art of zoo

art of zoo

Exploring the Cultural Significance and Evolution of Zoo Art

1. Introduction to Zoo Art

Zoos should also grow as the public’s interpretation of great art grows and expand their efforts to blend human creative expression with the power of animals. Zoos today need to evoke the same role of artist as the 16th century Dutch painters did by allowing for the creation of incredible representational art as a tribute from each of us to the grandness of creation, while recognizing the realistic effect of our presence of natural habitat. This signature moment of over a half millennium would show the logical growth of a cultural movement fueled by a love for the grandness and spirit that have flowed from a growing love of the planet and its creatures. What I propose has been there all along in every picture and sculpture of every zoo under contracted by bursting to grow and include all people who have passed through Zoo gates; trained or untrained in drawing and art.

Abstract: Zoos have gone through many changes concerning their purposes and public image. In the United States, early zoos sent menageries of wild animals to entertain and educate citizens in the New World. Royal menageries had been a part of many European cities since the Middle Ages and brought a sense of grandeur to cities with ornate buildings for animals. The use of painting and sculpture in these menageries captured the grandness of these buildings and the power of the kings who used zoos as tributes to power from the wonders of all creation. In recent decades, zoos have increasingly embraced education, conservation, and humane treatment issues. Zoos today must be scientists and educators and focus on the humane treatment of the collection of live animals.

2. Historical Perspectives and Evolution of Zoo Art

The grottoes and pavilions of the famous late-mosque zoo, the menagerie of the first animal park in Austria, were often the destination for leisure and ‘promenades’ exploring the surrounding landscapes. According to Fortey, the prehistoric zoo appears to have been a place not to ‘display power over nature’, but to release creativity and figurative art. Animal decoration, as an interdisciplinary genre, currently incorporates a variety of contexts and forms. The theme of humanity is widely accepted in human design, and the fact that fauna may, in turn, become the theme of mankind’s environment is consistent with both humanity’s interests in decoration and the natural world. Shamans and artists, or maestros, thrust into a world beyond the fog of Nil Age, appear in organized societies to commemorate their art through formal rituals, such as the advance stages of vegetation deities and dramatic images.

The question of why humans make art – of its purpose, function, and value – has been debated for centuries with intriguing parallels found in the activities of animals. The range of witnessing these performances in a zoo setting has also been a source of fascination and wonder throughout history. The question to ask is why, when human children playfully perform animal locomotion, is this sense of animal behavior a rich source of inspiration and value for decorated objects? Museum curators suggest that as a society that makes decorative art, this is related to the decorations we perceive in zoo art because they exist to enhance and delight public spaces. Decorating wild animals reflects and encourages our creative imagination in a way that enriches available funds for zoo improvement.

3. Themes and Techniques in Contemporary Zoo Art

“Exploring the Cultural Significance and Evolution of Zoo Art” presents data from an investigation into the representation of the zoo mouse at modern zoological sites, focusing on the scope and nature of themed paintings at zoo sites, as well as thematic and technical trends employed by contemporary artists when undertaking commissions for zoo-themed art, such as specific animals and generalized depictions of living things. Preliminary findings indicated that designers of zoo exhibits and developers of educational programs have not made full use of the potential located in paintings gifted to zoos.

Christopher Marsh, former deputy director and an associate of the Centre for the Crisis of the Modern World at the University of Dundee, has estimated that environment-inspired art is one of the most significant art movements currently, perhaps the most significant movement in history. Many of the most enduring pieces of environmental art are to be found in zoos, where they contribute both to public education and enjoyment – essential elements of many conservation activities – and also to the wonderment and joy of the zoo experience. Zoos are therefore not only important sites for the exhibition of artworks drawn from a range of traditions, but also, through commissioning works inspired by their own collections, sites of art production.

4. The Impact of Zoo Art on Conservation Efforts

The symbolic act of creating zoo art can serve as an important reminder to zoo visitors of the importance of biodiversity in their daily lives. According to esteemed natural history artist and illustrator Betsy Beard, zoo art has an important role as a conservation tool because it assembles a remarkable assemblage of species in one place, provides a context for visitors to contemplate them together, and unexpectedly reminds them of tropical hotspots far too remote for them to ordinarily consider. The premise that zoo art can instill a sense of concern and obligation for global biodiversity is unmistakable to those with a trained eye. While some visitors may miss the deeper messages, getting their attention is the first step in a process that eventually will leave a lasting positive impression.

Art at the zoo can have a significant impact on conservation efforts. Zoo artists who use their craft to convey conservation and environmental messages facilitate connections between the zoo visitor and animal that can have a transformational effect. In his book “The Zoo Story: About Nature, Children, and Art,” Michael Alec Rose writes that the intimate, transformative, and unifying properties of art “endow the object of representation with voice.” These attributes help consumers of zoo art to connect with zoo animals and the countless others living in the wild, thus growing support for conservation of the creatures that share our world. Once individuals embrace this unity and fully understand the effects that their existence has on the environment and on biodiversity, they can then work to become a part of the solution rather than remaining part of the problem.

5. Conclusion and Future Directions

There have, of course, been exceptions, and a small but notable series of works from the eighties and nineties challenged the very notion and purpose of the zoo. Stripped of most of its educational and conservative components, the zoo was depicted as a museum-like tomb of ‘captured’ animals. Since then, although works dealing with exclusion, extinction, punctual cruelty – involving for example specific cases of mistreatment or exploitation – or the conservational possibilities linked to reproduction through novel biotechniques in a kind of Noah’s ark scenario keep making the news, the sheer diversity and complexity of the zoo representational array reflect the expanded range of roles and relationships that more modern, scientifically committed institutions have put into place in the past couple of decades.

Zoos have evolved remarkably since the menageries of the past, adapting to new societal norms and becoming major players in scientific research and conservation. They reflect and embody the valuable interactions that humans have developed with non-human species. Yet opportunities to stop and think about these relationships, and to inspire that same kind of thought in others, are perhaps less common than might be imagined. This is where zoo art can step in. At its best, it can fill those gaps: providing a rare window into our shared heritage and relationship and nudging that self-indulgent species, humankind, to consider its actions and effects. And, by doing so, vividly underline the very significant purposes of modern zoos, their roles within often urban communities, and the benefits that they can provide both to broader audiences and to those we share our ecosystems with, in all their splendid diversity.