Hello! For this week’s blog post, I wanted to focus on the art of animals in paintings. Often, when looking at paintings, I feel as though paintings of people, landscape, and/or abstract settings/topics are more common than paintings of animals. Although this may be wrong, I personally have not seen many paintings that revolve around or include animals, and I think it might be fun to look at paintings that celebrate animals. So this week I wanted to include an array of paintings that focus on or include animals.
Image from Albertina
The first artwork I found was by Albrecht Durer called the Hare. It’s an extremely beautiful work that shows a lot of detail in the animal, considering that this is done in watercolour; Durer also creates this hare with extremely accuracy, making the hare seem alive and right in front of us.
Image from WGA
The second painting I found is of a Goldfinch done by Carel Fabritius. I admire the simplicity of the painting. The main focus is the bird, and it’s adorable. In my opinion, this goldfinch also looks very lifelife.
Image from MET
Another painting I know that has a goldfinch within the work is the Madonna and Child created by Carlo Crivelli. This one has Christ delicately hold onto a goldfinch, and it is placed there symbolically, but it’s still beautifully placed into the painting.
The last painting was created by Leonardo da Vinci, and it is called The Lady with the Ermine. I love this painting because who wouldn’t want a portrait with their pet? And this pet is a weasel! I’m not entirely sure if this portrait of, supposedly, Cecilia Gallerani includes the ermine/weasel as her pet or a reference to her name, but it’s still a very prominent painting of a woman and a cute ermine.
There are many other paintings that I found that include animals in them, which I will include in another post. It’s so interesting to see how artists make their artwork unique through animals. Some incorporate animals into their work, while others primarily focus on animals. I think these painting are also a nice appreciation for animals.
Image from tate.org