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

Chariot d'amour

Cowboy Up

Autoportrait aviaire

Hunting Time

Born to be wild

Le Guépard

Ours brun

Les villages de mon enfance

I was beautiful

Centaur in love 30x42 cm

Le village aux 100 chats

Effrayes

Passereaux trépassés 1 : Mésange charbonnière

Horned Head

Reciprocity 7

Reciprocity 8

Untitled

Les deux chats

Le Carrousel

The Bird’s Song

Toro dentelles

Lévrier Arlequin

Still life with fishes

L'oie

Toro mosaïque dominante bleu

Happy fish

Cat in rust with petrol eyes

Cat in rust stencil

BopBop 3

Trois

Mon ami

Five Flowers and a Chameleon

Le Bellâtre

The last huntsman

N° 975 Un an déjà !

N° 973 Pontapis

N° 969 MDA 2

N° 966 MDA 1

N° 965 Le piano.

N° 960 La lecture.

Obscured by clouds

Visitors 2

Bug in the system

Pélican

Cheval volutes

Cheval mosaique

29.03.2022

Cheval mosaïque bleu

Perros de piedra I

Bear XO

Birdy Pop

Perspective d'animal

Sleep - Gray

Le chat de Lascaux dans la grotte de Schrödinger

Elephant Moon

Rey de los pagaros 1

Duck

Sacred Forest I

Série grands singes - 2/5

Bear Hug

Tropicarios #1

Petite souris à la feuille d'or

Visitors 3

La cigale

Petite souris à la feuille d'argent

Antilope Kobo