Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas

For as long as humans have told stories, we’ve imagined creatures that transcend the natural world. Fantastical beings combining the features of animals, humans, and even plants appear across cultures, emerging in the most ancient myths and enduring in contemporary epics. The widespread presence of these supernatural beings, possessing the power to transform and be transformed, reflects a global impulse to make sense of both known and unknown worlds. Visual artists have given form to these imaginary creatures, resulting in some of the most fearsome, beloved, and extraordinary works of art ever made.

Set in the evocative atmosphere of The Met Cloisters, Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas sheds light on a selection of works created on either side of the Atlantic Ocean between 500 and 1500 CE. The exhibition’s exploration of hybrid creatures deepens our understanding of their apparent necessity among diverse peoples. In the Americas, a complex gold pendant by a Tairona artist of northern Colombia, depicting a confrontational figure with hands on hips, a crocodile-like head, and an enormous headdress, would have reflected and expressed the wearer’s status and power. In Europe, ferocious dragons such as the one depicted on a monumental fresco from the monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, Spain, took center stage to convey a multiplicity of meanings both sacred and profane.

With these and over 50 other objects, including sculpture, ceramics, ivories, textiles, paintings, and metalwork, Creatures of Myth and Imagination looks beyond a specific story, time, and place to explore larger questions about who we are and what connects us.