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Boom Boom, Commissioned Work 2018. Enjoy!

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These fellows, the Montgolfier Brothers, made a balloon, and King Louis XVI was like “I want a balloon” so they made a huge fancy balloon decorated with all kinds of crap like suns and zodiacs for him. Here’s a statue of them blowing up a balloon.

Launching these balloons drew huge crowds. People quickly became enamored with these huge round balloons. Joseph Montgolfier claimed he discovered the premise of hot air after he watched his wife’s chemise inflating over the hearth.

Other balloonists (aeronauts) soon appeared to compete with the Montgolfiers. Jacques Charles built a balloon and launched it to great celebration. Ben Franklin was there, because of course he was. When it landed, peasants attacked it out of fear. Or, they just hated balloons.

Jean-Pierre Blanchard and his wife, Sophie, became bad-ass balloonatics when they ascended with balloons (riding them) to the surprise and delight of onlookers, defying gravity and height with the help of enormous round floating things.

A fellow by the name of Lunardi proclaimed himself an idol due to the massive crowds the massive balloons he constructed and piloted were able to draw, making him the first “balloon-idol” in human history.

In short, Lunardi made balloons hot. Pictured is one of his extremely hot balloons, barely fitting into the pantheon on Oxford Street in London. There’s no doubt that it was one of the biggest, roundest balloons people had seen at that point in history (1784). Wow. It’s huge.

Balloons became so omnipresent that the term balloonomania (French: balloonomanie) was coined. There was a revolution of souvenir goods being sold. Think of NASCAR plates except with balloons. Hairclips, cufflinks - everything you can think of adorned with the balloons.

These collectibles were especially popular among the French. There were even examples of literature fascinated with ballooning, such as the “Ballooniad”, a street ballad. Balloons were on everyone’s lips.

And with reverence came mockery. Cartoons became popular (rhyming?) and often depicted sexually-tinged comedic images such as those you find below.

Richard Holmes wrote in his book Age of Wonders of these cartoons: “balloon-breasted girls lifted off their feet, monstrous aeronauts inflated by gas enemas, or ‘inflammable’ women carrying men off into the clouds.

Let’s look at another. This one speaks for itself. Were these images really mockery, poking fun at the balloon craze? Or were they evidence of the sexual interest people began to feel for balloons, and still continue to feel today?

Balloonomania continued into the 19th century, but let’s be honest: for some of us, balloonomania never ended. Some of us are still wild with obsession of huge, round balloons and huge round things.

After all, the blimp, dirigible, and zeppelin obsession of the early 20th century is further indication that humanity has continued to stay fascinated by balloons that are vast, round, and fully inflated. You could even say we’ve developed a proclivity toward them.

I hope you all enjoyed this brief exploration into the history of balloons, blimps, and other huge round spherical things full of hot gas. Balloonomania continues: here is an early 21st century depiction of an anthropomorphic canid filled with hot gas and round like a balloon.

Green And Curvy, Commissioned Work 2018. Enjoy!

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Blow up doll #2~

Broken little toy~ 800 pumps and still going~ Why don’t you add some more~¿ But this time they double up~

Each like = 2pumps~

Each reblog = 10pumps~