Johann Peter Krafft, Austrian
“You Know, I Used To Drive a Big SUV, But When Gas Prices Went Sky-High, I Decided To Switch To a Hybrid,” ca. 1842
Oil on paper on cardboard
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Artist info is pointed to in my comment at another blog entry.
/// Epic poem “Orlando the Furious”
has some details that I would call spurious.
They include (in Italian)
a half eagle, half stallion:
hippogryff, and a sea monster. Curious.
/// Orlando’s a brave Christian knight,
who for Charlemagne wages a fight
against Saracens, yet
this great cause he’ll forget,
for a pagan he loved at first sight.
/// She’s the Princess Angelica, and
several others compete for her hand.
She won’t Orlando wed.
Later, she’s to be fed
to the sea serpent, Orc, as was planned.
/// A bold Saracen knight loves her, too.
It is he, Ruggiero, who flew
eagle-horseback to where
she’d been chained naked there.
(It’s that chivalrous thing that knights do.)
/// The great epic in verse is confusing.
Lots of characters, winning and losing.
But this rescue scene’s one
many artists have done.
Nudes with monsters are always amusing.
/// Giant eagles are streamlined and light,
with a body constructed for flight,
but a half-bird, half-nag
is all deadweight and drag,
and its large muscle placement ain’t right.
/// Some say bird poop that hits you is “lucky.”
(That may be, but it’s certainly yucky.)
When a beast of this size
defecates as it flies,
those below will be slimed by horse-pucky.