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The European savage is an imaginary figure, created by Hellenic culture that applied the term to those who did not fit into the system of the polis and did not belong to the Barbarian world (Persians). This ambiguous creature, half human, half animal and related to the gods, the Greek savage (centaur, satyr, Cyclops) lived in nature and was free of conquering pretensions, unlike the Barbarians. In the Middle Ages, the savages became wild men and hermits. With the conquest of the Americas, entire peoples fell victim to this commonplace, which erased their human characteristics and made them hard to know. Then, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the advances of science and a greater knowledge of the body and mind brought forth classical images in art, particularly of a symbolist nature, of what we could call the 'savage within' - the unknown in the individual's body.
In art, literature and cinema, the image of the savage created by European culture has appeared in every age since at least the fifth century BC, and is still relevant today, at the start of the twenty-first century.
The exhibition includes a selection of original works that illustrate ideas and fantasies about the savage in the various historical epochs: works of painting, engravings, tapestries, original photographs, and comics and films.
Curator: Roger Bartra and Pilar Pedraza
Production:
CCCB y Fundación Bancaja.