Sunday, October 5, 2014

The Hound

Jason McKittrick returns with his recreation of the amulet from Lovecraft's "The Hound".  It's another limited edition piece from Nyarlathotep's Bazaar.



3 comments:

  1. That’s a nice interpretation of the text of The Hound (1922). The basis appears to be demonic Fu dog, although there are certainly Hindu versions that are close to this too. The demon Kali (in one of his avatars from the book Kali Yuga) is depicted much like this, sans wings. It’s really very appropriate expropriation, again breaking through the stereotypical and diversifying the Mythos. It’s quite possible that Lovecraft might have been drawing from the same textual foundation of imagery.

    Then again HPL might have also been referencing that Hellenic asphyxiating interlocutor, purveyor of back luck, and lounger outside the gates of Thebes, the Greek sphinx herself. After all, he did use the original Egyptian sphinx as a mythos creature in his ghost written work Imprisoned With The Pharaohs/Under The Pyramids (1924).

    But this incarnation really makes me think of some of a carving in some abandoned temple in India or a prop from the film Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). It would be a great prop piece for a RPG or LARP. Jason has been busy again and produced a gem.

    Read The Hound online
    http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/h.aspx

    Read Imprisoned With The Pharaohs/Under the Pyramids online
    http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/up.aspx

    ReplyDelete
  2. That’s a nice interpretation of the text of The Hound (1922). The basis appears to be demonic Fu dog, although there are certainly Hindu versions that are close to this too. The demon Kali (in one of his avatars from the book Kali Yuga) is depicted much like this, sans wings. It’s really very appropriate expropriation, again breaking through the stereotypical and diversifying the Mythos. It’s quite possible that Lovecraft might have been drawing from the same textual foundation of imagery.

    Then again HPL might have also been referencing that Hellenic asphyxiating interlocutor, purveyor of back luck, and lounger outside the gates of Thebes, the Greek sphinx herself. After all, he did use the original Egyptian sphinx as a mythos creature in his ghost written work Imprisoned With The Pharaohs/Under The Pyramids (1924).

    But this incarnation really makes me think of some of a carving in some abandoned temple in India or a prop from the film Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). It would be a great prop piece for a RPG or LARP. Jason has been busy again and produced a gem.

    Read The Hound online
    http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/h.aspx

    Read Imprisoned With The Pharaohs/Under the Pyramids online
    http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/up.aspx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for your kind words! Yes, I very much based the design from a Chinese Fu dog and then added some Tibetan design embellishments.

    I really wanted to emphasize the "Oriental" flavor to the piece that was always lacking from other depictions I had seen.

    Even though it gets ragged on, "The Hound" remains one of my favorite Lovecraft tales.

    ReplyDelete