This book explores a selection of artistic representations of animals. Positioned within contemporary debates around the animal question, it challenges anthropocentric beliefs about the all-knowing, rational and speaking human subject and argues that the irrationality of animal worlds marks the very limits of human thinking. 42 b&w photographs.

Animals and Artists explores a selection of artistic representations of animals. Positioned within contemporary debates around the animal question, it challenges anthropocentric beliefs about the all-knowing, rational and speaking human subject, and argues that just because humans frame ‘the animal’ as a negative term does not mean that animals have no meaning in themselves.

Rather animals, in their very unknowability, mark the limits of human thinking.

By combining art analysis with poststructuralist, posthumanist and animal studies theories, Atkinson decenters the human and establishes a new position that embraces difference. Amidst our current ecological crisis, Animals and Artists brings readers into solidarity with other animal species, among them spiders, silkworms, bees, parrots and octopuses. It raises empathy for other life forms, drawing attention to the shared vulnerabilities of human and nonhuman animals, and in so doing underlines the power of art to bring about social change.