Guards at Topkapi Palace

In Istanbul, Turkey

A case of medieval depression or bullying?

Everyone keeps saying that these medieval snail and frog look depressed. But to me the frog looks bullied by the snail and scared. The snail does not look depressed I think, it looks evil.



I remember that they were inexplicably obsessed with snails in those times. Medieval knights were always fighting them in the margins of gothic manuscripts. And I think it is still a mystery why.

Did the snails represent the Lombards who were vilified then? Or did they somehow represent resurrection? Was it just humour? Did they represent the inevitability of death (“Like a snail that melteth away into slime, they shall be taken away" from Psalms)? Apparently we have no idea. Depictions of snail vs knight combat were ubiquitous though.



And some were wonderfully weird.



I like the rabbit on the right. Sweet ride!

Temple in Ubud

In Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Evolution vs photoshop

Whenever I see pictures of maned wolf I cannot stop thinking that there must have been some deadline problems and in a hurry it was decided to skip evolution and just use photoshop as a shortcut for this one. It just looks so much like photoshop.





The pictures are from the internet.