CLEVELAND, Ohio—Monsters may be scary, but people are intrigued by them.
- The Medieval Monsters: Terror, Aliens, Wonders exhibit explores the roles of monsters in the middle ages
- The exhibit is the first of its kind in North America
- The exhibit runs until October 6
Jennifer DePrizio is the Director of Interpretation at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
She was instrumental in bringing this one-of-a kind collection together.
“Monsters have existed in the world since human beings have existed,” said DePrizio. “We have always wanted an opportunity to make sense of what we don’t understand and we do that often through making monsters, so we can help explain the things that scare us.”
The Medieval Monsters: Terror, Aliens, Wonders exhibit explores the roles of monsters in the middle ages.
Dragons, teeth, and blood-red death were laboriously depicted on the pages in bibles, prayer books and other texts, known as illuminated manuscripts, for the glowing effect of the gilded artwork.
Until now, these pages have never been seen in North America, so visitors were naturally curious.
“I’ve always been fascinated with monsters and how they became a part of history,” said Jim Rybak, of Cuyahoga Falls.
“Kinda the unknown and how everything is so mystical and all the books are so old and how they believed in all that stuff...it’s kinda cool,” said Sheree Zaite, of Cleveland.
And proof that monsters live on in people’s imaginations…no matter if it’s the twelve-hundreds or the 21st century.
“We had anticipated that this exhibition would be popular, and it has far exceeded our expectations in terms of attendance, and I think because monsters still exist today, it’s something that we as human beings are still trying to figure out, and we are still searching for unicorns, we are still searching for Bigfoot, the popularity of Harry Potter movies and a lot of the monsters we see in here, are the same monsters that we are still thinking about today in 2019,” said DePrizio.
The exhibit runs through October 6.
