Animal

Animals are often featured in news, sometimes in heartwarming tales of human and animal companionship and other times in heartbreaking stories of illegal trade and endangered species. Animals are even present in social sciences, especially thank to ethology (behavioural sciences of animals in their natural habitat). They have fascinated philosophers from Antiquity all the way through to today and they are even present in the medical realm, as the benefits of animal-assisted therapies have been scientifically proven.

The relationship between humans and animals is also taken into account in the politics, most notably when debating topics related to ecology, the protection of ecosystems and sustainable development. Thus, animals might be seen as a crucial indicator of humanity's concerns.

As well in these many sectors, animals are also very much present in the arts. A number of art museums have decided exhibitions to animals including the Cluny Museum in Paris and MoMA PS1 in New York. Whether simply a humble spectator in an 18th century painting or the central subject of a Courbet painting, animals are present throughout the history of art. From symbolic, to esthetic, to abstract, to animal drawings meant to simply record their appearance...all these representations have played a role in influencing artists and also how we characterise and think of individual animals.

Each civilisation has represented the animal on multiples supports (mosaics, metal, stone, bones, etc.) as seen on the Nerja cave wall paintings in Andalusia discovered in 1925. Animal iconography has had multiple purposes, varying according to the era and place. Bats, for example, are often used to represent death, fear or superstition in Western art, whereas the Chinese see them as a sign of happiness. The omnipresence of animals within cultures across the globe is probably down to the similarities between men and animal, a source of both fascination and fear.

In this selection, Artsper helps you to discover the beauty of the animal kingdom, its diversity, strength and fragility. Artists depict animals in a huge range of mediums: sculpture, painting, photographs, and drawings. Contemporary artists bring an original and poetic vision to their representations of the animals with whom we share our world.

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Animal

Mes 400 coups

Man and birds

Ultimes 4

Panda Cubs Panda Cubs

Portrait de chien

Panthère sautant sur le rocher

Etincelles Marines - Variation N°2 - Gravure & Poésie

Silent Sheep, Ancient Stone

Levitate

Expression

Lupus

Bleu ballon de chien 12

Skate Chanoir, Dégradation Tropicale

Canard

Piaf Pop Love S

Elegante en robe jaune

Petits polissons

Bullfight #4

Tague la Lune

Sérigraphie - Chanoir x Grems

Piaf Doré satin

Skate édition dégradé de rose à jaune

Head

Tête de cheval

L’enlèvement d'Europe

Ensemble

Le bison

Bride and Groom

Modern Borrowed Scenery Lawson

Héron cendré

Colorful Sheep

Big Quickly

Chat

L'Etalon Blanc (Hommage au cheval)

Rhinocéros

Dans la brume

Banc de poissons #19

Le chevalier Chretien, from the series Les Chevaux Daliniens

Sheep

Chat

Majestic Lion Sculpture

Hemerocallis thumbergii elephanter from Surrealistic Flowers

Ghetto Cat

Black Eye Patch 1000%

We Are The Square Jocular Clan 3

L'entrée en scène

Jungle Happiness

Chien béat sur nickel 59

Strange Fish 2

Strange Fish

Gorille

Perroquet

Dobermann

Gift 3

Carte du Sud de la Corse

Three of a Kind

M. Chat au Mont Saint-Michel

Bride and Groom

Carte du Nord de la Corse

Carmen and Don José fleeing on horseback from The Opera Carmen

Royal Selangor Arabesque Golden 400%

Wrapped in Kindness

Untitled

35cm CD Collage Tribute, No Collar Teddy

Dan, from the series Twelve Tribes of Israel

Whimsical Whiskers