Horny, hairy and horrifying: the scariest monsters in art

From Da Vinci’s live animal mashups to a macabre giant skeleton, a horrifying history of monsters gives our writer nightmares

Want to make a monster? Well, grab a big bag, head out to the countryside, and find the strangest creatures you can: bats, dragonflies, lizards, birds, snakes. Then lock yourself in your room, kill the animals and chop them up, keeping the most interesting bits: a bat’s wings, a serpent’s tail, an owl’s eyes. Stick these together to make a terrifying, marvellous, magical new being – and invite people round to see your new “pet” before it starts to stink.

This was how a young boy called Leonardo da Vinci made a monster in his bedroom, according to his 16th-century biographer Giorgio Vasari. Monsters: A Bestiary of the Bizarre – a new picture book of imaginary creatures in handy pocket format – shows Da Vinci was not alone. Artists have been creating monsters for centuries, using exactly the same splicing technique.

Related: The top 10 monsters in art

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