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Jenna Barton

Laura Dutson

ENG 311

Nov. 5th, 2014

Haunted by the Animal

The history of art teems with animals. Real or imagined, non-human life has forever both

fascinated and alienated mankind. They are our companions and our friends, our sustenance, our

enemies; topics exploring their importance and complexity have been present in the visual arts

since the earliest instances of human artistic expression. While artwork depicting animals has

served various functions throughout history, from the literal to the symbolic, contemporary art is

approaching them with a unique treatment. This paper explores a current phenomenon: although

the genre of animal artwork has been ever-changing through history, there has been a steadily

growing influx of animals as subjects in contemporary fine art over the past two decades. I assert

that the attitudes and content of these artworks may largely be the result of the cultural changes

of the 20th century, which have distanced human beings from the natural world like never before

(Franz 2). The recent trend of using animals in contemporary art is not so much about depicting

creatures as they are, but about finding meaningful connection between the natural world and the

human condition. Through artwork, human beings are attempting to find the animals within

themselves, and the humanity within animals.

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While there has never been a time when depicting the animal form fell out of favor,

recent years have seen contemporary artists turning more toward animal subjects than ever

before. There is a growing trend of artists creating works whose subjects deal with animals in a

spiritual or philosophical light, in various forms and mediums, and the audience for this artwork

is growing as well (Baker 90).

“This is not, by any means, the first or last of these exhibits,” wrote Jason Franz, curator

of the animal-themed Bestiary show at the Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati. “Each day there are

new exhibits springing up across the country, focusing on the animal in art. It may seem like a

small artistic niche, but public interest in these works has actually grown…exponentially over

several years and continues to do so.” (Franz 2)

Over the past two decades, the arts and social sciences have been experiencing a

paradigm shift, an event which cultural scholar Sarah Franklin has dubbed ‘the animal turn’. This

‘turn’ is marked by increased interest in the study of human-animal connections as observed on

an artistic and philosophical level, rather than a merely biological one (Armstrong & Simmons

20). The new flurry of knowledge and curiosity toward animal studies has prompted many artists

to explore these natural connections visually. Their work has, in a way, produced a domino effect

that has moved this trend forward; as prominent artists deal with human-animal nature in their

art, other artists follow suit and begin to approach these topics in their own work.

A look at the popular contemporary art publication, Hi-Fructose Magazine, reveals that

in the past four years there has not been an issue published which did not prominently feature an

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artist working with animal symbolism or allegory. This inclination isn’t isolated to a single

publication, either; similar trends can be found in other popular art publications such as Juxtapoz

Magazine and the annual publication by Illustrator’s Society, as well as in prominent galleries

like Los Angeles’s Thinkspace Gallery, which regularly host multi-artists shows that hinge

around a central theme: animals, and our relation to them.

Where has this strong interest in figurative animal artwork come from? There has always

been a market for animals in modern visual art. Since its first boom in the 1970s, traditional

wildlife art—which ranges from majestic to tacky—hasn’t wavered in popularity with its largely

middle-aged audience (Wagner 20). However, these representational paintings and drawings of

how animals are in nature have been surpassed in popularity by the more contemporary, semi-

surreal depictions of how animals might be, which examine how beast and man are related on an

emotional, core level . The success of this new style of art rides on a younger generation of

artists and gallery-goers, one whose cultural environment may be the primary explanation behind

their fascination. Unlike artists dealing with animals in the artistic movements that came

immediately before this one, which typically focused on representational art of the animal

(Vasari 290), these contemporary artists are increasingly concerned with addressing the

mechanisms of interaction between the human and animal worlds. It is neither about humans,

nor animals, but addresses how the two overlap.

Considering just how widespread animal depictions have been, across cultures and

throughout history, it would be difficult or perhaps even impossible to completely analyze the

factors contributing to their current presence in contemporary art. The influences that have led to

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the current artistic climate, in regards to zoological topics, are far too varied and vast to fully

enumerate. However, a brief examination of the trends in the history of animal artwork,

alongside the animal-human interactions prevalent during each era, may shed light on the current

artistic trends in regards to theriomorphic art.

