Talk:Fungi in art

Article is all but useless

This was a fork of mushrooms in art which already existed by CorradoNai because they didn't know how to move an article. It has now become an in popular culture article which we don't need. Suggest merging whatever is salvageable back to mushrooms in art and keeping it focused. The current version reads like a Wikipedia article from 2004. The site has changed a lot during that time. Viriditas (talk) 23:05, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I would appreciate a more constructive language and approach. Not everyone has experience editing Wikipedia since 2004, and I was lucky that in my journey so far I encountered experienced Wikipedians who has been encouraging and helpful. This comment feels like an Occam's Axe and it's rather discouraging. Important is to say that mushrooms are fungi and not vice versa, so if anything, mushrooms in art would be a subpage of fungi in art. So this should explain why I am not happy with the comment from a factual point of view. I still agree that the page can be improved, and it is my intention to tackle it at some point according to the suggestion of Netherzone, that is by creating new, more focussed pages (say, "Mould in art") linked to a trimmed-down version of this page. Thanks CorradoNai (talk) 05:21, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Start with the lead section. You've got the following topics:

• Fungi are a common theme
• or working material in art
• They appear in many different artworks around the world
• Artists may be indirectly influenced by fungi via derived substances. They may depict the effects of these substances, make art under the influence of these substances, or in some cases, both.

You've got four separate articles in the lead section alone. That's not how we write articles. You need to take a step back and tackle one article at a time and focus on only one topical treatment per article. That's the problem. And you did fork mushrooms in art because you couldn't move it, which is called a redundant content fork. So pick a subtopic, any subtopic, and write a single article about it, not an article about four separate topics. It's really that simple. And I'm sorry you didn't like my characterization of the problem, but the truth is, I was being extremely generous. This isn't really a Wikipedia page circa 2004, it's an Everything2 article circa the year 2000. I think the easiest way to move on from here is to start working on one single sub-article, and when you are done, remove that material from this article. That will improve two articles at the same time and will show some kind of progress. It will also help if you take a more modular approach to intersecting subjects. A good way to get a handle on this is to see how large topics are treated on Wikipedia. A relatively recent subject that demonstrates this modular approach is the COVID-19 topic area. As you can imagine, there are an enormous number of subtopics connecting to the main subject. But there isn't a top-level topic treatment like this that tries to shoehorn all the subtopics into one page. Take a look at how the community writes about that subject to see how all the parts interact. Viriditas (talk) 09:09, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@CorradoNai, your efforts are appreciated but there are many issues with the article, and maybe it's best that it is re-written from scratch. The GA review pointed out some of the problems, in addition to those I pointed out above. You made some improvements, but many issues still exist.

Please don't be discouraged by @Viriditas (or any other editor's) comments, I have found that direct communication on-wiki is healthy communication, and they are obviously a highly experienced editor here in good faith. And their observations are correct. They are here to help. Here's a tip: try not to take anything personally here; 99.9% of comments other editors make are in the spirit of improving the encyclopedia, and are not made to tear someone down.

I was thinking about trimming the article down to a short stub a few paragraphs long, but Viriditas' plan of action is a better idea. I'm wondering if the article should be moved from article space to draftspace or to userspace where it can be worked on. It's not ready for article space in its current state. Netherzone (talk) 15:06, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Nowhere I see extreme generosity in these comments by @Viriditas, starting with the very title of this thread. That said, I am not taking it personally. I am grateful for comments helping the page improving, even harsh ones. Again, while agreeing that the page needs improving, I do not agree that this was a case of content fork. Mushrooms are fungi and not vice versa; that is, the scope of a "fungi in art" page is way, way bigger than a "mushrooms in art" one. I would tend to disagree about moving the article to a draftspace or userspace, as it would miss the chance of having more people commenting and editing it (if I am not mistaken?). I am not sure anymore what's the difference between both plans of action (Viriditas' and Netherzone's) at this point, but my understanding is to create new, more focussed pages (say, "Mould in art") linked to a trimmed-down version of this page. If it is a matter of timing, this won't happen within the next few months. Researching and creating this page has been a monumental work, and I will need to have enough time to get back to it and address properly, which I do not have at the moment. Thanks both CorradoNai (talk) 18:01, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@CorradoNai, with all due respect, I was about to nominate the article for deletion AFD because of the shape it is/was in before thinking of stubbifying it. The reason is that it seems like TNT'ing is the best solution for resolving the many problems. The only reason I did not do that is I could see how much time you devoted to it, however I did not realize that you would not be actively improving it for half a year, and now are saying that you still cannot work on it for months. That is not the correct use of article space, IMO. That is precisely what draft space or user space is for: incubation and development before publishing to the public article space. It's not a great idea to expect others to clean up the article for you, especially such a lengthy one.

I don't want to speak for Viriditas, but that may be similar to what they meant by their comment that they were being extremely generous. Netherzone (talk) 18:50, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

It was not my intention to leave the page stading for many months, but life happens, and certainly I am not expecting other to clean the article for me. At the same time it is important to acknowledge the great feedbacks and helps received by many others, including those who have voiced different (read: more positive) opinions and different (read: more constructive) ways to proceed than those raised by the creator of this topic. I'd be reluctant to take down the page without hearing other feedback. I still think the language and tone used here are wrong. Thank you CorradoNai (talk) 05:29, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

@CorradoNai, sorry to hear that you feel that the tone and language is "wrong". I tried to commend you multiple times for your work and the time you spent, and even left you a friendly message on your talk page months ago to reach out. It's best not to take anything personally here. We are an encyclopedia (not a web host or blog) and not a school where you would get a different type of feedback from your teachers and mentors. WP editors are 99% unpaid volunteers and we do what we believe is best for the quality and integrity of the encyclopedia within our policies and guidelines such as the Manual of Style.

