Centaur art
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Centaur art, although it may seem, superficially, to resemble furry fandom art, is a separate category in which artists illustrate the creatures of ancient Greek mythology known as centaurs. The upper body of the centaur, from the head to the waist, is human, whereas the rest of the creature’s body is equine. In the Greek myths, stories focused on adult male centaurs, but centaur art represents not only adult male centaurs, but also adult female centaurs and centaur children of both sexes.
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[edit] Origin
The concept of the centaur was once believed to have been derived from the ancient Greek’s first encounter with an Indo-European tribe of horsemen or cavalry. However, this notion has been discredited, and the current theory is that the origin of the concept of the centaur is much older, likely having begun with the use of “a horse totem of a tribe of early Greeks in prehistory. The earliest drawings of hippocentaurs (a kind of demon given human form, or kallikantzaroi, in ancient Greek myth) show men wearing fetishes of hindquarters of horses joined to their waists. These hobby-horse fetishes, common (in varying form) to European crop and fertility rituals, only later became depictions of human torsos joined to actual horse bodies” [1]. According to Greek myths, centaurs lived in the mountains of Thessaly.
[edit] Revival
Centaurs appear in the art of the ancient Greeks, but the revival of the figure’s popularity in modern and contemporary literature has led to its rebirth in graphic art as well. “The centaur has reappeared in art and literature, especially in the genre of fantasy,” in such modern and contemporary works as “C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia and Piers Anthony's Xanth series,” and in the science fiction works of John Varley's Titan, Wizard, and Demon series, Jack Chalker's Wellworld series, Walter Jon William's Knight Moves, Elf Sternberg's The Journal Entries series” [2]. The centaur has also been a popular figure in such television series as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: The Warrior Princess.
[edit] Media
All manner of media, from Photoshop to paint to pen and pencils, are used to render the illustrations, some of which appear in color and others of which are created in blacks, whites, and grays or pastel chalks.
[edit] Appearance
Much centaur art, despite its fantasy associations, depicts the centaur in a realistic manner, as if to offer visual evidence of the creature’s actual existence. Male and female centaurs alike are often depicted nude, although males may also be shown wearing a shirt, vest, jacket, or armored breastplate and females may be depicted as sporting a brassiere or blouse, and some also wear a cape or a shawl and a necklace. They may wear helmets, armbands, and gauntlets. Their hair is often shown as windblown, and, in some instances, they may wear a headdress. Occasionally, a centaur is executed in a more stylized manner or even in a cartoon-like fashion; some resemble the My Little Pony figures or a Disney-style character.
Some centaurs are shown as warriors, and they may carry bows and arrows, swords, spears, battleaxes, bolos, maces, stones, or other weapons. Centaurs are usually shown against a natural backdrop, such as a pasture, mountains, or a forest, presumably to maintain their association, as half-human, half-equine creatures, with the natural world. At the same time, however, centaur art shows these creatures as being social animals, so to speak, depicting them as couples, families, or tribal societies in which they interact with one another or as soldiers attacking their enemies across a battlefield. Others are armed with musical instruments. Some art, showing centaurs as angelic spirits, suggest that the creatures, like humans, had souls and that, after their deaths, they may have enjoyed an afterlife of sorts, possibly as members of a team for a divine charioteer. In a few cases, centaurs are depicted as having shaggy upper bodies. An interesting variation on the standard theme shows a centaur with a horse's body and a woman’s torso except that, in place of a human head, a horse’s head is depicted, complete with mane instead of hair.
A few centaurs are drawn in a hideous or monstrous fashion, recalling their origin as demonic figures. Their torsos, rather than resembling those of human beings, may resemble the torsos of werewolves or they may have insect-like wings in place of arms. One image is of Siamese twin female centaurs.
[edit] Complexification
A few images of centaurs mix myths. One depiction, for example, shows a winged centaur resembling Pegasus. Some centaur art combines figures from other myths, depicting a centaur as having a unicorn’s horn or a centaur as carrying a mermaid in his arms or show centaurs in the company of elves. Centaurs are also sometimes further hybridized, as it were, by being depicted as shemales. In such drawings, the penis, like the breasts, are human rather than equine in appearance (although of equine dimensions); in regard to sex and sexuality, centaurs’ human side is emphasized over their equine aspect. Usually, the penis, when depicted, grows from the same location as the organ does in horses, but it sometimes occupies the same position in the centaur as it does in human males, growing from the groin rather than between or near the horse part of the creature’s rear legs. Erotic centaur art also complexifies the centaur figure because the mixing of the human and the equine into a man-animal or a woman-animal suggests bestiality, as does the mating of centaurs with humans.
[edit] Sexuality
Some centaur art is of an erotic nature, depicting male centaurs mating with human women or female centaurs or female centaurs mating with human men. Some sketches portray nude women being carried off in the arms of a male centaur or riding naked upon a male centaur’s back.
[edit] Artists
Although much centaur art is the work of accomplished amateurs, the famous fantasy artist Boris Vallejo depicts bare-breasted male and female centaur warriors; a winged, Pegasus-like centaur carrying a naked woman aloft; a female centaur warning a male centaur in a river that he is being attacked by a springing wolf; a spear-wielding male centaur warrior rearing before a crouching human armed with a knife; female centaur defending herself against a gigantic attacking ogre; centaur archers; a centaur couple; a centaur whisking a woman off her feet; the centaur Nessuss wounded in the chest by an arrow; a helmeted centaur with a lance; a bare-breasted female centaur wading a mountain stream; a stern-faced, naked woman astride the back of a somber-faced centaur warrior; a flat-chested female centaur and an Elvis Presley-look-alike directing a young couple from a bedroom into an alternate reality; a trio of attacking female centaur warriors; and a futuristic centaur-tree hybrid armed with a dragon-headed spear [3].
[edit] Unusual centaurs
Among the more unusual centaurs that artists of the genre have depicted are robotic centaurs and centaur skeletons.
[edit] Euphemism
“Centaur art” or “centaur sex” is also a euphemism for sexually explicit gay art or films.
[edit] Other mythological and legendary characters
Gorgons, lamia, mermaids, mermen, satyrs, vampires, and werewolves are among the other mythological and legendary creatures that are often depicted in contemporary (and ancient) fantasy art.
