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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Subcategories

Animal

Les oiseaux

Manège fantasmagorique

Jungle fever

Goliath Beetle Open

Untitled

Prométhée 4

Bronco

Papillons

Personnage et poisson

Flying Dumbo blue 1/8

Korn

Mini taureau rouge 03

Apporte

Unity Blooming Bear

Sur un arbre perché

Le bélier mauve

Élégante au perroquet - ref BDNW11480

Grizzli debout

Liebre

Cheval à bascule

Fuzz

Hommes de nulle part

Dog with a long nose

Pop Tiger

Boudoir, gravure originale

Zébre

L'oiseau guide les chameaux

Quinze

Balance of Happiness I

Aigle sur globe

La distancia que ens uneix

Chevaux (études)

A Falcaroo Named Knievel

Convergence animalière

Sans titre

Ayanfe Omo Oba

Bad Dogs on a Joyride

Circulation Alternée

LIama

Garden of Love

Papa ours

Midnight Angus Drawing #3 (Midwest, Cattle, Mid-Century, Prairie, Blue)

Henry Morgan

Cabinet des Lapins

Le Grand Duc à L’Opéra

Jeff's Dog

Picador

Entre nous II

Don Quichotte

Robotic Cow - Countdown - Édition limitée

Nutrimenti

Sans titre

Interiors

Horseracing Steplee Auteuil Pilarski colors

Untitled

Stand

La mer 22

Volatiles

Le papillon aquatique

Brexit

La grotte aux ours

Composition de 10 visages perdus

Bonheur à la plage n°2 - série portrait infraréaliste - IA

Perros on fire (1)

Love Cats

Lioness