Exotic Decorative Motifs? Monkeys and Parrots in 18th-century French painting

Abstract

The study examines the symbolic meanings attached to the monkey and the parrot, based on an analysis of Jean Siméon Chardin’s paintings representing these two exotic animals. It explores the question of the privileged place of the monkey among animals in Art theory, and, in relation to the parrot, the paper also provides some reflections in the context of theories of language in the 17th and 18th centuries in France.