Photo by Martin Hahn Fotodesign 2008

Gabriel von Max, "The Art Critics," date unknown. Oil on canvas, 33 x 41 in. From the exhibition "Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Nature, and the Visual Arts."

February 2009 Field Guide

Roni Horn

"Where in the World?"

Paper Cuts: 200 Years of Black Paper Dolls

Gedi Sibony

Dan Graham

"The Dirty Hands"

Yayoi Kusama

Year of Fashion

Isabelle Cornaro

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Sophie Ristelhueber

Santiago Sierra

Glenn Brown

The Face of Our Time

Edgar Degas Claude Monet Arnold Bocklin A Redon Turner Season Opens Softly at Christie’s The Purveyor of Modern Life Also This Month

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It’s the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of the revolutionary man himself, so museums from Ontario to Auckland have been mounting exhibitions that survey Darwin’s life, theories, and practices. This month, two major shows opening in the US and Germany delve into the extraordinarily wide-reaching reverberations of Darwin’s discoveries on visual artists. In New Haven, the Yale Center for British Art presents "Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science, and the Visual Arts," a fascinating look into the ways in which Darwin’s writings on geology, survival, and evolution were reflected in the art of the 19th century. The exhibition places artworks — from J. M. W. Turner, Monet, Degas, and Redon, among others — next to objects of scientific inquiry, including Darwin’s collection of pigeon skulls, fossils, and maps. In Frankfurt, "Darwin — Art and the Search for Origins," explores his impact on 20th-century art, with a special focus on the work of artists east of Britain, such as Max Ernst and Arnold Böcklin, among others. yale.edu/ycba

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"Charles Darwin" originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' February 2009 Table of Contents.