Neolithic cave paintings suggest that the earliest humans felt compelled to record their surroundings, to pair narratives with imagery, to create, in short, art. In a 1980 interview with Rolling Stone, the astronomer Carl Sagan reflected on our seemingly innate impulse to tell stories: “We hunger to understand,” he said, “so we invent myths about how we imagine the world is constructed.” This slideshow exhibition surveys works that depict the mythological and folkloric figures and tales that pre-date modern science. The falcon-headed Pe-dot of Ancient Egypt, Mars and Cupid, the books of the Bible—these are the creatures and characters that governed spiritual and intellectual life before the Age of Enlightenment. —C.J.F.