Primates featured in Art - part I, the Western World

In my last post I talked about primates making art.  Today, I want to talk about primates featured in artwork and how different cultures perceived (and maybe still do) perceive primates.

There is no shortage of paintings featuring primates and many come to mind.

They tell us about our history.  The painting below by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) depicts Prince Edward of Wales with a monkey.  The monkey is not represented realistically.  It has a striped tail, similar to that of ring-tailed lemurs and ears we often see in mythical creatures found in Gothic art, possibly ears of a dragon.  It was customary for foreign dignitaries to offer exotic animals to European royalty, so it is possible that the prince possessed a monkey at one time. In his book "Henry VIII: the king, his six wives and his court", Nick Ford specifies that the monkey the prince is holding is a guenon "which signifies wealth and exotic taste".

Kuntsmuseum collection, Basel, Switzerland

They also betray how religion influenced art and society.  In The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Catherine of Siena, Garofalo (1476-1559) placed a monkey at the foot of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.  The monkey is small and his back is rounded as if he were shameful.  The most likely interpretation is that the monkey represents the animal instinct in humans which can be tamed and kept under control though the Christian faith.

Oil on wood - London National Gallery, UK

Monkeys and great apes were later represented to point out the arrogance of humans, especially artists and maybe also to remind us that we are not as noble as we think we are.  This is what Decamps (1803-1860) probably meant to do in Le Peintre Singe (The Monkey Painter).

Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

In Nineteen Century Europe, exotic animals were associated to wealth, but also to women of ill virtue.  It was not uncommon to see pictures of women with an exotic bird or a monkey they would have received as gifts from a rich lover.  Le Douanier Rousseau who liked to paint in Le Jardin des Plantes depicted two monkeys in love in an orange grove.  Is this something he saw in the parc?

Private collection

In more recent times, primates were also depicted as companions, such as in the two self portraits of Frieda Kahlo (1907-1954) and her pet monkey (who seems to have been a spider monkey).

1938 - self-portrait with a monkey - Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

Self-portrait with Bonito and a parrot - Private collection, USA

In part two, we will look at art featuring monkeys in other cultures.  Until then... cheerio!