Pieces of Viking pottery with traces of cat and dog paws, seen at the Musée de Normandie in Caen Castle
“So back in the day pets already ruined their owner’s artwork.” - My sis who took the photo
“ruined”? made better
It’s very humanizing to imagine some poor potter in the past screaming “nnnnooooooo bad kitty” somewhere in Scandinavia
If it was ruined, the artisan wouldn’t have baked it.
That’s… that’s a delightful point you just made.
This person chose to bake and keep their cat’s artistic contribution.
i was in spain once and there was a building with a tile that had been laid down in roman times: it had a dog’s paw print. and the thing was that after the dog did that print, the wet tile was dried, and then fired, and then shipped, and then laid, and for two thousand years every person who encountered that tile thought ‘aw! paw print!’ and kept it. this vast agreement by thousands of people over all these centuries, in memory of a dog only one of us could have met.
i loved that tile.
Every comment.
As anyone who has worked with wet clay knows, these pawprints could be removed with a dab more clay and a stroke of one hand.
That they weren’t, says all that needs said.
The hand was too busy stroking something furry that purred or wagged its tail.
