Baroque Birds And Beasts

NEW HAVEN — In its exhibition “‘Endless Forms’: Charles Darwin, Natural Sciences and the Visual Arts,” on view until May 3, Yale Center for British Art is offering paintings, drawings and sculpture to help visitors explore the way Darwin’s ideas of man’s relation to animals — particularly apes — shook religious belief and redefined man’s place in the natural world.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum will host a program on March 2 called “Baroque Birds and Beasts: A Menagerie of Pets in Words, Music and Painting.” Nic McGegan, an internationally renowned baroque music specialist and conductor, will offer a light-hearted look at 18th Century England and its love of animals in the pre-Darwin era through poetry readings and music. The program will begin at 5:30 and is free, as is museum admission.

“Endless Forms” includes visual sources used by Darwin for his “Expression of the Emotions in man and Animals,” (1872) drawn from the collections of original Darwin material at Cambridge University Library and on display to the public for the first time. The exhibition brings together nearly 200 objects and works including paintings, drawings, sculpture, early photographs, caricatures and natural history specimens.

Yale Center For British Art is at 1080 Chapel Street, at the corner High Street; call 203-432-2800 or visit ycba.yale.edu for additional information.