Friday, October 09, 2015

Pre-Dawn Musings Over a Creepy Lithograph

So I’m up at 4:30 this morning looking at this little jewel from the Morbid Anatomy Museum Facebook page and thinking, “Even the Devil has chores to attend to.” Which sounds like it would make a great folk saying, except that I can’t help wondering why he doesn’t have a guy to do this watering for him. 
“The Tree of Death: The Sinner” - lithograph ca. 1845 by Nathaniel Currier,
published by Currier and Ives, New York. 

It stands to reason that the First of the Fallen, the Prince of the Air, the Father of Lies, etc., should rate having a staff, who, in turn, would have people underneath them to handle these things. But then we wouldn’t have this neat little Halloween Sunday School lesson to look at, so never mind. Pick up that can and get watering, Old Scratch, and try to ignore the fact that the generic skeleton with an ax looks more badass than you.

In case you missed it, this piece is by Nathaniel Currier, of Currier and Ives fame. Apparently they did more than build the popular U.S. media iconography of Christmas. Of course, Christmas only comes once a year, and you have to eat year round, so here we are, with the Devil himself watering a Tree of Death. Happy October! 

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