art history Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Tales of Times Forgotten

The Extremely Strange History of Artistic Depictions of Muhammad

It is widely known that Islam strongly discourages Muslims from creating anthropomorphic representations of the prophet Muhammad. This tendency towards aniconism isn’t entirely unique to Islam. As I talk about in this article from March 2020, early Christians seem to have been rather hesitant to depict Jesus in art and, as I discuss in this article from May 2020, early Buddhists were similarly hesitant to depict Siddhārtha Gautama.

Nevertheless, in modern times, most Christians generally don’t have a problem with creating images of Jesus and most Buddhists don’t have a problem with creating images of the Gautama Buddha. Most Muslims, however, are strongly opposed to the creation of images of the prophet Muhammad.

There are a number of reasons why Muslims generally oppose images of Muhammad. Nevertheless, not all Muslims are as strict about not making depictions of Muhammad as others and many Muslims artists throughout history have actually created images of him. Let’s take a look at the extremely strange, somewhat disturbing history of representations of the prophet Muhammad.

What’s Up with All Those Weird Doodles in the Smithfield Decretals?

Lots of people have seen images of the illustrations from the medieval manuscript known as the Smithfield Decretals online. Many of the images you see in articles about bizarre medieval marginalia come directly from the Smithfield Decretals. If you have seen any of these illustrations, you have probably thought, “Huh. Those are pretty weird. I wonder what’s up with those. Why did the manuscript illustrator put in all these bizarre doodles?” If you have ever wondered this, make sure to read on because I am about to explain the meanings of some of the strangest and most fascinating manuscript illustrations from the Late Middle Ages!

Why Are Babies in Medieval Paintings So Creepy?

I have recently discovered that there seems to be something of a widespread notion that babies in medieval paintings look “creepy.” I have never personally thought that babies in medieval paintings look particularly “creepy,” but this seems to be a notion that a lot of other people have.

Even if you’re like me and you don’t think that medieval babies necessarily look “creepy,” there is no denying that babies in a lot of medieval paintings don’t exactly look like real-life babies. Instead, for the most part, they look like tiny middle-aged men. The reason why they are portrayed this way is actually extremely fascinating and has to do with the way people in the Middle Ages thought about the purpose of art.

A Guided Tour of Raphael’s “School of Athens”

The School of Athens is a fresco painted between 1509 and 1511 by the Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, commonly known in English as “Raphael.” It depicts a scene of famous philosophers and thinkers of the past from different time periods, all standing around conversing and debating with each other. It is located in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City and is widely considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. It has been the background image for this website since I first created it. Nonetheless, the fresco is filled with all sorts of fascinating symbolism and iconography that is often lost on the average viewer, so I thought I would take this article to give a quick guided tour of Raphael’s School of Athens.