ABSTRACT
The subject of this book might at first sight seem to be marginal, if not superficial. Artistic modernity is not known for its animal imagery, nor for its empathic attitude towards nature. On the contrary, modernism has been repeatedly accused of reluctance to deal with natural facts and disinterest in ecological questions. These accusations are completely justified, but, as I also hope to show, modernist theory has found different ways to provide space for the animal. Often, its conception of the animal was even used, either positively or negatively, to determine what was art and what was not, in the sense given by the context. These theories mostly suggested a fixed way of defining animality in relation to human activity. This is why the work at hand concentrates on the conception of animality and its evolution: the boundaries with which animality was defined were essentially interconnected to central questions of modernity that at first may have seemed to be quite distant from animality.
