John Anster Fitzgerald







"Fitzgerald was a painter whose true vocation was in fairy painting, and his series of 'dream' paintings, in which sleepers are plagued by hideous creatures from fairyland, give an indication of where he found the images for his fantastic world. Of all fairy paintings, Fitzgerald's have the most overt references to drug-induced hallucinations." - quote from here.
View more works by Fitzgerald by clicking the following numbers.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
Another gallery of Fitzgerald's paintings can be found here and here.

Tim White - Mask Of Cthulhu

Antoine Sucquet Emblems






Here's a selection of fantastic illustrations with all manner of demon from a book titled "Andächtige Gedancken zur Vermeidung des bösen und Vollbringung des guten aus dem Buch Weeg des ewigen Lebens" released in 1681. The best I could make out of that title from babelfish was "for the avoidance of the bad and achieving the good." I'll be posting more emblem related artworks this week that I've found at the incredible collection linked here.

And to better understand just what all these Emblem books I'm posting works from are about, here is a description of what an Emblem book is from Wikipedia... 'Emblem books are a particular style of illustrated book developed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, normally containing about one hundred picture/text combinations. Each combination consisted of a woodcut or engraving accompanied by one or more short texts, intended to inspire their readers to reflect on a general moral lesson derived from the reading of both picture and text together"

Click the following numbers to see additional works from this book... 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
You can view the complete collection from this Emblem book here.

Mat Brinkman's Maximum Ogredrive





















I don't know how I missed this for so long but here it is, a 20 foot tall paper mache ogre by Mat Brinkman. And this is where I would normally link you to all of Mat's incredible comic work but Fort Thunder's website vanished back into whatever weird dimension it came from. I do have all of Brinkman's online comic archive from the original site saved somewhere. If I can dig them up I might post them sometime with permission from the right people.

Ogre found thanks to Jacob Covery at the Fantagraphics Blog. Photograph originally posted by Dan Nadel over at Comics Comics.

Johann Theodor de Bry's "Emblems"












































See more here.. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

I discovered this collection of Emblems by Bry from a book titled "Proscenium vitæ humanæ sive Emblematum Secularium" in this post over at Giornale Nuovo awhile back. The first thing that stood out to me was that many of these works were direct copies of prints by Peter Bruegel. An example of this can be seen in this original version by Bruegel and the nearly complete (there are a few details that are off if you look closely) copy of this work by Bruegel.
So many of these are copies but it is still a fascinating collection with all manner of surreal imagery. The piano with small dogs or cats instead of keys in the third picture down is hillarious. And the picture below it with the man wearing some type of alchemical device on his head that is dropping out tiny rodent like creatures through a snout like opening, it just doesn't get any weirder!

You can see more works from this book by browsing the links in the left sidebar here.
Learn more about Bry here.
More info Here.
View artworks made by Bry of the Indians from North America here.

Konrad of Megenberg's "Book Of Nature"





















Here are some of the stranger works found in Megenberg's Book of Nature from 1499. The book collected everything known from natural history at the time. And while much of what is illustrated appears fantastic, it was all based at least partly on fact or accepted truths from the time. View more illustrations from this collection by clicking on the following numbers... 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
Images were found here.

And don't miss the fantastic article at BibliOdyssey on Konrad's Book Of Nature with other illustrations.

To learn more about Megenberg and his writings, click here.

Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh

After Paul Rumsey mentioned this artist I went hunting for more of his works. I found the above painting of hell in a book of Fantastic Art that I've had since childhood. So I've been familiar with this artist longer than I realized. The following 3 paintings were all that I was able to gather from the internet, apart from the other painting below that I'd mistaken for the work of Jan Brueghel. You'll be able to see the above work in far greater detail than the rest. If anyone can point me in the direction of more paintings by Swanenburgh, or larger examples of those posted below, I'd really appreciate it.
Hell, oil on copper.


Temptation of Saint Anthony, oil on wood.


Witches Sabbath In Roman Palace Ruins, 1608. Notice the large bird headed skeleton creature the witches are riding on at the bottom left corner of the painting.

David Teniers The Younger / Vivant Denon - Sorceress
This work was made by Dominique Vivant-Denon after David Teniers the Younger.