1st Edition
Art Historical Perspectives on the Portrayal of Animal Death 1550–1950
This study concentrates on the discourses around animal death in arts and the ways they changed over time.
Chapter topics span from religious symbolism to natural history cabinets, from hunting laws to animal rights, from economic history to formalist views on art. In other words, the book asks why artists have represented animal death in visual culture, maintaining that the practice has, through the whole era, been a crucial part of the understanding of our relation to the world and our identity as humans. This is the first truly integrative book-length examination of the depiction of dead animals in Western art.
The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, animal studies, and cultural history.
Introduction 1. Eden and After 2. The Metaphysical Correlate 3. Surface and Death 4. To Picture a Hunt 5. Collections, Histories, Experiments 6. Relocating Cruelty 7. A Death of a Kind
Biography
Roni Grén is an associate professor (title of docent) at the University of Turku, Finland. His topics of research have been centered on modern art theory, animal studies, and French cultural theory.
