heaveninawildflower:1) Pen and brush lithograph of the ‘Green Man’ (1802) by Raphael L
heaveninawildflower: 1) Pen and brush lithograph of the ‘Green Man’ (1802) by Raphael Lamar West (English, 1769–1850). Image and text information courtesy MFA Boston. 2) Green Man mosaic in Istanbul Museum. Photograph by Disdero - Wikimedia. ‘Usually referred to in works on architecture as foliate heads or foliate masks, carvings of the Green Man may take many forms, naturalistic or decorative. The simplest depict a man’s face peering out of dense foliage. Some may have leaves for hair, perhaps with a leafy beard. Often leaves or leafy shoots are shown growing from his open mouth and sometimes even from the nose and eyes as well. In the most abstract examples, the carving at first glance appears to be merely stylised foliage, with the facial element only becoming apparent on closer examination. The face is almost always male; green women are rare. Superficially the Green Man would appear to be pagan, perhaps a fertility figure or a nature spirit, similar to the woodwose (the wild man of the woods), and yet he frequently appears, carved in wood or stone, in churches, chapels, abbeys and cathedrals’ - Wikimedia -- source link