Magical Monsters: Hybrids and Witchcraft in Early Modern Art

Abstract

Studies of early modern images of witchcraft interpret the motif of hybrid creatures as representations of demonic incarnations intended in part to demonstrate the artists’ inventive prowess and capacity for phantasia. This article broadens the scope of analysis by arguing that the hybrid functions as a prolific site of reflection on the symbolic analogy between art and witchcraft, highlighting the common creativity attributed to the artist and the magician both. A comparative analysis of Italian, German, and Dutch images produced in the long sixteenth century identifies three distinctive aspects of the hybrid: as the offspring of Circe's magic of transformation in the works of Pellegrino Tibaldi and Annibale Carracci, as the figurative expression of witchcraft-associated features in Jacques de Gheyn II's engraving, and as an artistic invention in a theatrical design after Raffaello Gualterotti and an engraved grotesque ornament by Heinrich Aldegrever.