No Fear Friday: Hippos

Welcome to No Fear Friday, where I good-natured-ly make fun of bad artwork from the Middle Ages, to hopefully inspire those interested in the scribal arts to give it a try. This week:

Hipopotomus-es

Hippopotami?  

When I did my first No Fear Friday post on elephants, a kind gentle suggested I go look at hippos. 

And I did.

And life was never the same. 

You thought elephants were bad? Medieval elephants are the height of photo realism compared to Hippos. No one knew what a hippo really looked like, or how to draw them.

Other than the Egyptians, of course. The Egyptians knew what they were doing.

Blue Faience, Hippopotamus, 2040-1638 BCE, Risd Museum

But everyone else? No absolute clue.

Hippos are also one of those animals where you can see a clear progression of understanding as time goes on. After the Egyptians, knowledge of hippos goes right off a cliff into some weird, scary territory. Then the illustrations slowly start getting better, especially towards the tail end of SCA period. I'm going to give these to you in the order I find most amusing, but pay attention to the dates.

Water Horse

And of course we mean that literally.

Gotta love a picture with it's own attribution

No, Seriously... Take a horse, put it in water. It is now a "water-horse" aka, hippopotomus. Taadaa!

 Li Livres dou Tresor, France c. 1315-1325,
Yates Thompson 19 f. 50v

At least this one has tusks, and a kinda curly hippo tail. 

Almost right

The 1600's is about when people start getting a clue as to what a hippo is actually supposed to look like again... Kinda.

Geology studies by Athanasias Kircher (1602–1680)

I mean, aside from the kinda feline-like head and face. And check out the goofy expression on the Hippo photobombing on the left. "Hey, I see you are taking a drawing here, how about if I..."Jerry, get out of the frame!!"

John Jonston's "Historiae naturalis de quadrupedibus libri, cum aeneis figuris" 1657

In case you hare having trouble telling, the bottom one is the Hippo. I think the middle one is a sort of water bull. Anyway, this one is almost right. Serious A for effort, I think this guy actually saw a hippo once. 

1658 woodcut, "The history of four-footed beasts and serpents" by Edward Topsell

Kind of overplaying the shape of the head and massive teeth aren't we? But still, almost right. 

Not at all right

And here are the fun ones.

Thomas of Cantimpré, Liber de natura rerum, France ca. 1290

Like, huh? What? How do we get to part bird here? I don't even know how you get from any description of a hippo ever and arrive at "beak" .... but some enterprising illustrator managed it. 

Jacob van Maerlant, c. 1350

I'm sorry, I said these generally got better over time. But this illustration is 60 years later than beak boy up there and it's even worse. Let's get rid of any idea of a quadruped body and make it some sort of unholy amalgam of fish and bird... with an elephant trunk for good measure!

"Monstrosus Sur Marinus" from Aldrovandi's 'History of Monsters' , 1642

And I think this is an offshoot of the above. This isn't labeled as a hippo, it's a "monster of the sea," but I can easily see how that bad hippo illustration up there spawned it's own category of water monster. 

The Best of the Worst

You'd think fish-bird up there would be the worst hippo illustration I could find. But, believe it or not, it actually does get worse. At least all of the above have some relation to water...

Le Livre et le vraye hystoire du bon roy Alixandre, c. 1420. British Library

...And then there is this. I promise this is actually a hippopotamus. This is an illustration of Alexander the Great battling a Hippo, but If I didn't know that, I would not even be able to guess that is what this creature is supposed to be. Land beast with lion paws? It's obviously a mammal, but I would have maybe guessed dragon based on the shape of the head? Lean body, spotted fur, dog tail... How in the world is this anything at all like a hippo? At least put it in a river or something so there is some context.

And that... is actually all I could find. If anyone knows of any other hippo illustrations that I might have missed that belong on this post, please share in comments below!

Next post in the series: Perspective!

Previous post in the series: Doodles!