DOWN + ACROSS

JORDAN

[danskjavlarna]

“Men never worry."  From The Australian Women’s Weekly, 1961.

Newsworthy: a collection of weird headlines and book titles.

Wondering about this post?  Wait for the dissertation (TBA). For now:  Weblog ◆ Books ◆ Videos ◆ Music ◆ Etsy

[a-book-of-creatures]

Gustave Moreau’s 1876 atmospheric painting Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra shows the hero starkly against a backdrop of desolation and dead bodies, while the hydra emerges ominously, blood dripping from its multiple jaws, to face him.

Let’s take a closer look at that hydra!

Each head looks different! In fact, Moreau studied snake anatomy at the Paris Natural History Museum for this work, and based each head on a different species. According to his preliminary sketch…

… we can deduce that the heads are, clockwise from bottom left, a Neotropical rattlesnake, a puff adder, a European adder, an Egyptian cobra, a boomslang, a horned viper, and a Mexican anaconda.

And another study for the puff adder!

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

It’s been said that skulls are symbolic of the divine and the mortal, housed within the one vessel. Here’s a treasury of vintage skull imagery.

[lionofchaeronea]

Paperboy, Iowa City, Iowa, Arthur Rothstein, 1940

[tremolo]

Lemmy & Gaye Advert in Tin Pan Alley, London (Denmark Street)

[denverbob]

[kdo-three]

Virginia Bell All Smiles

[dievorfreuden]

Elmer Batters

[symbolism-art-history]

Desdemona painted by Gustave Moreau (1826 - 1898)

[thegildedcentury]

Life, May 7, 1945

[pencilpixelpinuppop]

[instantgoddess-deactivated20250]

Marilyn Monroe

[maddaddyworld]

Thursday

[attemptedjealousy-deactivated20]

19 y.o. Marilyn Monroe photographed by Earl Moran

[irina-irina-irina]

Sophia Loren

[hellooldsmelly]

[vintage-tigre]

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward relax in the sun, April 1962