By the way, you should not be citing your own work such as journal articles you wrote and the like as that is a conflict of interest - see WP:COI for more information. Also WP:OR may be helpful for you to read.

I have started to help out with clean up an trimming the article. I began by moving the Mushrooms in art content below on this talk page so you or other editors can move it to the main article Mushrooms in art. I'll do that with other sections so that each section is a summary and spin-off articles could be created (such as mycelium in art, spores and art, lichens and art, etc. I hope you will carve out time in your schedule for this (I've got a full time job so I'm not sure about how much time I can devote to this project.) Netherzone (talk) 22:26, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Lots of work has been done on this page after the review and the corrections, so I don't think merging or forking is really needed. The two pages, the one on mushrooms in art and this one, cover the topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:53, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi Randy, and happy holidays to you and yours. I certainly agree that a lot of work went into this article which I have expressed to the creator on numerous occasions. I also agree with other editors that it needs a lot of work towards improvement and is unwieldy. A large part of this article is a content fork from the Mushrooms in art article which was already in existence since 2020. It makes sense to move content to that article from here which is why I moved the content below, so anyone who is interested could jump into that project if @CorradoNai cannot find the time to do so. I then wrote a summary for the section on this article and left the pointer to the main article intact. Also, as Viriditas states in their 09:09, 12/13/23 comment above, there arefour separate articles in the lead section alone. It's very confusing that there is so much packed into this article. As written it is not functioning well as a BROADTOPIC article. Netherzone (talk) 17:20, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate your work @Netherzone. Just to briefly comment that I am aware of avoiding self-citation and I have not done it (the page Mushrooms in art wasn't created by me). I don't take comments personally; equally, my comment that the language used in this topic is wrong should not be taken personally. It was not directed to you but to the creater of this topic who seems to have disappeared since. I see a fetishism (not only here) toward long time Wikipedians which is worrying. Just a slightly caustic comment as I see many different views from many more Wikipedians. Anyways, anything which will help this page and Wikipedia and I am happy with - as long as it doesn't come with an "Ah, this is useless" Thanks again CorradoNai (talk) 08:44, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you again CorradoNai, and good luck with your activities over the next few months. I look forward to working together on improvements to this article and brainstorming on the topic in general when your schedule frees up. There is a lot of potential to work with here. One quick question, is the article written in British English or American English, or another variant? I wanted to check that for consistency. Netherzone (talk) 10:37, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Netherzone, be assured that your (and others) feedback have been very helpful. I really look forward to work again on this, it just needs to be done once I have good chunks of time available. I guess I aimed for British English, but being a non-native speaker I might have mispelled some. Thank you CorradoNai (talk) 11:57, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Begin in earnest clean up and trimming of article

To start clean up and trimming, I will be moving the entire section on Mushrooms to the talk page, and write a short summary (leaving the link to the main article on Mushrooms in art intact). That content can then be moved by anyone from this talk page to the Mushrooms in art article. Netherzone (talk) 21:49, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Mushrooms in art - moving content here

NOTE: Moving content and references here from articlespace so it can be used to improve the Mushrooms in art as well as providing a resource here if there are additional or better examples to use in the summary. Any citation errors this may have caused will/can be fixed in future edits.

Early examples of mushrooms in art include:

• Drawings of masked shamans with mushrooms sprouting from their heads (c. 9500 BCE – c. 7000 BCE), in Algeria
• Mushroom stones (c. 1500 BCE), in Guatemala
• Petroglyphs of people (c. 0 CE) with mushroom-shaped heads from the Bronze Age, near the Pegtymel River in Siberia.

Contemporary artists are more interested in fungi than ever before.

Given the mysterious, seasonal, sudden, and at times inexplicable appearance of mushrooms, as well as the hallucinogenic or toxic effects of some species, their depiction in ethnic, classic and modern art (around 1860–1970) is often associated in Western art with the macabre, ambiguous, dangerous, mystic, obscene, disgusting, alien, or curious in paintings, illustrations, and works of fiction and literature. British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in his novel Sir Nigel:

"The fields were spotted with monstrous fungi of a size and color never matched before—scarlet and mauve and liver and black. It was as though the sick earth had burst into foul pustules; mildew and lichen mottled the walls, and with that filthy crop Death sprang also from the water-soaked earth."

In Asian or folk art, mushrooms are generally depicted in a more positive or mystical way than in Western art.

Graphic arts

Mushroom picking (c. 1860), a painting depicting mushroom hunting by realist Polish artist Franciszek Kostrzewski (1826–1911).

Visual artists representing mushrooms have been very prolific throughout history. The Registry of Mushrooms in Works of Art, from the North American Mycological Association, curates an extensive virtual collection of mushrooms in the visual arts. According to the registry, examples before the 15th century are rare, thus examples abound from European visual arts from 1500 onwards are the focal point. The registry includes periods such as the Renaissance, the Baroque, Flemish, and Romantic periods.

The shaggy ink cap (Coprinus comatus) and the common ink cap (Coprinus atramentaria) mushrooms produce black ink which is used in drawing, illustration, and calligraphy.

Prehistoric art

See also: Fungi in art § Architecture and sculptures

See also: Fungi in art

A Young Girl Preparing Chanterelles, Peter Ilsted, 1892

Mushrooms have been found in art traditions around the world, including in western and non-western works. Ranging throughout those cultures, works of art that depict mushrooms can be found in ancient and contemporary times. Often, symbolic associations can also be given to the mushrooms depicted in the works of art. For instance, in Mayan culture, mushroom stones have been found that depict faces in a dreamlike or trance-like expression, which could signify the importance of mushrooms giving hallucinations or trances. Another example of mushrooms in Mayan culture deals with their codices, some of which might have depicted hallucinogenic mushrooms. Other examples of mushroom usage in art from various cultures include the Pegtymel petroglyphs of Russia and Japanese Netsuke figurines.

