Beestenboel (Menagerie)

On a jetty between carved totems, figures in folk dress carry the heads of animals, a stork-beaked elder holding up an egg, an elephant, a rhinoceros. Animal-headed humans are among the very oldest images we have made, from the gods of Egypt to the hybrid demons of Bosch, and the egg the elder offers is the world-egg of countless creation myths, the seed from which everything hatches. The Dutch title means both a menagerie and a glorious muddle, and the painting is happily both. It stages a creation rite as a seaside carnival, and leaves you genuinely unsure whether you are watching something sacred or just a village dress-up parade, which is exactly its charm.