A humanoid beast with fangs and sharp claws dances weightlessly in space, like a river of black ink poured on cream-colored vellum. Its body is flecked with white dots that resemble stars. The figure is ambiguous and chimerical, evocative of many creatures: dragon, crocodile, wolf, insect, human. Its shifting form speaks of transformations and double selves, multiplicities existing in one body. The creature looks over its shoulder at its ribboning tail, as if conscious of itself.

Delanglade was a Surrealist artist who took a special interest in the drawings of the mentally ill. He often created serial illustrations in conjunction with text, challenging the boundary between visual art and literature; one of his most well-known works, ​A Lys​ (1958), was a collection of twelve illustrated poems inspired by Alice in Wonderland. This lithograph likely originates from a rare book called ​Le Bestiaire Céleste​ (The Celestial Bestiary). The book was a collaboration between Delanglade and Henry de Montherlant, a French writer known for his misogynistic views. Montherlant’s prose was accompanied by eighteen color lithographs by Delanglade depicting the twelve signs of the zodiac, along with eight additional constellations. “Fantastic Creature” was probably not originally titled as such by the artist or author, and likely represents the constellation Draco. Only 200 copies of ​Le Bestiaire Céleste w​ ere printed in 1968, 150 of which included color illustrations on vellum. The number “136/150” pencilled below the creature’s foot suggests that this lithograph once belonged to one of these 150 copies.

The title “celestial bestiary” presents a compelling paradox, evocative of both gods and monsters. Bestiaries are instruments of categorization, intended to dissect and anatomize incomprehensible creatures into discrete objects dominated by human understanding. Yet historical bestiaries often challenged their own anatomical project by placing real animals such as lions and giraffes beside creatures of mythology like gryphons and unicorns, without distinguishing between the real and the imaginary. In its original context, “Fantastic Creature” would have been placed beside Montherlant’s text, where Montherlant could collect, label, anatomize, and explain it. However, unmoored from its sheaths and bindings, it becomes a mysterious, nameless object whose body speaks for itself. It is a paradoxical being, both masculine and feminine, fierce and graceful, human and beast, monstrous and celestial. And in this fluid, formless space, it seems to dance.

Susannah Duncan, Bryn Mawr class of 2020