BEAUTIFUL MONSTERS: BEASTS AND FANTASTIC CREATURES IN EARLY EUROPEAN PRINTS
Central Gallery
January 17 to March 22, 2014
Beautiful Monsters explores the representation of monstrous creatures in early European art by bringing together approximately fifty prints from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries drawn from the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. The engravings, etchings and woodcuts assembled at the Gallery feature real and fictitious beasts and monsters in exuberant and enigmatic compositions. Handsome beasts and hideous creatures, boldly represented, vie for attention in this selection of surprisingly fantastical and strange images.
Often violent, they bring to light certain religious or moral anxieties, whereas others, such as Andrea Mantegna’s famousBattle of the Sea Gods (left side), depict mythological or allegorical themes that combine the grotesque and the beautiful. In addition, the prints bear witness to the unbridled creativity of Albrecht Dürer and Jacques Callot, among others, and also to a collective imagination evoking a singular vision of the world. The exhibition has five thematic sections: religious chimeras, mythological creatures, sea monsters, the horse as beast and ornamental monsters.
Organized by the National Gallery of Canada.
Generously sponsored by Funk Signs Inc., Desert City Security.
Andrea Mantegna
Battle of the Sea Gods (left side), 1485-1488
engraving on laid paper
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