Examples of mushrooms being depicted in contemporary art are also prevalent. For example, a contemporary Japanese piece depicts baskets of matsutake mushrooms laid atop bank notes, signifying the association of mushrooms and prosperity. Other examples of contemporary art depicting fungi include Anselm Kiefer's Über Deutschland and Sonja Bäumel's Objects not static and silent but alive and talking. These contemporary works often outline themes greatly undercurrent in modern times, themes such as sustainable living, new materials, and ethical considerations associated with the science of fungi and biotechnologies. In fact, working with fungi allows contemporary artists to create art that is interactive and performative.

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

Mushroom symbolism has also appeared in Christian paintings. The panel painting by Hieronymus Bosch, The Haywain Triptych, is considered the first depiction of mushroom in modern art. Another triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, depicts scenes very similar to those experienced under the effects of psychoactive mushrooms. In fact, when considering the mushroom of Amanita muscaria, artistic representations throughout the ages show the association it has with psychotropic properties, being represented as being used for social, religious, and therapeutic purposes.

Paintings, tapestries, and illustrations

Artists, painters, illustrators, naturalists, and scientists have depicted mushrooms in their artworks for millennia. Edible species, such as Caesar's mushroom (Amanita caesarea) and the King bolete (Boletus edulis), are more commonly depicted than toxic ones. Mushrooms abound in Italian, Flemish, Germanic, and Dutch Baroque landscapes and still lifes. Landscape paintings involving mushrooms occasionally depict mushroom or truffle hunting.

Whereas historical British artworks tend to be considered to be influenced by a 'mycophobe' attitude, 19th-century Victorian fairy paintings depicting imaginary scenes involving fairies and other fantastic creatures often featured mushrooms. A great number of Victorian-era illustrators and children-book authors depicted mushrooms in their artworks, including Beatrix Potter, Hilda Boswell, Molly Brett, Arthur Rackham, Charles Robinson, and Cicely Mary Barker.

Illustration of the fungus Dumontinia tuberosa by physician, mycologist, and illustrator Charles Tulasne (1816–1884) in the book Selecta Fungorum Carpologia (1861–65). (Name of the original work: Peziza tuberosa parasite on Anemone nemorosa)

Visual artists who depicted mushrooms include:

• Lewis David von Schweinitz (1780–1834): illustrations of over 1000 fungal species which along with his contribution to mycology earned him the title of "Father of North American Mycology".
• Charles Tulasne (1816–1884)
• Mary Elizabeth Banning (1822–1903): Mary Banning is best known as the author of The Fungi of Maryland, an unpublished manuscript containing scientific descriptions, mycological anecdotes, and 174 13" by 15" watercolor paintings of fungal species. The New York State Museum describes these paintings as "extraordinary...a blend of science and folk art, scientifically accurate and lovely to look at."
• Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919)
• Violetta White Delafield (1875-1949): creations of around 600 illustrations of fungi. Delafield created hundreds of annotated watercolors of fungi and plants, noted for their level of detail; she made a note of the collection location, a detailed specimen description and analysed the cellular structure of the fungus with the help of a microscope. Her extensive illustrations are particularly significant as fungal specimens tend to deteriorate soon after collection and would often change their colour and form. Delafield's significant collection of specimen was left to the Fungal Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden, her papers and research materials on mycology and horticulture are held with the Delafield family papers by the University of Princeton. A selection of her work was exhibited in 2019 at Bard College as part of the ‘Fruiting Bodies’ exhibition and has been preserved in a digital collection.
• Alexander Viazmensky

Photography

Amateur and professional photographs of mushrooms abound on the Internet. Non-fiction books about fungi, especially those involving the identification of fungi, often include photographs of fungal species and their fruiting bodies. The book by Scott Chimileski and Roberto Kolter Life at the Edge of Sight: A Photographic Exploration of the Microbial World showcases 'the invisible world waiting in plain sight,' including fungi. Since 2005, the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) organises an annual Photography Art Contest on mushrooms and fungi.

Literature

In fiction

Main category: Fictional fungi

Works of literary fiction involving mushrooms and fungi are often linked to infection, decay, toxicity, mystery, fantasy, and ambiguity, and thus have mostly a negative connotation. Examples of mushrooms depicted or involved in a positive way include:

• the children's book The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954) by Eleanor Cameron
• the science-fiction novel Omnivore (1968) by Piers Anthony (part of the Of Man and Manta trilogy)
• The Way Through the Woods: On Mushrooms and Mourning (2019) by Long Litt Woon.

In line with the assumption by Robert Gordon Wasson and Valentina Pavlovna Wasson that Russian society traditionally has more affinity to mushrooms, a scene of mushroom foraging in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is associated with love, family, and a sense of commonality. During the Victorian era, fungi started to acquire a more playful, childish, or jolly role in works of literary fiction. The author, artist, illustrator, and mycologist Beatrix Potter created meticulous and accurate illustrations of mushrooms, including in her children-book series of Peter Rabbit.

Authors who have used fungi as a plot device include:

• Percy Shelley
• D.H. Lawrence
• H.G. Wells
• Ray Bradbury

Fungi are a common trope in science fiction, horror, supernatural, fantasy and crime fiction. In Ray Bradbury's "Come into My Cellar", mushrooms are alien invaders threatening society. The short story is one of the rare examples in which several forms of fungi appear (spores and mushrooms): In the story, an alien form of spores from fungi lands on Earth and compels humans, and kids in particular, to grow mushrooms and infect more persons, thus using humans as a medium of propagation of fungi through mind control. Fungi have occasionally appeared in the murder mystery literature due to their toxicity. Crime and detective writer Agatha Christie has used mushrooms as murder weapons in her crime fiction.

