Friday, December 19, 2014

The Wagon Of Fools And Other Land Yachts...

The Wagon of Fools is a famous land yacht painting by the Dutch artist Hendrik Gerritsz Pot. It was painted in 1637 and depicts the Haarlem weavers, having abandoned their looms to follow Flora, Goddess of Flowers. Flora, her arms laden with tulips was riding to an imminent death along with a selection of tipplers, money changers et al.
Before that in 1600, in the second image, the wonderful wind chariot or land yacht featured was designed by inventor Simon Stevin for Prince Maurice of Orange.
The next two images aren't quite as salubrious but still part of land yachting history and the last image features land yachts at New Zealand's Muriwai Beach.
It was then and still is, a lot of fun...




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3 comments:

  1. Andolphus GreyDecember 19, 2014 at 8:22 AM

    Ice boats are cool too!

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  2. pbDecember 19, 2014 at 10:58 AM

    Haarlem has a wonderful beach for land yachting...brings back happy memories of walks on that beach

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  3. ValDecember 20, 2014 at 7:02 AM

    I love the whole idea of these wind wagons. I wouldn't have known they actually sail properly until I saw a vid of some Swedish guys who built one and sailed it at Burning Man. Fab!

    Riding to imminent death with tipplers & money changers? Sounds like Wall Street on wheels.

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