The ladybugs along the marble floor marking a trail from the entrance of the National Gallery’s West Building provide the first indication that the exhibition currently on view breaks out of the traditional art-world mold. It does just that, bringing not just art, but science and theology as well, to the public in ways that individuals of all ages can appreciate.
The exhibition in question, Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World, studies a time in European history when the scientific revolution collided with an emphasis on art realism to shine a spotlight on heretofore unexamined insects, animals, and beestjes — “little beasts.” Featuring specimens and taxidermy from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the exhibit teaches important lessons: the value of observing nature; how art can serve practical descriptive purposes above and beyond its aesthetic beauty; and how academic disciplines can overlap and complement each other.
Dutch and Flemish Painters
Little Beasts highlights prints by artists from the Dutch “Golden Age” of art, science, and technology. Featured are “Archetypes and Studies” and “The Four Elements” by Joris Hoefnagel, the four bound volumes of the latter work being called “one of the treasures of the National Gallery’s drawing collection.” Nearly a century after Hoefnagel, the works of Jan Van Kessel the Elder also receive prominence as part of the exhibit.
The naturalistic works of Hoefnagel, Van Kessel, and others came at a compelling crossroads of world history. In the late 16th and 17th centuries, Antwerp had become a center of global commerce, and trade with the Americas, East Asia, and every place in between brought knowledge of “new” species to European shores.
In this “Golden Age,” the educated classes sought avenues to explore and understand nature and the creatures that global exploration had led them to discover. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s pioneering work in improving the microscope during this period both reflected and increased the desire to learn more about biology and the natural world.
The exhibition depicts naturalistic prints and taxidermized art side by side, allowing guests to compare the artwork to its original subject, as in this Hans Hofmann portrait of a red squirrel (exotic by 16th-century European standards) hung next to a preserved version of the real thing:
The taxidermized creatures in the exhibition run the gamut, from a reproduction of a Van Kessel painting containing several tiny insects arranged around a rosemary sprig, to larger creatures such as a peacock and an armadillo.
Helpful explanatory displays demonstrate the techniques by which Hoefnagel replicated insects’ iridescence, making their presence on the printed page almost lifelike. For those motivated to try out their own techniques, the National Gallery helpfully provides a stack of small journals and pencils, if visitors wish to sketch some of the creatures on display.
Existential Questions
A complementary film created for the exhibition and shown hourly in an adjoining gallery, Until We Are Forged: Hymns for the Elements, takes the same subject matter in an entirely different direction. Director Dario Robleto’s work asks existential and theological questions — an appropriate role for an artist-in-residence alumnus at the SETI Institute, which focuses on studying and explaining the origin and nature of life in the universe.
The film seems simple enough, featuring footage of National Gallery conservators electronically scanning some of the prints and animal specimens displayed in the exhibition, while a contemplative New Age soundtrack plays in the background. But the film’s narration asks provocative questions — about how preserving the nearly microscopic “little beasts” shows man’s nurturing, empathetic tendencies, and whether and how the act of preservation interacts with the forces of destruction and decay that will eventually overcome all of us.
In one sense, Until We Are Forged provides an unstated yet profound irony. While showing footage of conservators scanning works of art, the narration asks us to scan ourselves and think about what the acts depicted in the film say about mankind’s role and purpose in nature and the cosmos.
Approachable Art
At a time when many schools remain on summer vacation, Little Beasts provides a clever way for children to learn about the world around them — and about art — in ways they can relate to. But the very same exhibition also gives adults a chance to take a step back, appreciate the beauty of nature on a minute and a grand scale, and wonder about mankind’s place in the universe.
Little Beasts provides excellent context to an era in art history often overlooked by modern society. But by giving guests of all ages myriad ways to approach art — from the scientific to the theological — the exhibition serves a more powerful purpose, providing entry points to use art as a vehicle to understand the world.
Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World runs through Nov. 2, 2025, in the National Gallery of Art’s West Building, open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free, and tickets or passes are not required.