2-713-347 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

May - wild men jousting, 15th century, (1939). The leafy foliage coves the battling knights' bodies like armour, and forms the horses' headstalls and caparisons. Underneath the greenery the men are hairy and barefoot. One holds an uprooted tree as a weapon. From 1400 onwards, the wild man could be a negative symbol of man's animal brutality, or a positive symbol associated with chivalry and its ideals. Detail of a page from the "Heures de Charles d'Angoulême", a book of hours commissioned by Charles of Orléans (1459-1496), with miniatures mostly painted by Robinet Testard, and now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Published in "Verve - No. 8, Vol. II". [Verve, France, 1939]