Dragons : entre science et fiction 
Jardin des Plantes
Jardin des Plantes, Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, 36, rue Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire, Paris 75005. Until 6 november 2006.
No one never saw them. And yet, they
haunt imaginary of artists, children, knights, since the night of
times.
The dragons come from all the cultures and all the times. That one
spits
fire by the mouth or the eyes, that one crawls, stroke, flies, sharp in
a dark cave or in the clouds. He very often incarnates several animals
in one. Fortunately for us other human, this extraordinary force is
never gaining. Our imagination was pleased to regularly embank it, with
sometimes the association of some divine energies. The exhibition of
the Botanical Garden
replaces the dragon in his infinite history and its representations.
150 usual objects, decorative, are as many testimonies illustrating
appearances of the animal. Reconstituted dragons, films, stories and
tales, games, illustrate the exhibition to make live or
revive the large and small adventures of the dragons. A head of
tyrannosaur recalls us that in other times, these creatures dominated
the alive world. The myth carries several incarnations, the evil
of course, but as the protection of gold, as the dragons seem so much
to appreciate, the ultimate test of human bravery. Let us remember the
dragon embanked by Tamino at the beginning of the Magic Flute of
Mozart.
