I saw this charming cane topper on Antiques Roadshow yesterday:
I think they said it was a Nordic design, but does this form (where each eye is part of two adjacent faces) have a name? I want to find some more examples of it, but with one exception (an album cover of Queen’s The Miracle) I am drawing a blank.
One of the Ancient races on Babylon 5 manifested in such a way. And for real-life examples, there are Janus cats.
This is similar to the “perpetual face” style associated with 20th-century surrealists (?) like Piero Fornasetti and Dora Maar.
I don’t know anything about pre-modern influences or forerunners relating to it, though.
And not just faces (not really sure if this needs one, but NSFW).
Although not joined at the eyes, the Hindu god Brahma is usually depicted with four faces and the deities of the Hindu pantheon are sometimes depicted as a row of interlocking heads.
Yeah, Brahma/ Krishna Trimurti, and Roman god Janus type of thing.
Hey - haven’t seen you and your art history-splanation type posts lately!
Only two faces, I’m afraid, but here’s Sly and Robbie with something similar.
