Rats & Art
Rats, you might think they would be considered an animal not to be involved in art, too ugly, too dirty, not worthy of being included in a historical or modern-day piece of excellence. To your surprise, rats and even mice have been included in paintings, sculptures, and many other artforms for hundreds of years for a multitude of reasons that you may even find interesting or inspiring. Even though these tiny creatures may not hold up next to a cute baby bunny or kitten, they certainly have made their headway in breathtaking pieces of art throughout centuries.
Let's take a deeper look at what rats meant to the Roman Empire. Pieces of decor in an upper-class society can be thought of as grandiose, awe-inspiring monuments like life sized marble or bronze sculptures and statues. Not only did the Roman Empire have these unexplainably marvelous pieces of artwork, but they also had minuscule two-to-three-inch bronze statues of rats that were used to decorate lamps, railings, food containers and more. These small figures date back 200-300 years, according to historians were used specifically for their aesthetic. The Roman Empire was prestigious as it was and is widely known for its artwork in history and would not have made any decisions rashly. Doesn't it make you wonder how the Romans viewed rats at the time that they were being used for decoration though? It is noted that they are supposed to bring upon fertility, but it is a curiosity, at least in my eyes if there was more to the story as to why such tiny animals were valued enough to be placed throughout homes as a fine detail piece (Sidelnikova).
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Three bronze Roman rat statues |
Time to take a modern spin on things. Banksy's rats are small in size but monumental in message. A graffiti artist in Great Britain stencil paints life-size paintings of rats throughout cities to cast a bigger message than just the artwork itself. The mastermind of these pieces feels intermittently connected to these tiny rat paintings due to the nature that he is a graffiti artist who does his diligent work at night just as though rats become active in the midnight hours. Pieces can be correlated with Covid-19, the Rat Race, love and pain, protests, and even a popularity role, which is a fun twist on the fact that the Banksy Rat artists identity is truly unknown and can be assumed that he does not want fame to be the importance of his works as their true value is to portray a bigger picture than "just a rat." This outlook on rats is simply genius and holds so much voice compared to reading a bias news article on the internet or hearing about the downfalls of society on the radio. Finding the true complications in the modern day and highlighting them to create an impact no matter how big or how small (Banksy).
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Graffiti by Banksy |
Artistically speaking, rats are a very popular piece of the puzzle that makes up ancient and modern-day art. They may be small, but the impact that they make is astounding. There is always more to learn when it comes to the history that goes in the rat species, more than you could ever imagine and is often not a topic that one would think about on their own unless brought to the table by someone else. I know that I, for a fact, would have probably never thought to think about researching the influential dynamic of rats in pieces of artwork until this point. It would be highly cynical to exclude the impact that rats have had on society throughout history, big or small. Knowing what I do now, I will be keeping a lookout for Banksys rats, will you?
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