alt Hacker News> A second-century Roman mosaic of a war elephant in Tunisia
It is quite interesting to see that the depicted elephant has wrong proportions. This makes one wonder whether the artist who created that mosaic, ever saw an elephant himself.
Replies
drekipus • today at 8:53 PM
Wrong to elephants today
inglor_cz • today at 9:37 PM
Might be a limitation of the medium. Mosaics are complicated.
This famous "skeleton" mosaic has the proportions wrong as well, even though the artist almost certainly saw some actual human skeletons, and definitely some living humans with their longer arms and smaller heads than depicted :)
https://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Ha...
Pure speculation, of course, but I would say so. The hump in the back; the small, high, tail; dominant forehead — those are all things missed by people who mis-draw elephants. I think this artist got them right, which is hard to do from description alone.