Art history is replete with animal-inspired forms and topics. Some of the earliest known

examples of visual arts focus almost completely on the animal; caves filled with images of

beasts, rendered carefully by human hands, give us a glimpse into the importance of the human-

animal relationship at our origins. Humanity has long relied on non-human animals for survival.

In earliest history, wild animals were hunted and tracked, and their movements also dictated the

movements of mankind. Artwork from these early periods display a kind of mystic appreciation

of the animal. This seems true across most ancient cultures. Artworks from all continents—from

the stony cave-paintings in Europe and North America, to the tapa-cloth drawings of Pacific

Islanders—depict animals as relevant to mankind, both on a temporal level and a deeply spiritual

one (Midgley 22). Theriomorphic deities abound in many these works; the animal is both used

and worshipped by man. Perhaps it was a lack of understanding of the real nature of non-human

animals that prompted these numinous depictions. However, I believe these works actually

indicate a better understanding of the animal-human connection—one that would eventually be

lost or greatly diminished in many of the generations and civilizations to come.

As animals were domesticated for human use, rather than hunted, the relationship

between man and animal shifted. While fantastical elements remained in animal depictions

through the Dark Ages, artwork began to show animals in a more scientific light. This gradual

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shift is apparent especially in Western artwork from the Renaissance through the Romantic

periods; the mystical and deified animal depictions were replaced in favor of ‘practical’

portrayals (Fudge 34). The animals included in paintings and sketches were more often domestic

animals such as cows, horses, pigs and dogs, and tended to be drawn from an academic

perspective, focusing on anatomical studies and pastoral scenes. Works such as The Bull by

Paulus Potter and the animal-study engravings of Albrecht Durer typify the close attention to

detail found during these artistic movements. Close living with animals, as well as the

domestication process, sloughed some of the mythos off of animal forms as mankind began to

understand them better . Artists were concerned more with drawing ‘animals as bodies , focusing

on specific proportions and features, rather than interpreting them on a spiritual level or utilizing

their forms symbolically (Vasari 298).

The academic approach to animal artwork gave way to scientific illustration in the 18th

and 19th centuries, which became a vital tool in the study of taxonomy. Wild animals were drawn

and documented (usually through engravings) by Western field illustrators and naturalists who

travelled to remote areas to study wildlife and fauna. During this time of exploration, when new

images of animals unknown were brought back to the public—often with live or preserved

specimens in tow, as well—the animal regained some (though not all) of its mysticism in the arts

(Fudge 33). More exotic creatures and flora began to be included in the arts, and there was a

resurgence in paintings and engravings that dealt with the symbolic animal forms that existed in

Greek and Roman mythology. The prominence of zoos and menageries throughout the 19th

century was a likely contributor to this interest; unusual animals were available for viewing by

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the public, but there was no meaningful interaction with them (Wagner 30). Unlike commonly

hunted wild animals that were collected for sustenance, or the well-known domesticated

creatures upon which so many relied for food, protection, and transportation, these exotic beasts

represented the ‘other’, a far-off wildness that intrigued and inspired artists of the age.

If there have always been changes in basic, widespread human-animal relationships from

the time of domestication, the events of the 20th century can easily be considered the most

dramatic. Unlike any before it, this century changed the human lifestyle, and in doing so

separated man and beast, perhaps irreparably. Steam-powered locomotion and the

industrialization of farming moved once-commonplace horses and livestock away from the

average home. Urbanization, where humans were clustered together in residential areas, orbiting

industrial hubs of cities, pulled people away from the open land that hosted wildlife, and

crowded them in toward a much more controlled, man-made setting. Non-human animals, both

wild and livestock, were removed from city life by degrees during this century (Matheny 53).

