Beasts, myths, history and art
To find out more about the history of art, depictions of nature and the origins of mythical creatures, I watched two BBC documentaries and a YouTube playlist by Crash Course.
Civilisations is a 2018 BBC documentary series that explores the history of human civilisation through art and culture. The series spans over 50,000 years, from the earliest cave paintings to contemporary art. Of particular interest to me was episode three, about depictions of nature in art. It introduced me to the work of Albrecht Altdorfer, one of the earliest landscape artists who used the shape of trees to replace religious iconography. Later in the episode, the work of pioneer landscape photography Ansel Adams is explored. The series as a whole is a fascinating insight into key moments of art history, and how they both reflected and influenced the societies they came from.
The Crash Course World Mythology series on YouTube helped to shed more light on some of the origins of different civilisations perspectives on our relationship with the natural world. The episode on creation myths seemed particularly relevant for what I was trying to find out. It examines the different approaches cultures used to depict animals and humans, and the stark differences between them, such as how Judeo-Christian origin myths place humans above animals, yet in several Native American beliefs, animals helped humans in the beginning of the world.
In Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History, Stephen Fry looks at depictions of animals in popular culture such as in fantasy, and traces them to mythology. We discover that Asian dragons are wise, benevolent serpent-like creatures, while European dragons are fearsome, fire-breathing beasts. The Aztec dragon-like god Quetzalcoatl had feathers and sharp fangs, while the rainbow serpent from Australian Aboriginal mythology had a large reptilian head and monstrous teeth. Dragons have snake-like scales, sharp teeth and strong limbs like lions, and eagle-like talons. The dragon may be a hybrid of those three animals, according to recent research.
I’d recommend all three titles to watch, with the most interesting for me being Civilisations, the passion that the presenters Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga bring adds to the enlightening perspectives. I’d also highly recommend the Crash Course in European History on their YouTube channel for greater depth behind Western cultural movements.
