especially when it came to the eyes.
That buffalo looks so sad
That buffalo is breaking my heart with his sad, bewildered little face.
“oh no dudes i thought we were friends why are you doing this why is this happening where is my mom?”
*weeps*
I feel like this is Brave Little Toaster/Wall-E levels of sad right here. Whoa.
“I… I thought we were racing? Are we not racing? I feel like I’m the only one racing here.”
Yeaaah that face is pretty off. Its less hilariously and more an uncanny-valley version of what bison look like. My neighbour across the street had bison herds when I was in high school
For most of my school years, our backyard backed up to a tiny suburban ranch with a few head of bison (and a couple of horses, and a longhorn, and a three-legged German Shepherd to rule them all)
Bison tongues are rough!
They are! Watching the little tawny calves run around bucking and snorting was the best part of spring – and then they grow up into huge, deadly scaredy-cats of course. The place had a huge meat herd, so they weren’t socialised and were kind of scared of humans. Scared bison are terrifying
#5
Woman second from the left despises everything around her:
“Damnit Helen we’re busy, no-one cares about your shitty horn music!”
(looking at deer head) “Bet you think this is your revenge. Well it isn’t, ‘cus you’re dead, fucko.”
Little known fact. Both deer and people from the Barre region of Vermont actually do have spinal columns composed primarily of GRANITE and STICK-TO-ITIVENESS
Not deer, but in other marginalia things I’ve learned this week – snails battling knights?
This article on the above was referenced in an excellent episode of The Allusionist on emoji that I think everyone should check out because it also featured discussion about this:
“A nun plucks penises off a phallus tree in the Roman de la Rose, c. 1325-1353. (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS. Fr. 25526, f. 106v.)” (link)
A DICK TREE???
HARVESTED BY NUNS?
What do nuns do with the dick harvest, please tell me they eat them
It’s a travesty that we read unilluminated versions of the Romaunt of the Rose when I read it in Uni. A TRAVESTY.
You…read it in the dark?
How do I not remember that part?!
…as one does?
I may or may not have had my piece about the dick-tree nuns rejected by the Toast. I thought it was brilliant, but apparently it was inappropriate or something.
That shield looks very displeased at being made to defend the knight from the snail.
It’s very possible that’s an illustration of a scene from the Malleus Malificarum.
[My daughter is in rehab, and her weekly plea to me is that, since she is without internet, I send her every post that Mallory writes … the not enough laughing at rehab is solved! (She literally dissolves into tears, laughing so hard. The comments, of course, are the icing on the cake … so thanks to The Toast, Mallory and the Toast commentariat for making my daughter’s stay in rehab more joyous.)]
I hope your daughter has an easy time in rehab and comes out renewed! May be she surrounded and supported by weird deer and dick-trees.
Truly this is a prayer for the ages (not kidding even a little bit).
Deer thoughts:
#2: “Dude, personal space, learn about it.”
#6: “Ugh. Eff this, I’m out.”
I feel like it would be only fair to see the writer’s depiction of a deer.
It sounds like Mallory feels the same way about those interestingly rendered deer the way I feel about these horrible autoplay video ads that keep dragging my browser window’s scroller to where the dumb ad is playing. whyyyyy
Haha, the last deer looks to me like he has chimney stacks–very steampunk. Also all the little tongues sticking out. They may have been confused about antlers, but they want everyone to know deer do have tongues. And that is one badass-looking rabbit in the third to last, even when I reluctantly decided it is just between stalks of grass, not super cool spikes on his back.
No.4 – Deer can be packed like chairs. This is efficient.
“Mommy, what are the deer doing?”
“They’re… maximizing storage space.”
I, for one, would like to know how Hieronymous Bosch feels about deer. Maybe we should text him?
… I don’t think the deer are that bad. Am I a medieval European?
Possibly you are an actual bookworm, and your compound eyes perceive deer differently.
If Blue Saddle-Ridge Camel isn’t a microbrew beer brand before the month is out, I shall be keenly disappointed.
So I guess camels are always blue?
Deer: composed almost entirely of gumption and hair.
Oh, so the blue ones are camels? I thought they were llamas.
Obviously the deer in #6 is a genius with a bulging brainpan. It has glued leaves to its forehead, either to disguise itself among the strawberry trees, or to draw the leopard-lizard’s attention away from its camel friends.