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Supernatural composite beings – imaginary creatures that combine features of different animals, humans, and plants – have been part of artistic traditions throughout human history, featuring in everything from some of the world’s oldest rock art up to present-day blockbuster films. But why do these beings show up so consistently? What roles do they play? And what do they tell us about cultures that create them?
A recent collaboration between the Met Museum’s Met Cloisters location and the Michael C Rockefeller Wing at the Met Fifth Avenue brings together more than 50 objects, artworks, and sculptures from the cultures of Europe and Central and South America between AD 500 and 1500. These are two areas that did not interact until the very end of the period; despite this, the motif of mythical beings appears again and again, reflecting a shared fascination across time and space.
Mythical figures
In ancient Mesoamerica, beings that combined different elements of the natural world were often viewed as having supernatural powers due to their ability to transcend boundaries. They consequently played an important role in mythology and religion. Quetzalcoatl, the ‘feathered serpent’ god of creation combined the body of a snake (an earthly element) with the feathers of a quetzal bird (which was seen as having a celestial nature), allowing him to move between different realms of the cosmos. An intricate Mexica (Aztec) pendant carved from a conch shell shows this hybrid deity in the act of creating a human being, with part of a human torso, hands, and legs emerging from the beast’s body.
Meanwhile, a 7ft-tall statue from San Mateo Tezoquipan Miraflores, in Mexico, depicts a creature with the body of a man and the claws, ears, and mouth of a bat (animals believed to be able to travel to the underworld, due to their association with caves). The figure has been identified as Tzinacantecuhtli, a deity who was both a destructive and a generative force. This sculpture, and others like it, would have been understood as not just representations but vessels containing the deity’s essence. Such objects were placed around sacred landscapes to serve as social enforcers and reminders of the sacrifices owed to the gods.
Hybrids were prevalent in the beliefs of the people of medieval Europe, too. At the start of the period in question, Western Europe was still home to several thriving pagan religions, and as Christianity grew in popularity it adopted a variety of fantastical creatures from the mythology of the polytheistic societies of northern Europe, ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and West Asia, reinventing them to suit this new faith. Dragons came to represent Satan, through allusions to the serpent that tempted Eve. A 13th-century crosier-head made in Limoges, France, which would have topped a ceremonial staff carried by a bishop, is decorated with several dragons, featuring a battle between St Michael the archangel and one of these creatures in the centre. This crosier would have been wielded by an ecclesiastical leader as a symbolic weapon in the fight against evil.
Fantastical creatures also functioned as more benign forces. An 11th-century Italian ivory plaque from the Cathedral of Salerno shows God creating the animals. Alongside more recognisable beasts are a griffin and a basilisk: perhaps a reminder that God created everything, even animals no one had seen. Elsewhere, the winged and haloed human-like figures of angels are frequently depicted travelling between earthly and heavenly realms.
A wider array of hybrid beings is found in medieval compendia of knowledge, such as the bestiary or ‘book of beasts’, which featured unicorns and manticores alongside real animals from distant realms like lions and pelicans, or even hedgehogs. We find all sorts of creative beasts cropping up as marginalia in manuscripts as well, from goat-snails to flying elephants. Whether hybrid creatures were believed to be real or not – and some certainly were – they clearly had cultural significance and symbolic value in medieval Europe.
Personal paraphernalia
Composite creatures appeared in more intimate settings, too. Depictions of these boundary-breaking beings served as statements of personal identity, belief, and politics. Items such as a gold crocodile-head pendant created by a Tairona artist in northern Colombia and a pair of Moche ear ornaments from Peru showing a winged running man were intended to reflect the wearer’s status and power. This symbolism extended into the afterlife as well. Moche stirrup-spout bottles, commonly used as grave goods, were shaped into or painted with a wide range of subjects, but frequently favoured warrior figures that incorporated features of plants with associations of rebirth, such as peanuts, or animals known to be fierce fighters or cunning hunters, like foxes, hawks, iguanas, and crabs.
European jewellery from the early medieval period often merged geometric and animal forms in complex patterns, making it hard to distinguish one creature from another. This is exemplified by a Frankish brooch with combined animal heads, which meld feline and reptilian features. A similarly ambiguous effect is achieved by a Langobardic bow brooch decorated with a variety of animals on one side and a human head on the reverse. Viewed one way up, this brooch looks like a human figure, while the other direction evokes the image of a four-legged beast. Such intricate pieces of personal adornment would have communicated the wearer’s identity and social position, just like the ornaments from the Americas. Tableware was also designed to impress viewers. Aquamanilia – vessels used for washing hands before a meal – were often created in the shape of mythological creatures, with unicorns and centaurs appearing particularly popular.
Creatures of Myth and Imagination demonstrates the wide variety of forms and roles taken on by hybrid beings in both medieval Europe and the ancient Americas. From powerful religious figures to fantastical creations, these elusive entities could represent many different ideas, values, and beliefs – to the extent that it is sometimes difficult to pin down their specific significance. This resistance to categorisation is a critical part of their appeal. The many objects and artworks on display betray a lasting obsession with the idea of blurring the bounds between different realms and creating something new out of the known. Then, as today, humans were captivated by the possibility of a world greater than the one we can see for ourselves.
DETAILS
Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas
Address: The Met Cloisters, 99 Margaret Corbin Drive, New York, NY 10040
Open: until 18 October
Website: www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/creatures-of-myth-and-imagination-europe-and-the-americas
Text: Amy Brunskill
