George is from Pictish Lands of the Northeast, and knows about King Bridey, it as he was formally known, Bridei. We’ve been to the spooky well of Burghead & if I’m ever there on the winter solstice again I want to walk around at midnight with the locals who carry the flaming bucket of tar! The Picts left so much beautiful art in the stone carvings like the Bull of Burghead. Always nice to enjoy your mind engaging with art, history & the world.
Fascinating! At Reed back in the 2000s at Ren Faire we had "pict-ers" that painted themselves blue and ran around naked hugging people. Was not aware of this history that the tradition spun off from.
Interesting random connection to this, as I have been studying the migration of European people. An article I recently shared on FB used the same illustration of the woman you posted above, but the conversation was speaking about how the people of Britain are actually genetically from places like Spain and Portugal (iberian penninsula ) and decend from 6 clans in Spain, and immigrated north before Norman conquest. Rabbit hole after rabbit hole. I found the man's leg tattoos especially interesting in your post as the same tattoo are used by tribal people of the America's as well. I'm unsure the earliest recordings of those would be before or after the dates of the Pictish art used above. But interesting regardless
Wow! These pictures are so interesting. It immediately made me think of the Devil card in the Jacques Vieville tarot deck, which is different than the typical image in the other decks and has similar faces shown on the belly, knees, and shoulder... you can see an image of the card here: https://artisantarot.com/shop/p/jacques-vieville-tarot-deck. Apparently the history of these people was written about in the early Middle Ages, which is about the same time the tarot came out.
All of these remind me of the [further south] ur-warrior queen illustration of my childhood, a painting of Boadicea from Our Island Story, as read to me by my father, who must have had it read to him, because otherwise.....why!?!? (tuns out, in attempt to find it, that this book has entered the public domain and is available at: https://www.heritage-history.com/ssl/cds/british_empire/pdf/Our%20Island%20Story%20-%20Marshall.pdf) I don't remember the stories terribly well, but several of the illustrations live rent-free, including her. That's all.
Great post. I highly recommend The Tattoo Artist by Jill Ciment. I picked it up thinking it was a book on tattooing, and it is, but at heart it is a meditation on the process of drawing and living one’s art. I think you’d get a lot out of it.
Robert E Howard who wrote the original Conan stories in the 30’s was obsessed with the Picts. They appear all through his works from fictional prehistory to contemporary stories. Reincarnation, theosophy, cataclysm interpretation of history, big lads hitting each other with swords. Interesting stuff.
This ancient history is all news to me! Wow! Now I just have to keep myself focused on MY work this week, instead of going down a bunch of rabbit holes... 👀 <one hand on the keyboard smacks the other as it goes to open another tab...> 😂
I love their postures, he's holding that severed head the way a supermodel would
I love these - history is wild!
George is from Pictish Lands of the Northeast, and knows about King Bridey, it as he was formally known, Bridei. We’ve been to the spooky well of Burghead & if I’m ever there on the winter solstice again I want to walk around at midnight with the locals who carry the flaming bucket of tar! The Picts left so much beautiful art in the stone carvings like the Bull of Burghead. Always nice to enjoy your mind engaging with art, history & the world.
I'll go with you!
The people resemble Tarot card illustrations. More parallels…
Interesting post!
Fascinating! At Reed back in the 2000s at Ren Faire we had "pict-ers" that painted themselves blue and ran around naked hugging people. Was not aware of this history that the tradition spun off from.
Interesting random connection to this, as I have been studying the migration of European people. An article I recently shared on FB used the same illustration of the woman you posted above, but the conversation was speaking about how the people of Britain are actually genetically from places like Spain and Portugal (iberian penninsula ) and decend from 6 clans in Spain, and immigrated north before Norman conquest. Rabbit hole after rabbit hole. I found the man's leg tattoos especially interesting in your post as the same tattoo are used by tribal people of the America's as well. I'm unsure the earliest recordings of those would be before or after the dates of the Pictish art used above. But interesting regardless
Wow! These pictures are so interesting. It immediately made me think of the Devil card in the Jacques Vieville tarot deck, which is different than the typical image in the other decks and has similar faces shown on the belly, knees, and shoulder... you can see an image of the card here: https://artisantarot.com/shop/p/jacques-vieville-tarot-deck. Apparently the history of these people was written about in the early Middle Ages, which is about the same time the tarot came out.
All of these remind me of the [further south] ur-warrior queen illustration of my childhood, a painting of Boadicea from Our Island Story, as read to me by my father, who must have had it read to him, because otherwise.....why!?!? (tuns out, in attempt to find it, that this book has entered the public domain and is available at: https://www.heritage-history.com/ssl/cds/british_empire/pdf/Our%20Island%20Story%20-%20Marshall.pdf) I don't remember the stories terribly well, but several of the illustrations live rent-free, including her. That's all.
Great post. I highly recommend The Tattoo Artist by Jill Ciment. I picked it up thinking it was a book on tattooing, and it is, but at heart it is a meditation on the process of drawing and living one’s art. I think you’d get a lot out of it.
Picts: hot, naked, and high out of their minds on plant-based drugs 🤘
Ha ha! I didn’t know about the plant-based drugs but that makes all of these pictures way funnier.
Robert E Howard who wrote the original Conan stories in the 30’s was obsessed with the Picts. They appear all through his works from fictional prehistory to contemporary stories. Reincarnation, theosophy, cataclysm interpretation of history, big lads hitting each other with swords. Interesting stuff.
This ancient history is all news to me! Wow! Now I just have to keep myself focused on MY work this week, instead of going down a bunch of rabbit holes... 👀 <one hand on the keyboard smacks the other as it goes to open another tab...> 😂