The use of (toxic) mushrooms in fiction does not often reflect reality, either because a misidentified species is used (for example, a non-toxic one), because the preparation or intake of the toxic is wrong (for example, when not enough toxin is present, or when it should be deactivated by cooking), or because the progress of poisoning is unrealistic (for example, if the toxin kills too quickly).

The "Bad Bug Bookclub" at Manchester Metropolitan University is a regular book club run by Joanna Verran that discusses literary works on microorganisms, including fungi. The quarterly periodical FUNGI Magazine runs a column called Bookshelf Fungi reviewing fiction and non-fiction books on fungi.

In poetry

Similar to in Western literature, fungi in Western culture poetry are often associated with negative feelings or sentiments. The poem The Mushroom (1896) by Emily Dickinson is unsympathetic towards mushrooms. American author of weird horror and supernatural fiction H. P. Lovecraft created a collection of cosmic horror sonnets with fungi as subjects called Fungi from Yuggoth (1929–30). Margaret Atwood's poem Mushrooms (1981) explores the topics of the life cycle and nature. The poem by Neil Gaiman, The Mushroom Hunters, is a poem touching, through the lens of mushroom hunting throughout history, on the topics of womanhood, human creation, and destruction. The poem was written for 'Universe in Verse,' a festival combining science with poetry, and won the Rhysling Award for best long poem in 2017. The poem features in a short animated video with the voice-over of Amanda Palmer.

Several hundred Japanese haiku are about mushroom hunting. Many of them were written by poets of the Nara, Edo and Meiji periods, such as:

• Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694)
• Kitamura Koshun (1650–1697)
• Mukai Kyorai (1651–1704)
• Naitō Jōsō (1662–1704)
• Hattori Ransetsu (1654–1707)
• Takarai Kikaku (1661–1707)
• Hirose Izen (1688?–1711)
• Morikawa Kyoriku (1656–1715)
• Yamaguchi Sodō (1642–1716)
• Kagami Shikō (1665–1731)
• Kumotsu Suikoku (1682–1734)
• Kuroyanagi Shōha (1727–1772)

Storytelling, oral tradition, myth, and folklore

See also: Ethnomycology, Religion and drugs, and Amanita muscaria § Cultural depictions

Through storytelling and oral tradition, fungi have influenced mythology, folklore, and religions across civilizations and historical periods. The psychoactive properties of certain fungi have contributed to the involvement of fungi in myth and folklore. In her essay Jesus if a Fungal God, author Sophie Strand writes:

"As we learn more about fungi, let us embrace that they have always been here. Beneath our feet. And inside our most popular myths.".

A gnome carries the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) on a German Christmas greeting card (c. 1900) saying Viel Glück im neuen Jahre! (transl. All the best for the new year!). The fly agaric has inspired countless folklore tales and entered mainstream mushroom culture.

The painting Judas Hangs Himself (ca. 1890) by James Tissot. The naming of mushrooms has been inspired by folklore. The common naming of the 'jelly ear' fungus (Auricularia auricula-judae) is 'Jew's ear,' derived from the belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself on an elder tree, where the fungus often grows.

There are numerous deities associated with wine and beer, which is an indirect effect of fungi in the arts. Fungi play a role in several religions, for example through fermentation (e.g. wine) and leavening (e.g. bread). In the Parable of the Leaven, one of the Parables of Jesus, the growth of the Kingdom of God is akin to the leavening of bread through yeast. According to Matthew 13:33 (and, similarly, to Luke 13:20-21):

"He told them still another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.'"

However, yeast is associated with corruption in other passages of the New Testament, as in Luke 12:1:

"Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: 'Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.'"

Some scholars argue that the Egyptian God of the afterlife Osiris is a personification of entheogenic mushrooms. As evidence, they indicate that Egyptian crowns are shaped like primordia of Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms. The Egyptian tale known as Cheops and the Magicians illustrates the growth of mushrooms on barley. In the Chinese classic tale The Mountain and the Sea, the soul of a young woman becomes a mushroom as a symbol of immortality. In Lithuanian and Baltic mythology, fungi are considered the fingers of Velnias, the God of the underworld, reaching up from the underground to feed the poor. In Slovenia, there is a folk ritual to roll on the ground during thunder as a way to increase the amount of mushrooms harvested. Baltic and Ugric religions include mushroom elements, including a "Mother of Mushrooms". The popular tale The War of the Mushrooms is told in several Slavic cultures. (After the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, an exhibition at the Ukrainian Museum in New York revisited the classic story in light of current events.) The supernatural being Baba Yaga in Slavic folklore is often associated with mushrooms. In some Russian tales, it often appears as a villainous wizard called Mukhomor, literally 'poison mushroom,' which is assumed to be derived from the fly agaric.

The fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) is a mushroom with characteristic red cap and white dots and has greatly infiltrated folklore with mainstream popularity.

According to several interpretations, the legendary figure of Santa Claus may have been influenced by the fly agaric; evidence includes the use by Saami shamans in the Lapland region, who would visit the homes of people by reindeer-drawn sleds and enter through the chimney when the entrance door was stuck by snowfalls; the fondness of reindeers in eating fly agaric mushrooms; the belief by Saami people that whoever eats an Amanita muscaria will resemble it, becoming among other things, plump and reddish; and the sense of flying that consumption of fly agaric might induce.

