Art in an Unexpected Place
As I was sitting on the E train with my friend on Sunday morning, an advertisement for the “Mythic Creatures Exhibition” which is currently held at the American Museum of Natural History, suddenly caught my eye. I honestly knew nothing about mythic creatures at the time but it seemed like an interesting exhibition to attend and I was sure I would learn many new things from it. The exhibition itself was interesting and unusual, but in a good way. The mythic creatures were divided into categories of land, water, and air, as well as dragons. I found the Chinese water dragon to be very interesting because it was able to dwell on the land and water as well as fly. There was a very intricately designed shadow puppet representation of this dragon in the exhibition which I found to be very unique and artistic. Most of the representations of the mythic creatures in the museum were either statues or two dimensional drawings, however this piece really stood out as a beautiful work of art. I also learned that dragons were highly prevalent in Chinese mythology, and thus are a part of their culture today. This exhibition not only informs visitors about the mythic creatures themselves, but also looks at the origins and cultures of these creatures which is very helpful in understanding them. I would definitely visit this exhibition again, especially because of the extraordinary statues and vivid representations of the creatures.
October 19th, 2007 at 12:22 am
Your comment “This exhibition not only informs visitors about the mythic creatures themselves, but also looks at the origins and cultures of these creatures…” reveals the role myths and stories play in defining a culture. I guess the exhibit did not just document of mythical creatures but also important parts of different cultures.