Instead, like the insect, the work must come into being in the "scopic field. and loses its distinctness." For Fer, the anthropomorphic qualities of imitation found in the erotic, organic sculptures of artists Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois, are not necessarily for strictly "mimetic" purposes. She puts forth the thoughts of Surrealist writer Roger Caillois, who speaks of the "spacial lure of the subject, the way in which the subject could inhabit their surroundings." Caillous uses the example of an insect who "through camouflage does so in order to become invisible. Reacting to Fried's interpretation of minimalist art's "looming presence of objects which appear as actors might on a stage", Fer interprets the artists in Eccentric Abstraction to a new form of anthropomorphism. Fried considers the Literalist art's "hollowness" to be "biomorphic" as it references a living organism.Ĭurator Lucy Lippard's Eccentric Abstraction show, in 1966, sets up Briony Fer's writing of a post minimalist anthropomorphism. The minimalist decision of "hollowness" in much of their work, was also considered by Fried, to be "blatantly anthropomorphic." This "hollowness" contributes to the idea of a separate inside an idea mirrored in the human form. Q: then why didn't you make it smaller so that the observer could see over the top?įried implies an anthropomorphic connection by means of "a surrogate person-that is, a kind of statue." Q: Why didn't you make it larger so that it would loom over the observer? Fried references a conversation in which Tony Smith answers questions about his "six-foot cube, Die." The viewer engages the minimalist work, not as an autonomous art object, but as a theatrical interaction.
In the essay " Art and Objecthood", Michael Fried makes the case that " Literalist art" ( Minimalism) becomes theatrical by means of anthropomorphism. In Art Spiegelman's Maus, a graphic novel about The Holocaust, different races are portrayed as different animals - the Jews as mice, Germans as cats and Poles as pigs, for example.
#Assigning human traits to animals series#
Garry Kilworth's Welkin Weasels series reverses the idea of carnivores as villains in children's literature. Perhaps most famously, George Orwell converted several key actors in the Russian Revolution into anthropomorphic animals in his satire Animal Farm. Neil Gaiman is notable for anthropomorphising seven aspects of the world in his series Sandman, named the Endless: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Piers Anthony also wrote a series regarding the seven Incarnations of Immortality, which are Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil, and Good. However, anthropomorphism is not exclusively used as a device in children's literature: Terry Pratchett is notable for having several anthropomorphic characters in his Discworld series, the best-known of which is the character Death. Numerous sects throughout history have been called anthropomorphites attributing such things as hands and eyes to God, including a sect in Egypt in the 4th century, and an heretical, 10th-century sect, who literally interpreted Book of Genesis chapter 1, verse 27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him male and female he created them."įrom the perspective of adherents of religions in which humans were created in the form of the divine, the phenomenon may be considered theomorphism, or the giving of divine qualities to humans. Anthropomorphism in this case is referred to as anthropotheism.
The Greek gods, such as Zeus and Apollo, were often depicted in human form exhibiting human traits.
Many mythologies are concerned with anthropomorphic deities who express human characteristics such as jealousy, hatred, or love.
In religion and mythology, anthropomorphism refers to the perception of a divine being or beings in human form, or the recognition of human qualities in these beings.
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