The stinkhorn Phallus indusiatus (or "veiled lady") has entered folklore across many cultures, probably due to its peculiar shape. In French, P. indusiatus is commonly called le satyre voilé ('the veiled satyr,' from the male nature spirit in Greek mythology). According to ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson, P. indusiatus was consumed in Mexican divinatory ceremonies on account of its suggestive shape. On the other side of the globe, New Guinea natives consider the mushroom sacred. In Nigeria, the mushroom is one of several stinkhorns given the name Akufodewa by the Yoruba people. The name is derived from a combination of the Yoruba words ku ("die"), fun ("for"), ode ("hunter"), and wa ("search"), and refers to how the mushroom's stench can attract hunters who mistake its odour for that of a dead animal. The Yoruba have been reported to have used it as a component of a charm to make hunters less visible in times of danger. In other parts of Nigeria, they have been used in the preparation of harmful charms by ethnic groups such as the Urhobo and the Ibibio people. The Igbo people of east-central Nigeria called stinkhorns éró ḿma, from the Igbo words for "mushroom" and "beauty".

Jews have a long tradition of eating mushrooms, which are considered Kosher in Jewish dietary law, and mushrooms have been referred to as "Jew's Meat" at least in parts of current Germany (Rhineland area), where the term is used as a dialect term for the German "Pilz" according to the Rheinisches Wörterbuch. Mushrooms have been used as an instrument for anti-Semitic discrimination or propaganda over the centuries. This has a disparaging connotation, especially during the Middle Ages, when mushrooms were considered toxic and disgusting. In the infamous 1938 children-book Der Giftpilz (transl. The poisonous mushroom) from Nazi Germany, Jews are depicted as poisonous and difficult to distinguish from 'Gentiles'.

Non-fiction books

Main article: List of books about mushrooms

There is a large corpus of literature on mushrooms, including foraging, identifying, growing, and cultivating fungi. The book The Mushroom at the End of the World by Chinese-American anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing on matsutake mushrooms offers insights into the cultural relevance and the significance of fungi for modern society, circularity, and decay. Authors of non-fictional books about fungi contribute to the increased popularity and development of mycology, fungal ecology, mycoremediation, fungal conservation, biocontrol, medicinal fungi, mushroom gathering and identification, and fungal research.

Cinema, TV shows, and motion pictures

The experimental short movie Beneath by Beth Walker (UK), presented at 2022 Fungi Film Festival.

The comedy short movie Shroom Mates by Rosie Windsor (UK), presented at 2022 Fungi Film Festival.

Adaptations of literary fiction about fungi into motion pictures include the 2016 British post-apocalyptic science fiction horror movie The Girl with All the Gifts, based on the novel with the same title; and the 1963 Japanese horror film Matango (マタンゴ) directed by Ishirō Honda, partially based on William Hope Hodgson's short story The Voice in the Night (1907). The documentary Fantastic Fungi (2019), primarily led by mycologist Paul Stamets, presents the world of fungi using time-lapse photography. The documentary The Mushroom Speaks (2001) by Marion Neumann covers topics such as decay, bioremediation, and symbiosis by following scientists, experts, and fungal pioneers.

Film festivals dedicated to fungi include the Fungi Film Festival (since 2021), by Radical Mycology author Peter McCoy; and the UK Fungus Day Film Festival (since 2022), by the British Mycological Society.

Performing arts

The American stand-up comedian and satirist Bill Hicks drew inspiration from Terence McKenna's 'Stoned Ape Theory' (that psilocybin was crucial in the development of human nature) in his 1993 show Revelation.

Comic books and video games

In The Smurfs, smurfs inhabit houses resembling mushrooms. American fantasy and science fiction comic book artist Frank Frazetta illustrated the cover image of the 1964 edition of the novel The Secret People (1935) by John Beynon (pseudonym of John Wyndham), in which fictive 'little people' inhabit areas with giant mushrooms. In Nintendo's Super Mario video game, the 'super mushroom' helps the character grow in size. The video game franchise The Last of Us is set in a post-apocalyptic United States, after spores of a mutant fungus wiped out humanity, turning infected people into zombies. Other video games where mushrooms appear include Skyrim (2011), Stardew Valley (2016), and Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017).

Music

Mushrooms have an influence on music as a subject, cultural reference, or medium for music creation. Numerous musicians, bands, composers, and lyricists mentioned or drew inspiration from fungi. Music can be created utilizing fungi, as in the process of bio-sonification. American composer John Cage (1912–1992) was an enthusiastic amateur mycologist and co-founder of the New York Mycological Society who often merged his two passions in his artworks.

Music inspired by

Numerous musicians, bands, composers, and lyricists mentioned or drew inspiration from fungi, like the Israeli psychedelic trance band Infected Mushroom, the US heavy metal band Mushroomhead, Russian romantic composer Modest Mussorgsky's (1839-1881) song Gathering Mushrooms, Igor Stravinsky's (1882-1971) How the Mushrooms went to War, and many more. In Women Gathering Mushrooms, the musicologist Louis Sarno (1954-2017) recorded women from the Central Africa Mbenga pygmy tribe of the Aka (also Biaka, Bayaka, Babenzele) sideclinging while collecting mushrooms, resulting in a polyphonic composition. According to mycologist and author Merlin Sheldrake, the activity of the gatherers above ground mirrors the fungal life below ground, as "mycelium is polyphony in bodily form". Icelandic avant-garde musician Björk's 2022 album Fossora (including tracks such as Mycelia, Sorrowful Soil, and Fungal City) is referred to as her "mushroom album". 'Fossora' can be translated from Latin into "she who digs". The rap artist 'FungiFlows' composes lyrics inspired by fungi and mushrooms while wearing a fly-agaric-shaped hat. The Czech composer and mycologist Václav Hálek (1937–2014) is said to have composed over 1,500 symphonies inspired by fungi, including the composition called Mycosymphony.

