In the Middle Ages, most Europeans who saw a picture, or received a physical description of a tiger, got it from a bestiary, a didactic book produced by Aristotle (among others).
Greece word phantasia is related to phainomai, ‘I appear’. What appears? Perception? Or imagination?
The visual image is often the prime basis of a perception.
Behind a rhetoric, mixed with mistakes, are traces of travellers’ tales that include real observations.
Which is which? Reality or fantasy? Tales or observations?
(Photo above: Me at Liat Towers, Singapore, Hermès store)
Jungle of Eden, Hermès, 2015 by Alice Shirley
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