Starting with chapter 56 of Moby Dick, Ishmael goes about describing how inaccurate most depictions of whales are in art. He laments that often times, whether in stone or painting or wood, it is almost impossible to truly capture what a whale looks like. I instantly thought of one of my favorite pieces of art. Now, I have to confess, that I haven’t spent a lot of time studying naval or marine artwork but I do really enjoy early Christian Art. The two statuettes below are of Jonah, first being swallowed and later being spit back out by the whale. They kind of have a mysterious background, they appeared out of nowhere in a time where free-standing statues didn’t really exist in Christian art. After a lot of leg work, most scholars agree that they are dated to the third century CE and they are most likely from Asia Minor. They’re pretty small but they are very high quality. There are a whole series of Jonah Statuettes, but there are the two that show the whale, so I didn’t include the others. Now, I won’t bore everyone with all the art history stuff but they are really stunning and worth another look.

Now, as Ishmael tells us, whale depictions are usually a mess. These are no exception. That thing that’s swallowing Jonah, I’m pretty sure that’s a cross between a Doberman and a mermaid. This depiction of the leviathan that swallows Jonah is pretty consistent. A lot of the early Jonah and the Whale images look a lot like this. Below is a painting of Jonah being swallowed by the whale from around the same time period and that one looks remarkably like a dog too.

So all in all, I can’t say I blame Ishmael for complaining. Art has a long history of showing Jonah being swallowed by the least whale-iest looking whales ever. Now, I know that in the actual story of Jonah, it says he was swallowed by a great fish but let’s be honest, that doesn’t really look like a fish either. Based on what Melville writes in his novel, it was apparently centuries later that the whale took on a proper whale form.