The new movie “Death of A Unicorn” restores the unicorns once again to the artistic news. But why these mythical creatures have been so popular for centuries?

This film, which comes to American cinemas in late March, presents a story about the greed of man, where some discover a group of unicorns on a ranch in Canada – and start chasing them to take advantage of the healing magical properties of creatures.

“Death of a Unicorn” thus comes to add to the long list of artistic works dealing with this particular mythical creature – by Middle Ages tapestry to Salvador Dali’s sculptures.

Unicorn history begins centuries before

The first unicorns depictions date from Bronze Agewith the plasma, for example, in the seals of cultures in the area of ​​the Indus Valley already in 2,600 BC. Many historians estimate that these plans may be influenced by Rishyasringa, a mythical creature of Hindu and Buddhist mythology with deer horns and is associated with fertility.

The Greek historical Districtwho lived between the 5th and 4th centuries BC, he had also written in his works for “unicorn“, An animal with a horn, which can be found in India, is about the size of a horse, white hair, purple head and blue eyes. The legend said that anyone who drank from his horn was healed by epilepsy or poisoning.

A popular magical creature

The magical powers of unicorns refer to legends from around the world – connecting the creature even with the immortality.

During the Renaissance many kings – and not only – were convinced of the healing properties of the animal and were willing to pay many sacks of gold for a unicorn horn – and the Kompogiannites of the time received their rich pay.

The first to challenge the healing properties of the alleged unicorn horns was Abruz company, one of the most distinguished doctors of the 16th century – but never questioned the very existence of unicorns. Eventually in the 17th century it was widely learned that the horns sold were in fact Narval horns.

Over the centuries many great artists have created works with protagonists. Such was, for example, Raphael’s “Portrait of Woman with Unicorn”, the “unicorn virgin” of Domeninos or the seven “unicorn tapestry”, which is now in New York.

Symbol of love

Surrealist artist Salvador Dali later turned unicorn into symbol of love. In the sculpture he made in 1977 entitled “The Unicorn”, the creature appears to make a heart -shaped hole on a wall, while a female figure lies on the ground next to him. As the artist had written in his autobiography, the work is a symbolism of his love for his wife, Gala, which Dali imagined riding a unicorn.

Today, unicorn are still everywhere around us, especially in various images circulating and reproducing social media, even a symbol of LGBTQI+ culture as a symbol of queer people’s desire to live liberated from social gender -based norms.

Curated by: George Passas