Le Diable - Contrasting the Dodal and Conver

Yves Le Marseillais

Knees

Has anyone ever considered that the source for the Marseille devil with his tummy face and knee faces, etc, could be found in the famous sixteen century illustration by John White of a Pictish man - member of the "savage" Celtic tribe of the Picts in Great Britain ?

The watercolours of John White, colonist and artist (1540-1593), were later copied into engraving by Theodor Bry (1528-1598) and published in "A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia " by Thomas Hariot (1560-1621) -- which can be read in it's online edition here :electronic edition.

The point of including the Picts in a document observing the way of life of a native tribe in "Virginia", was to point out that Europeans too, had had their "savages".


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Hello Firemaiden,

Yes I did knows too this pictures.
Note also faces on knees that reminds us that Devil is "everywhere" and I suppose that knees have a particular signification in this matter;
No hasard soo.

Salutation from Marseille City France Old €urope

YLM
 

firemaiden

Hi Yves le Marseillais, hello from beautiful Montamisé (en Poitou).

Thanks for responding to me on this ancient and wonderful thread. I got to thinking about Arcane XV today, because I was looking at an image of the painting La charité de Saint Martin which I had seen in the Musée Carnavalet - painting George Lallemant, 17th century French painter - which shows St Martin, wearing shin-guards, jambières, with lions on them about the middle of the shin.
And that got me to thinking about the jambières that were discovered also in the tomb of the King of Thrace : Seuthès III with the face of the Thracian mother goddess. Compare

...THIS
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and
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The knee and tummy tatous in the watercolour of the Pict man, and the shin gards of the roman legions, and those of the Thracian king - are the acoutrements of war.

These are images of the human demon, no imagined spirit ... but invading warriors, with decorations meant to terrify. And of course his sex hanging there makes him all the more human. And along with human, slightly risible, if we can peer behind the mask, and see the flesh and blood creature. He too can die, and be entombed, and fall to dust, leaving only his shin-guards. Perhaps the slightly ridiculous aspect of the devil in the Diable as portrayed by the Dodal and the Conver comes from us knowing he is all too human. :)
 

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