(13-10-2019, 09:26 PM)davidjackson wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(13-10-2019, 12:57 AM)Koen G wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's difficult to say because in my opinion, if we really take the image as it is, it's not a mermaid but rather a person standing in a fish mouth. The most common parallel in European art would be Jonah emerging from the whale.
There is a beautiful 1th century carving of Satan emerging from a snake's mouth to tempt Eve in the garden that is a close parallel for this exampler.
It was on the doors of Notre Dame in Paris.
This was bought to my attention by Prof Nancy Mandeville Caciola in Serpent and Lies, Speculum 93/1. She outlines several other examples from the period and time that were sculptures in common view. All are much the same : a woman emerges from a serpent in order to tempt.
This does't look like a mouth to me. It looks like the crook of the branch of the tree, with the serpent body behind the tree (no mouth) and the female body part coming out over the branch. It looks like the serpent and female connect behind the crook of the tree branch. I think the "serpent's mouth" is an illusion.