A is for Atlantis

         Welcome to the A-Z Blog Challenge, where my theme this year is Mythical and Imaginary Places.  Yes, I started early, but I promise that I’ll end with Z on April 30, just like everyone else.

        I’m starting off easy by featuring a place that I’ve already written about.  In case it seems like that one extra click to my previous post is too much work, let me entice you with speculation about possible real-life locations from the North Sea to the Azores, with various interpretations of Atlantis from military juggernaut to New Age Utopia, and with Atlantis-inspired fiction from Disney to my own high fantasy series.  There’s lots of good stuff, so go ahead and click straight through to read the post about Atlantis.

        Meanwhile, to add a little extra content for 2021, here are three different depictions of Atlantis, ranging from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century.  The first painting is by an artist who specialized in illustrating complicated cities in the throes of destruction.  He clearly enjoyed (and presumably had some market for) coming up with ever more elaborate architecture and ever more threatening skies.

        In the second painting you can clearly see the influence of the popularity at the time of conflating Atlantis with the Mayans or some other “lost” New World people.  Instead of 

looking Roman-inspired, like the first (and third) illustrations, this artist has made Atlantis’s architecture look Mayan.  I especially like the waves galloping through the city.

        And my final illustration for you comes from Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, in which the submariners visit the ruins of Atlantis at the bottom of the ocean.  I’m not sure whether the volcanic eruption is supposed to be happening at the bottom of the sea floor now, or in the somber viewer’s imagination as he recalls Atlantis’s tragic fate.

        And now for The MORAL of Atlantis: Even the rich and powerful can’t withstand an Act of Gods.

              OR:  Don’t build your city on a major fault line.

        Now, having read the post and enjoyed the apocalyptic art, be sure to let me know in the comments: Do you think there might really be any historical truth behind the legend of Atlantis?

[Pictures: The Fall of Atlantis, painting by François de Nomé, early 17th century (Image from The Public Domain Review);

Gibel Atlantidy (The Last of Atlantis), painting by Nikolai Roerich, 1928-9 (Image from Wikimedia Commons);

The ruins of Atlantis, illustration by Alphonse de Neuville from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, 1870 (Image from Wikimedia Commons).]