Prostitutes in the fruitbowl
Explores the use of medlar fruits as symbols for prostitution in 17th century Dutch still life painting
Categories: Curiosities, Historical Art • Tags: art history, food, fruit, Historical Art, prostitute, symbolism
Unusual orange perfume bottle
An exquisite and strange perfume bottle from 1925 shaped like orange segments
Categories: Curiosities • Tags: curiosities, perfume, fruit, oranges
Bizarre picture of a man feeding a doll
Share your best theories about this strange 19th century photograph of a grown man feeding a doll
Categories: Curiosities, Strange Photographs, Unsettling Things • Tags: 19th century, bizarre, creepy, doll, photography
Vintage ophthalmology signs
I love this 1962 photograph by Chinese photographer Wang Shuangquan 王双全 (1920-1978). It depicts the beautiful and bizarre eyeball signs that surround the entrance to an ophthalmology clinic in Tainan City, Taiwan. Isn’t there something weirdly flirty about those hand-painted eyes trying to lure in new customers? I think the jumble of eyes also makes the building look a bit monstrous, like a creature staring off in different directions. Can you imagine walking by this shop everyday and feeling all […]
Categories: Curiosities, Strange Photographs, Unsettling Things • Tags: advertisements, eye, photography
A hand-some medieval bat
According to superstition, if you rub the blood of a bat on your face you’ll be able to see at night. But if you use this bat, you’ll also get more hand-some. Never too cool for a good pun. I love this quirky little bat with his many hands. It comes from The Art of Falconry (De Arte Venandi Cum Avibus), a Latin ornithology book originally published in 1241 by Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor from 1196-1250. More than […]
Categories: Curiosities, Historical Art • Tags: bat, humor, medieval, superstition
Sexy weasels in Renaissance art
Exploring the sexual symbolism hidden in paintings of weasels in Renaissance art
Categories: Curiosities, Historical Art • Tags: animals in art, ermine, fertility, flea-fur, jewels, paintings, pregnancy, renaissance, symbolism, weasel
How to scare children in the 1920s
A series of creepy 1920s photographs of goblin creatures snatching a little girl out of her bed
Categories: Curiosities, Unsettling Things • Tags: children, creepy, goblin, monsters, photography, stereoscope, unsettling
Wearing her own face
Chelsea Nichols explores just what is creepy about Gillian Wearing’s photograph of Lily Cole wearing a damaged mask of her own face.
Categories: Contemporary Art, Unsettling Things • Tags: doll, gillian wearing, haunting, lily cole, masks, models, photography, psychology, unsettling, victorian era
