These days, it’s getting harder and harder to track down pictures of nuns riding flying fish, or fighting off hordes of misshapen pygmies, or falling prey to the fiendish war machines of the ape king. And if you want medieval-inspired versions of the same, forget about it!
That’s what I used to think, anyway, until I stumbled across the works of Marcel Ruijters, an artist from Rotterdam who’s taken the sorts of weird medieval art I feature here regularly in Mmm… Marginalia and doubled down on the weird, with some pretty cool results.
For example, aforementioned warrior nuns, fighting aforementioned weird hybrid men:
And the same nuns taking down a bear (who must’ve made the mistake of coming for their honey):
And being judged and found wanting in a monkey court:
And playing chess:
And being absent from the front cover of Dante’s Inferno:
Good stuff all around. All but the last can be found in 1348, ((I couldn’t brave their website for long, as my dog started howling at the noise. I would’ve had a better link to where you could buy his stuff if I could.)) a book Marcel did with Le Dernier Cri, which he describes as “a hyperactive underground publisher from France.” His newest work can be found on Facebook, and also on the blog Eaten By Ducks. He’s currently working on an as of yet untitled project inspired by the works of Jheronimus Bosch. ((Or, if you prefer, Hieronymus Bosch.))
If you want to buy some of his stuff ((Or, say, gift some of it to your favorite medieval blogger.)) and you read Dutch, here’s a webstore that sells it. I think Le Dernier Cri also sells stuff, but good luck navigating that site. ((These artists with their clever ways of making it impossible to buy things from them…))