The relationship between human and animal still exists, but there is no longer the visible, active

involvement with the natural world that was once necessary for survival. The youngest

generations of the Western world today are more distanced from animal interaction than any that

have come before them (Fudge 40). The modern experience with animal life and the natural

world is increasingly narrow. Our experiences are often limited to interaction with household

pets, who we anthropomorphize more and more readily, glossing over the non-human aspects

they possess that may cause dissonance or discomfort. The concept of ‘wildness’—animals and

landscapes that are not tailored to serve mankind, and in that sense are foreign and mysterious to

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us while remaining familiar—often “captures the imagination and interest of those who have had

little exposure to it.” (Wagner 32).

How, then, have these changes in our practical relationship to animals affected our visual

representation of them in contemporary art? As has been established, there is nothing new about

theriomorphic depictions in artwork. It isn’t the subject matter that has changed, so much as the

approach; where we once saw paintings who subjects belonged either distinctly to the natural

realm or the human realm, we now see amalgamations of the two, whose purpose is to make us

examine our relationship with the natural world. Replacing the common paintings of animals in

verdant landscapes, we now see cross-sections of them, mixed with human faces and parts and

scenery (Baker 73). The results can range from the grotesque to the stunningly beautiful.

Art historian Steven Baker addresses the difficulty of representing the animal in

contemporary art. “We live in a world that is more and more prone to anthropomorphizing the

animal, to trivializing it. Modern artists are taking an approach that is less for the sake of

depicting an animal, and geared more toward causing the audience to rethink their relationship

with the natural world” (Baker). These artists are reconstructing the animal—pulling elements

from both man and beast, manufactured and natural, to persuade us to reconsider both the animal

itself, and how we relate to the animal.

Different artists have approached these animal-centric topics in different ways. Artists

such as Martin Wittfooth and Tiffany Bozic juxtapose animals against urban backdrops. The

animals are often in distress, or seem terribly out of place in these man-made jungles. Their eyes

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are full of primordial longing and instinct to escape, and in so many of these non-human faces

we can see ourselves. The human animal that still exists at our core—our set of drives and

instincts, and need for natural communion and space—is represented in these forlorn beasts. We,

like they, are strange and out of place in these sprawling urban streets, so far distanced from the

natural world that we are meant to interact with on a personal level.

“I try to see humans and animals as one group of entities. Natural-made, living things,”

says Wittfooth in an interview with Hi-Fructose Magazine. “In my pieces I want to…use animals

to tap into the part of us that also feels lost and disconnected in the post-Industrial West”

(Voynovskaya 21).

Other artists like Beth Cavener Stichter, Caitlyn Hackett and Marco Mazzoni are

concerned primarily with animal-human ‘hybridization’ (, which merges physical elements from

both man and animal. Hackett and Mazzoni’s art both depict human beings interacting with

animals: sometimes physically merged, and difficult to tell apart, and at other times, distinct

entities of their own. This approach—shared by many artists in the genre—attempts to draw

parallels between animal anatomy and the physical bodies of humans. “In my work I attempt to

capture the often volatile human-animal relationship as well as a reflection of my own sorrow

over the loss of wild species and wild places,” says Hackett in her artist statement (Davis 4).

On the other hand, Stichter, a renowned sculptor whose work has lent the movement

many of its visual cues, deals specifically in animal-only forms—but brings in humanity through

their expressions and staging. In these sculptures, wolves weep and moan and rabbits lie across

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slabs. They are rabbits, yes; but there is something implicitly, humanly sexual in their languid

pose and half-lidded eyes. (Human genitals are sometimes subtly included in these works,

replacing those elements of the animal’s anatomy, and there is a moment when the viewer must

think to themselves, ‘Is that really what a rabbit looks like?’ This most private aspect of the

human body is at once foreign to see as part of a non-human figure, and strangely familiar and

fitting.) Stichter says of her work, “I like the idea of borrowing the perceived moral innocence of

the animal, something we desire to see in ourselves, in order to highlight just how strange and

complex our emotional and psychological states are” (Watson).

The desire to see the ‘self’ in the animal is a driving force in the popularity of these

works, and that desire is indicative of cultural changes that have been occurring over the last

century, but whose impact has perhaps only been fully realized in the visual arts over the past

two decades (Willet). This relatively new, and now constant, representation of animals in the arts

is very likely indicative of the existential void that affects modern, globalized, urbanized western

society. Musée des Beaux-Arts curator, Bernard Fibicher, theorizes that both the style and

proliferation of animal presence in contemporary artwork follows a historical precedent.