A non-exhaustive list of songs inspired by mushrooms (fungi) is given below:

• Mushroom Cantata by Lepo Sumera
• Mycosymphony by Václav Hálek
• Solar Waltz (2018) by Cosmo Sheldrake
• Fungus (2021) by The Narcissist Cookbook
• Mycelia (2022) by Björk
• Fungal City (2022) by Björk

Music created with

Fungi are occasionally a direct medium for the creation of music. With the use of sonification and synthezisers, musicians and bioartists are able to create sounds and music by converting mushrooms' bioelectric signals. The 'Nanotopia Midnight Mushroom Music' is a radio station devoted to streaming mushroom-generated music. Some artists creating music by sonicating mushrooms note that different mushrooms produce different sounds: for example, Ganoderma lucidum produces melodic sounds, while Pleurotus ostreatus produces constant sounds.

Architecture and sculptures

The Porter's Lodge pavilion at the entrance of Park Güell features a lookout tower with a mushroom-shaped dome.

In architecture and sculpture, mushrooms are mostly represented or showcased. Mushrooms are carved in buildings or depicted in sculptures or potteries, like pre-Columbian pottery mushrooms from Mesoamerica. At the entrance of Park Güell by Catalan modernist architect Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926), the Porter's Lodge pavilion features a lookout tower with a mushroom-shaped dome, probably inspired by Amanita muscaria or by stinkhorns. The sculpture Triple Mycomorph by Bernard Reynolds (1915–1997) at Christchurch Mansion holds a resemblance with the stinkhorn mushroom Phallus indusiatus. Mushrooms are occasionally showcased by artists who collect, manipulate, preserve, and exhibit them, as in the 'Mind The Fungi' exhibition (2019-2020) at Futurium in Berlin (Germany).

The mycologist William Dillon Weston (1899-1953; sometimes also spelled Dillon-Weston) created glass sculptures of microfungi, mostly plant pathogens, to fight bouts of insomnia. The artworks represent either magnified fungi (usually up to 400X times for fungi; up to 1200X for spores) or real-size plants affected by fungi (like in Ustilago maydis and Phytophthora infestans) and are made mostly of transparent or opaque glass. The sculptures are mostly between 5–20 cm in size and often do not have a base and stand on the mycelium. Almost a hundred glass sculptures are conserved at the Whipple Museum in Cambridge (UK). Fungi represented are among others species from the genera Alternaria, Botrytis, Penicillium, Cordyceps, Sclerotinia, Fusarium, Puccinia as well as spores (ascospores, basidiospores). The other known example of glass sculptures representing (among others) fungi is the Blaschka Glass Flowers at Harvard Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts (US).

Culinary arts

Fungi enter cuisine mostly as fruiting bodies (mushrooms), yeasts, or moulds. Mushrooms are a source of protein, a staple in many cultures and cuisines, and a common ingredient in many recipes worldwide. The North American Mycological Association (NAMA) hosts a series of resources to encourage all aspects of 'mycophagy.' Most mushrooms sold commercially are the button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), commonly known as champignons. Many mushrooms, including some coveted in haute cuisine, like truffles and boletus, cannot be cultivated and need to be harvested. Due to their dietary properties and their suitability as a meat substitute, mushrooms can be considered a novel trend, including the cultivation and consumption of species that only recently became popular in cooking, like Cordyceps. Many fungi are considered delicacies in cuisine and gastronomy. Truffles, which are occasionally confused with tubers (storage organs in plants, like potatoes), are subterranean fruiting bodies (that is, mushrooms that grow below ground) of certain fungi belonging to the genera Tuber, Geopora, Peziza, Choiromyces, and others. Truffles have developed a distinctive aroma as a spore-dispersion strategy: Instead of relying on wind and other mechanical means, truffles attract animals that eat them and carry their spores to new locations after defecation. Both the mushroom and the black ink of C. comatus and Coprinopsis atramentaria (the 'Common ink cap') are edible, but adverse effects might be felt if consumed together with alcohol. For this reason, C. atramentaria is also called "tippler's bane".

Infection of maize corn with the plant pathogen Ustilago maydis leads to a tumor in the plant, which is consumed as a delicacy in Mexico (called huitlacoche).

Contemporary arts

Contemporary artworks involving fungi usually handle or utilize mycelia, yeasts, and other fungal forms rather than mushrooms. Fungi are occasionally used conceptually (that is, to communicate their capabilities and potential). The video and light artist Philipp Frank creates so-called 'projection mapping' by casting light effects on mushrooms growing in nature in the 'Funky Funghy' project.

Social games (board games, card games)

Plant pathology scientist Lisa Vaillancourt at the University of Kentucky developed a 'Fungal Mating Game' based on standard card decks as an educational tool for students to better understand the process and concept of fungal mating using the mating of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast), Neurospora crassa, Ustilago maydis, and Schizophyllum commune as an example. The game can be played both collaboratively and competitively.

References

External Links

I've removed an excessively long list of External Links, leaving one important one there. The others are found below.

