I remind me because few modern writers remind me of the famous Virginia Woolf quote about fiction as a “spider web” than Argentine fabrist Jorge Louis Borge. But the life Borges attaches his labyrinth is the life of a librarian. The strands that anchor his fiction are obscure academic references he weaves throughout the text. Borges brings this trend to his non-fiction, whimsical employment Book of fictional beings, An uneven compilation of creatures from ancient folk tales, myths and demons from around the world.
Borges himself sometimes makes a statement about how these ancient stories are too far from rationale. The “absurd hypothesis” about the mythical Greek chimera is, for example, “proof” that an outrageous beast was beginning to “borrow people.” He writes that although he calls the “Jewish demons,” it is a category that is too many to analyze.
For centuries, Egypt, Babylonia and Persia all enriched this intermediary world. ” Although it is a lower field than Angelology, this fascinating and diverse influence of Canon spread over time.
The “Indigenous people recorded in the Talmud” quickly became “full integration” with many demons in Christian Europe and the Islamic world, welcoming residents from at least three continents, and formed a vast hell that was freely mixed with alchemy, astrology and other occult works, at least from the 13th century. This is based on one example of the early 20th century, a 1902 paper on fortune-telling from Isfahan, a city in central Iran. Ancient thread A series of watercolors were added in 1921, and could easily be mistaken for early medieval illustrations.
As Public Domain Review Notes:
The stunning images are based on nearby eastern demonological traditions dating back thousands of years. Babylonian Talmud rabbis Claim “If the eyes were given permission to see, there would be no creatures to face the demons surrounding it,” which was invisible to the blessing demons.
Author of the paper, a Lamalor SOOTOSSAYER, “We attribute his knowledge to Solomon in the Bible, who was known for his power over the devil and the spirit.” I’m writing Ali Karjoo-RavaryHe is currently an assistant professor of Islamic History at Columbia University. Preceding Islam, “the portrayal of the devil in the Near East was frequently used for magical and talisman purposes,” was attributed to occultists like Aleister Crowley when these illustrations were made.
“Not all of the 56 illustrations drawn in the manuscript portray the existence of the devil,” the public domain review notes. “Inside the tongues of the horns and forks are the archangels Gibral (Gabriel) and Mikar (Michael), as well as animals, such as the lions, rum, crabs, fish, and scorpions associated with the Zodiac.” But primarily, it is the city of the devil. What did Borges make with these amazing images? Without a doubt, if he had seen them, he would have seen a lot of things like them before he lost his eyesight, he would have been pleased.
The blue man with his nails, four horns and a protruding red tongue is not even scary to the fact that he wears a candy striped loincolos. In another image, a mustachio goat guy with tubers and polka dot skin makes a less-than-served dish. One recurring (worrisome) theme is a scene involving a devil visiting a sleeper in bed, a pleasant activity such as teeth pulling and squinting eyes, and one of the most engrossing illustrations, a match of footlicking (performed by a reptile cat with a shark-toothed tail).
All of this has a playful Boskian quality, but we tend to see Bosch’s work as ridiculous from our perspective, but he clearly took his strange inventions absolutely seriously. I think we were illustrators here too. As Wolf did, you might wonder about this work as the product of “suffering humanity… being so attached to things that are so material, such as health, money, the house we live in.” What ordinary material concerns could this artist suffer, as he (we) imagined the imagination of demons gouging their eyes and shoving people’s feet safely into the bed?
See more of these strange paintings Public Domain Review.
Note: Previous versions of this post were published on our site in 2020.
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Check out 160,000 pages of illustrious medieval manuscript: Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis
Josh Jones He is a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
