TALKING CREATURES

“An animal is something you feel like talking to.”
— A child’s definition of an animal (1951)

Storytellers have long used talking animals to highlight human foibles. Unlike the animals in fables and fairy tales, which maintain their animal characteristics, the talking creatures in this section of the exhibition blur the distinction between animal and human.

George Orwell had a difficult time finding a publisher for Animal Farm, his tale of a utopia gone wrong, at the end of WWII. As Orwell himself noted, “the fable does follow … so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia ….” He further surmised, “it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs.” A first edition of the novel (eventually published in 1945) shows Orwell’s original subtitle, Animal Farm: A Fairy Story.

A life-long equestrian, Anna Sewell was appalled by the way horses, especially working horses, were often treated by their owners. She said that her purpose in writing Black Beauty, her only novel, was “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.” Sewell’s endeavor would appear to have been successful — the novel remains one of the best-selling books of all time. According to the title page of the 1877 first edition on view, the novel is translated from the “original equine.”

“It was a dark and stormy night ....” So begins every story that Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s pet beagle and struggling novelist, attempts. The comic strip character was silent for two years before creator Charles M. Schulz gave him a voice. Inspired by his childhood dog Spike, Schulz, decided to let Snoopy “think,” noting that he had always thought there were “a lot of dogs that were smarter than their young masters.” The illustration on display shows Snoopy beginning another tale.

Although a favorite among children, Jean de Brunhoff’s Babar faces adult-size challenges. In his illustration for page nine of Histoire de Babar, the young elephant — not yet in  his signature green suit — arrives at the edge of the city. The scene becomes melancholy when one realizes that Babar is on his own, his mother having just been killed by a hunter.

Sometimes musical instruments, rather than words, give a character his or her voice. Included in the exhibition are the typescript and manuscript for E.B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan, a tale of a swan named Louis who, born mute, finds his voice after discovering his talents on the trumpet. White’s typescript and manuscript are on view. Sergey Prokofiev completed his Peter and the Wolf — a commissioned work intended to educate young children’s musical tastes — in just four days. Haunting French horns represent the wolf within the piano score on view.

MUSES

“… endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
— Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1859)

Animals have long served as scientific and aesthetic inspiration, sometimes simultaneously. This section presents works ranging from thirteenth-century Persia to twentieth-century America, including a number of examples from the Renaissance, when a new perspective on the natural world created a lasting interest in observing, categorizing, and understanding animals. Some works reflect journeys to distant lands, filled with strange and wonderful creatures. Others show an interest in those subjects closer to home, including depictions of rural life and domestic animals.

Masters of the human figure, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn and Peter Paul Rubens also made a number of animal sketches. Rembrandt’s Forequarters of an Elephant, of about 1637, is thought to be one of several depictions of a female elephant named Hansken who traveled from Ceylon to Amsterdam in 1637. The artist paid special attention to the texture of Hansken’s skin, and accurately depicted her with no tusks. Rubens’s Study of a Sleeping Lion is a preparatory sketch for one of the ten lions that appear in his dramatic, large painting Daniel in the Lions’ Den.

Illustrations:

Jean de Brunhoff (1899-1937) Dummy with illustration for page nine of Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant Ink and watercolor drawing with handwritten text on paper Gift of Laurent, Mathieu, and Thierry de Brunhoff, and purchased with the assistance of The Florence Gould Foundation and the Acquisitions Fund, Fellows Endowment Fund, Gordon N. Ray Fund, and the Heineman Fund, 2004. Photography: Schecter Lee

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606 - 1669); Forequarters of an Elephant, ca. 1637. Counterproof in black chalk on paper

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