• Mary Banning: Fungi of Maryland
• Digitized painting from Lewis David von Schweinitz (1780–1834) by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel (Philadelphia)
• 'Bad Bug Bookclub' by the Manchester Metropolitan University
• Quarterly periodical FUNGI Magazine running a regular feature called Bookshelf Fungi reviewing fiction and non-fiction books on fungi.
• Poem by Neil Gaiman, The Mushrooms Hunter, featured in a short animated video
• The online book club 'MycoBookClub' discussing monthly a selection of mostly non-fiction books on fungi on Twitter
• Documentary Pegtymel (2001) by director Andrei Golovnev
• Documentary The Mushroom Speaks (2001) by Marion Neumann
• Short movie Wrought (2022) by Joel Penner and Anna Sigrithur
• Short movie Who's Who in Mycology (2016) by Maritree Dvoráková
• Fungi Film Festival
• UK Fungus Day Film Festival (since 2022) by the British Mycological Society
• Frank Frazetta's Cover image of the 1964 edition of the novel The Secret People (1935) by John Beynon
• The radio station 'Nanotopia Midnight Mushroom Music' devoted to streaming mushroom-generated music
• Resources to encourage all aspects of 'mycophagy' by the North American Mycological Association (NAMA)
• Telluride Mushroom Festival in Telluride, Colorado (US)
• Radical Mycology Convergence in Mulino, Oregon (US)
• Musical theatre show The Mould That Changed the World
• The Living Color Database available at www.color.bio
• Vera Meyer: Pilze zwischen Wissenschaft und Kunst (Fungi between science and art), BIOTOPIA, 2021
• Educational and field trip resources by the Fungi Foundation
• The Fungus Files aimed at educating children at elementary-school level by the North American Mycological Association (NAMA)
• Educational resources by the Mycological Society of America (MSA)
• The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) website
• Fungus Fest by the New York Mycological Society (NYMS)
• 'The Art of Mushroom' exhibition
• 'El Museo del Hongo' (The Fungus Museum)
• 'Nature's Mysterious Networks: Mushrooms, Mycelia and Yeasts' at Groundwork Gallery in Norfolk (UK)
• 'MUSHROOMS: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi' at Somerset House in London (UK); featured in Google Arts & Culture
• Visual Art Contests and Photography Contests by the North American Mycological Association (NAMA)
• The Fauna Flora Funga initiative
• UK Fungus Day by the British Mycological Society
• Massee Art Grant by the British Mycological Society

Netherzone (talk) 18:42, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeasts, molds and lichens

This should be a separate article, Yeasts, molds and lichens in art or some sort of similar name.

Yeasts, moulds, or lichens

Many fungi do not reproduce and disperse by spores. Instead, they live as single cells and reproduce by budding or fission as in yeasts, or live in a symbiosis with an algal or cyanobacterial partner as in lichens. Despite being unicellular, yeasts can reproduce sexually by mating and can occasionally grow in a filamentous way. Moulds do form spores ('asexual spores') but no mushrooms, and grow into filaments (hyphae and mycelia) which thrive in moist environments and spoil food. Moulds, like those which spoil food, are major natural producers of antibiotics, like penicillin.

Lichens, a symbiosis between fungi and algae or bacteria, illustrated by German zoologist, naturalist, philosopher, and illustrator Ernst Haeckel in Kunstformen der Natur (1904).

Yeasts, moulds, and lichens did not enter into the arts very often and their direct influence in the arts remains modest. Indirectly, yeasts have influenced art, as alcohol fermentation has contributed to different cultures around the globe and across time; in La traviata (1853) by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, for example, one of the best-known opera melodies is 'Libiamo ne' lieti calici' (in English, translated into "Let's drink from the joyful cups"), which is one of numerous brindisi (toast) hymn. Other testimonies of the indirect effect of yeasts in the arts are the numerous deities and myths associated with wine and beer. Yeasts and moulds are often an agent of decay and contamination in the arts, whereas recently they are increasingly used in contemporary art in a positive or neutral way to reflect on processes of transformation, interaction, decay, circular economy, and sustainability.

Examples of yeasts, moulds or lichens in the arts include:

• Ernst Haeckel illustrations of lichens in Kunstformen der Natur (1904)
• Chemical compounds from some lichens are used as dyeing substances (this is also true for compounds derived from mushrooms)
• In the science fiction novel Trouble with Lichen (1960) by John Wyndham, a chemical extract from a lichen is able to slow down the aging process, with a profound influence on society
• In Stephen King's horror short story Gray Matter (1973), a recluse man living with his son drinks a 'foul beer' and slowly transforms into an inhuman blob-like abomination that craves warm beer and shuns light and transmutes into a fungus-like fictional creature
• The novel Lichenwald (2019) by Ellen King Rice, author of 'Mushroom Thrillers' is a crime story involving lichens, dementia, and manipulations
• The Dutch textile artist Lizan Freijsen created the Fungal Wall for the microbe museum Micropia, together with TextielMuseum Tilburg, a wall-sized tapestry with tufting resembling mould growth
• From Peel to Peel project (2018) by biodesigner Emma Sicher, using the metabolic properties of yeasts and bacteria to create cellulose from food waste as biodegradable packaging material
• In so-called 'mould paintings,' surfaces of buildings or sculptures are intentionally overgrown with moulds to create visually appealing effects
• The contemporary artist Kathleen Ryan creates oversized, composite sculptures of rotting fruits, like in the Bad Fruit series (2020)

Performative arts (theatre, comedy, dance, performance art)

The musical theatre show The Mould That Changed the World is a show running both in the US (in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, Georgia) and the UK (in Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland) which centers around the life and legacy of Alexander Fleming, the Scottish discoverer of the antibiotic penicillin and 1945 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine. Alexander Fleming discovered in 1928 during his work as bacteriologist that bacteria growing on a Petri dish were inhibited by a mould contamination, namely from a fungus of the genus Penicillium, from which the antibiotic name 'penicillin' derives. The story involves jumps in time to highlight the legacy of the discovery of antibiotics and is partly set during the Great War, when Alexander Fleming served as a private, as well as the personification of some characters (e.g. Mother Earth). The musical has been developed for educational purposes to raise awareness against the tremendous, worldwide threat that the rise of antimicrobial resistance poses. The musical provides teaching resources and has been developed with the participation of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC). The musical choir is composed of both professional singers and actors as well as health care professionals, lab technicians, and scientists, and is an example of an artistic project merging science and the arts.

