Book Reviews

S. Dittrich and L. Dittrich : Lexikon der Tiersymbole. Tiere als Sinnbilder in der Malerei des 14.-17 . Jahrhunderts. Michael Imhof Verlag , Petersberg . Second edition 2005 . ISBN 3-937251-18-9 . Price: € 135.00 .

Animals – as well as plants – have been symbols in European cultural history up into the modern age. Till far into the 17th century the incorporation of animals into religious as well as into profane scenarios of paintings was hardly ever for pictorial purpose but had a special significance, which was discerned and understood by the educated viewer at the time of their origin. But who understands their symbolism today? What do the fish, raven, crane, bear, dog, fox, cock, hen and pigeon stand for in the painting of St Christopher by Hieronymus Bosch? What is the significance of heron, snake and swan near Maria, who worships the child in a painting by Filippo Lippo? What does the guinea fowl mean in front of Hieronymus by Vicenzo Catena? Why does the lady in the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci (1489/90) hold a ferret in her arms? And what is the swallow doing in the Madonna painting by Carlo Crinelli?

The present voluminous catalogue by the Dittrich couple contains numerous examples of European paintings from four centuries and explains the symbolic characters of a variety of animals in alphabetical order from eagle (Adler) to goat (Ziege), invertebrates like molluscs, arachnids, insects, crustaceans as well as vertebrates, domestic as well as wild creatures.

At first a description of the animal species or animal group is given, in a way understandable even to non-zoologists, followed by descriptions of their symbolic content with at least one exemplary reproduction of a painting containing the particular animal. It is surprising that the symbolic content of most of the animals is neither clear nor standardized and often it has changed through the centuries. Only very few are consistent: e.g. oysters always are a symbol for luxury, sensuality and licentiousness; pigs generally represent desire, gluttony, lust and lethargy; a wren constantly is a symbol for Christ being king. A squirrel, however, can be a symbol for the search for divine truth, but also for sinfulness as well as virtuousness. Snakes, owls, pigeons or dogs also imply quite a number of different meanings. Certainly the zoologist is especially interested in the fidelity of presentation of the objects at a time when nobody worked scientifically with them. For the symbolic character, however, this fidelity generally was of minor significance; it was sufficient, for instance, that a huge neck mane revealed an animal as a male lion, regardless whether it had the overall habitus of a poodle. But then, one is astonished also to recognize very lifelike portraits of single species even in early times, e.g. the wonderfully realistic stag beetle at the feet of St Gereon in the right wing piece of the Epiphany altar in the Cologne Cathedral (1440), the Cepaea in Frans Mieris Drinking Musician (1660), the famous slug in Dieric Bouts Worship of the Kings (1465), or bullfinch, robin and red admiral in the Beheading of St Barbara by an unknown painter (1540). Paintings do not only point to the local fauna of the time, but often give the first indications of exotic species, which the people (and the painters) have seen or, at least, have been informed about for the first time. Thus one finds, e.g. giraffes, antelopes, camels and monkeys on many paintings; models for elephants very often were gifts to the potentates at that time, e.g. Martin Schongauer's representation of an African elephant (about 1483) had its model in an animal that was sent as a present from John II of Portugal to the emperor Friedrich III by sea to Holland and then via Cologne and Frankfurt into the menagerie of Innsbruck. There is a wealth of such facts and curiosities to discover when browsing through this lexicon, and one regrets its restriction to paintings only; no engravings, woodcuts, frescos and sculptures are considered, and the time before the 14th century is disregarded. Whoever may need an extraordinary gift idea for a zoologist should consider this book as the first choice!