From January 17 to February 4 in the Fine Arts Reading Room (room 306) there is a book-illustrative exhibition Wonderful Wild World: an Animalistic Genre in the Visual Arts.
The diversity and beauty of animals, their amazing varieties and bizarre forms for many centuries inspired painters and architects, sculptors and jewelers. The exposition is built according to the chronological principle from antiquity to the present, which allows us to trace the evolution of the image of the animal in the works of representatives of different eras and styles, in the traditions of the West and East. Visitors will see the reproductions of primitive cave paintings, the ancient Egyptian Sphinx and the god Anubis with the head of a wolf, an image of a sculpture of the famous Capitoline Wolf.
There are interesting Renaissance animalistic paintings as Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, Hare by Albrecht Durer, The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel. The hunting scenes created by Peter Paul Rubens, Monkeys in the Kitchen by David Teniers the Younger, the sculpture Death of Adonis by Giuseppe Mazzuola, numerous images of horses and riders (works by E. Delacroix, T. Gericault, animalist D. Stubbs) will attract attention. Camels, donkeys, giraffe of the Georgian primitive artist N. Pirosmani will not leave indifferent. The works of modern masters are also represented (installations by D. Hurst, works of photo artists, etc.).
The exhibition will introduce animals in Eastern art: Indian miniatures, Japanese engravings guotaku (image of fish). Illustrated albums will reveal the secrets of a miniature carved sculpture of netsuke, embodying fantastic animals and birds. They will leave a deep impression on the images of animals in jewelry, in particular, in Scythian jewelry.
The exhibition includes reproductions of paintings by Russian painters, such as “The Horsewoman” by K. Bryullov, “Morning in a Pine Forest” by I. Shishkin, “Shearing of Sheep” by P. Kuznetsov, “Bathing of the Red Horse” by K. Petrov-Vodkin, Images of Sculptures by P. Klodt , the works by the graphic artist and animal sculptor V. Vatagin, the caricatures by V. Chizhikov,as well as animals in architecture.
The images of animals in the works of Belarusian artists M. Chagall, E. Los, L. Schemelev, N. Seleshchuk, A. Kontsub, V. Akulov, sculptures by V. Zhbanov, sculptures of horses by S. Bondarenko, mythological creatures by the graphic artist, V. Slauka, deserve special attention.
Materials on how to draw domestic and wild animals, birds and insects supplement the exhibition. Colorful encyclopedias about rare and endangered species of animals will not leave indifferent, a significant part of which is devoted to the animal world of Belarus.
The opening hours of the exhibition correspond to the library’s opening hours.
Admission is by library card or by the ticket of the library's social and cultural center.
For more info: (+375 17) 293 27 53.
Special Collections Service Department.
