Annals of phallic animation

Phallic creatures abound, in the real world and in the fantasy worlds of artists; see, for example various renditions of the penisaurus (here). Now Rob Partington draws my attention to this charming representation from the 14th century, the flying penis monster:

With ears and a tail. And a nicely placed smile. And saddlebag testicles.

The image comes from the discarded image / discarding images site, devoted to medieval book painting. The identifying text for this one:

Decretum Gratiani with the commentary of Bartolomeo da Brescia, Italy 1340-1345.
Lyon, BM, Ms 5128, fol. 100r

This entry was posted on May 23, 2013 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Gender and sexuality, Signs and symbols. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Annals of phallic animation”

arnold zwicky Says:
May 23, 2013 at 4:07 pm | Reply
From Aric Olnes in Facebook:

I recently watched a PBS rerun of the 2004 series “Himalaya with Michael Palin.” In one episode, Michael visits a village in Bhutan where every building has a phallus painted on the outside walls to ward off evil spirits and for prosperity & protection.
The guide tells of a story about the phallocentric Divine Madman, Drukpa Kunley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_RDhqnW9pk
(phallic drawings between 33:11 – 34:17 in video)

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rjp Says:
October 4, 2013 at 5:29 am | Reply
The Bhutan penises are also mentioned in one of the episodes of QI.

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