Posted
By Bryan Rindfuss
on Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 9:00 AM
click to enlarge
Richard Armendariz,
Red Saturn and His Children Evidenced by the curly tailed babirusa (or “pig deer”) scrawled on the wall of a cave in Indonesia, animals have been inspiring art for at least 45,500 years. As the oldest muse on record, critters unsurprisingly boast a fascinating art historical record that includes ancient Egyptian cat sarcophagi; a foreboding dog mosaic in the lost city of Pompei; a veritable menagerie created by German Renaissance kingpin Albrecht Dürer; post-impressionist wildlife paintings by Henri Rousseau; watercolors of every imaginable bird by 19th-century naturalist John James Audubon; anthropomorphic self-portraits by Mexican icon Frida Kahlo; and contemporary interpretations that run the gamut from poppy and playful (Jeff Koons) to controversial and macabre (Damien Hirst).