The dance contest for scientists called 'Dance your Ph.D.' sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an annual competition established in 2008 encouraging communication and education of complex scientific topics through interpretative dance. All scientific fields and areas of research are covered (biology, chemistry, physics, and social science), and several contestant entries involved fungi, including some winners. The 2014 winner was plant pathologist and aerial acrobat Uma Nagendra from the University of Georgia (Athens) with Plant-Soil Feedbacks After Severe Tornado Damage, a trapeze-circus dance representing the effect of extreme environmental events (like tornadoes) on tree seedlings and the positive effect those events can have with regard to withstanding phytopathogenic fungi. The 2022 winner was Lithuanian scientist Povilas Šimonis from Vilnius University with Electroporation of Yeast Cells, a dance illustrating the effect of electroporation (a method involving pulses of electricity to deactivate cells, or make them more porous and prone to acquire extracellular DNA, a crucial step in genetic engineering) on yeasts.

Contemporary arts

In the contemporary arts, works involving fungi are often interactive and/or performative and tend to transform and utilize fungi rather than merely represent and showcase them. In her work, Myconnect (2013), bioartist Saša Spačal invites the audience to interact with the artwork, involving Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) or Oyster mushrooms (from the genus Pleurotus), which takes the form of a capsule connecting the human with the fungus on a sensory level. Bioartists use yeasts to provoke a reflection on genetic engineering. Slovenian intermedia artist Maja Smrekar's created yoghurt using genetically-modified yeast with a gene from the artist herself in Maya Yoghurt (2012). In 2015, the blogger and feminist Zoe Stavri baked sourdough bread using yeast she isolated from her own vaginal yeast infection using a Dildo, which she then mixed with flour and water and let leaven, and finally ate. The activity, which she documented both on her blog posts and on social media, tagging it with the hashtag #cuntsourdough, caused a lot of discussion on social media, including repulsion, hate messages, and food safety concerns, as the practice did not involve axenic isolation of the leavening yeast; however, during baking, microorganisms present in the dough are most probably heat deactivated and thus harmless. As the activist herself noted: "People have been making and eating sourdough [with wild yeasts] for millennia." People had experimented before with microorganisms from the vaginal microbiota to create food and incite a reflection on the topic of food fermentation and female bodily autonomy and self-determination.

In 'Fungal Dot Painting,' fungal conidia are inoculated into agar droplets, deposited on a black (acrylic glass) surface, and incubated to allow fungal growth. The results resemble pointillism. From Grunwald et al. (2021).

In 'Etched Fungal Art,' an acrylic glass surface modified by etching (lathing or printmaking) is poured over with a suspension of fungal conidia in an agar-based substrate and then incubated to permit fungal growth into the etched channels. From Grunwald et al. (2021).

The exhibition Fermenting Futures (2022) by bioartists Alex May and Anna Dumitriu in collaboration with the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) is an artwork focusing on the role of yeast biotechnology confronting global issues of contemporary society. The artist cultured and showcased fermentation flasks of Pichia pastoris used for the bioconversion of carbon dioxide into biodegradable plastics. The artwork The Bioarchaeology of Yeast recreates by moulding the biodeterioration marks left by certain yeasts, like black yeasts, on work of art and sculptures, and displays them as aesthetic objects, reflecting on the process of erosion; the installation Culture used CRISPR technology to confer to a non-fermenting strain of Pichia pastoris the ability to ferment and work as a leavening agent as the baker's yeast. A team of artists and researchers developed novel art techniques using the model (that is, widely studied in laboratory research) mould Aspergillus nidulans. The artist-scientist team described the development of two new techniques: 'Fungal Dot Painting' and 'Etched Fungal Art.' In Fungal Dot Painting, akin to pointillism where small dots unite to compose an image, fungal conidia are inoculated into agar droplets which are then deposited on a dark surface of black acrylic glass for contrast, and incubated at the desired condition to allow fungal growth. In 'Etched Fungal Art', an acrylic glass surface modified by etching (lathing or printmaking) is poured over with a suspension of fungal conidia in an agar-based substrate, and then incubated to permit fungal growth into the etched channels. Both art forms allow for temporal dynamism, insofar as being composed of living fungal organisms they change and evolve over time.

References

Netherzone (talk) 19:59, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I added a short summary for the "Yeasts, moulds and lichen" section to the article, and included a notable artist Ernst Haeckel. I think the article as it was originally written included too many non-notable artists. That is fine for an academic journal article, book or exhibition, but for the purposes of the encyclopedia, it may be best for our readership to include wiki-notable artists (with their own WP article) instead of non-wiki-notables since this is a broad topic article. Netherzone (talk) 14:07, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

That's now cut too short, in my opinion. Regarding wiki-notable artists, I'd leave at least the examples with John Wyndham, Stephen King, Maja Smrekar, and Anna Dumitriu.

The example on 'Fungal Dot Painting' and 'Etched Fungal Art' could probably stay too, as it cites primary literature (https://doi.org/10.3390/jof7121018) and is (IMHO) very relevant for the field of mould in art.

Also the mold-subpage Mold#Use in art could be transcluded or at least linked to (fully aware that that subpage is yet not perfect, too).

If you could spare a minute to revert these edits, that would be very much appreciated.

Thanks CorradoNai (talk) 03:16, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I added Anna Dumitriu, as she is a wikinotable bioartist which is a nice counter-point to the historical artist Haeckel. A citation is needed in an independent published source that describes Haeckel's illustrations of lichen, fungi or yeasts. Do you have one? That would be helpful (and necessary) for article improvement. Thanks and best, Netherzone (talk) 17:26, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I've also added Sam Taylor-Johnson (a.k.a. Sam Taylor-Wood) to that summary section, a very well known artist whose work Still Life, uses mold in the process of making the video. The summary section now has three artists who represent lichens (Haeckel), yeast (Dumitriu) and mold (Taylor-Johnson). Netherzone (talk) 17:45, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, this makes sense. The name of Haeckel's illustration should do... File:Haeckel Lichenes.jpg CorradoNai (talk) 08:04, 22 December 2023 (UTC)