Elephas Anthropogenus

After the fall of the Roman Empire, elephants virtually disappeared from Western Europe.
Since there was no real knowledge of how this animal actually looked, illustrators had to rely on oral and written transmissions to morphologically reconstruct the elephant, thus reinventing an actual existing creature. This tree diagram traces the evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages up to the age of enlightenment.

( click on drawings for magnification & additional information )

2008 | inkjet-pigment-print on canvas ( 225 cm x 150 cm ) | cardstand

This work was part of my Masterthesis at the Institute for Art in Context of the UdK, University of Arts, Berlin

A manuscript about this work was published in 2015 in Zoologischer Anzeiger Vol. 256,
Journal of Comparative Zoology, Munich, Germany, Elsevier, ISSN 00445231, pp. 36-41

Since 2009 it is on permanent display at Phyletisches Museum, Jena, Germany

All content © Uli Westphal. Please respect the copyright.