Throughout different historical periods and artistic movements, the presence of animals would be

proportional to the human need for animal contact and communion, while this presence would be

inversely proportional to the actual, real closeness of humanity to the natural realm (Fibicher 8).

Fibicher’s thesis is corroborated by statements from artists in the genre. While some have

left the interpretation of their theriomorphic work entirely to the viewer, others have stated

explicitly their motives (as seen in some of the paragraphs above, addressing their work). What

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is interesting is that although the explanations for these pieces are varied and unique to each

artist, nearly all fall under an umbrella theme: a sense of melancholy for the natural world, and a

longing to return to it and find ourselves in it—or some version of it that may have existed in the

past, but has been hidden away by the urbanization and commercialization of the

overwhelmingly anthropocentric 20th century.

In their final work, philosophers Deleuze and Guittari wrote, “Art is continually haunted

by the animal” (150). We see throughout history that this is true—whether at the forefront of

human imagination, mysticism and religion, or relegated to props in the backdrop, animals are

continually reflected in the visual arts. They are reminders of the place from which we have

come. Now, as Western culture has been so largely removed from the natural world upon which

humankind was once so actively and directly dependent, we see animal presence in the arts rising

again to meet the demands of the human soul. As the gap between humanity and the natural

world remains, or gapes ever wider, more and more symbolic and philosophical animal artwork

will emerge. It is an attempt to connect again; it is an attempt to find strains of animal origin and

natural communion within ourselves, in the absence of direct contact with wildness. This

movement, which uses animals so beautifully as a metaphor for mankind, and humans as a

metaphor for animals, serves as a remedy to the ache that mankind feels in regards to our

separation from a world that we, despite all attempts to render it obsolete, have always belonged

to. Through the continued development of this artwork, we may continue to realize that in seeing

where we are still animal, we are also connecting with what makes us human.

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WORKS CITED

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Armstrong, H., T. Philip, and Laurence Simmons. "Bestiary: An Introduction." Knowing Animals. Leiden and Boston, 2007. 1-24. Print.

Baker, Steve. "Art in a post-animal era?." Animals and Aesthetics. University of the Arts, Berlin. 13 Apr. 2011. Address.

Baker, Steve. "What Does Becoming Animal Look Like?" Representing Animals. Ed. N. Rothfels. Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2002. 68-99. Print.

Davis, Jeffrey, ed. "Living Through Animal: The Work of Caitlin Hackett." Hi Fructose Magazine 3 Jan. 2012: 4-5. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. What Is Philosophy? Columbia UP, 1996. 150. Print.

Fibicher, Bernard, ed. "Comme Des Bêtes Exhibition Catalogue." Musée Cantonal Des Beaux-Arts 19 June 2008: 8-10. Print.

Franz, Jason. "Bestiary: A Theriomorphic Collection." Manifest Gallery 11 Nov. 2010: 1-5. Print.

Fudge, Erica. "A Left-handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals." Representing Animals. Ed. N. Rothfels. Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2002. 3-18. Print.

Matheny, J.G. "Animals and Utilitarianism." In Defense of Animals. Ed. Peter Singer. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005. 48-76. Print.

Midgley, M. Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature. Sussex: Harvester, 1970. 14-38. Print.

Vasari, G. Vasari's Lives of the Artists. Vol. 3. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. 285-309. Print.

Voynovskaya, Nastia, ed. "Animals and the Dying Day: An Interview with Martin Wittfooth." Hi Fructose Magazine 6 May 2011: 21-23. Print.

Wagner, David. American Wildlife Art. Marquand, 2008. 20-40. Print.

Watson, Tiffany, ed. "Gessato Interviews Beth Cavener Stichter." GBlog Interviews. 11 May 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.

Willet, Jennifer. "Embracing Animal." CIAC’s Electronic Magazine. International Center for Contemporary Arts, 18 Sept. 2005. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.