{"id":98041,"date":"2020-04-14T11:46:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T09:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/?p=98041"},"modified":"2020-12-02T13:40:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T12:40:16","slug":"renaissance-pictures-wild-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2020\/04\/14\/renaissance-pictures-wild-animals\/","title":{"rendered":"To be discovered: five unusual Renaissance pictures of wild animals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In periods of serious human crisis, one might find it strange to read about wild animals and Renaissance pictures. Epidemiological statistics, economic downturns, countermeasures, availability of hospital beds, the response of politicians: these are the topics we are currently expecting in the daily news. Yet wild animals have been given fresh press coverage these days, not so much because of the environmental concerns we used to hear in the pre-epidemic times, but rather because this very human crisis has involved them in unexpected ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, wild animals have been the involuntary origin of this new disease. The infamous bat and pangolin know it well. On the other hand, they have been hailed as winners, taking back those environments otherwise reserved to humans, from deer running down the streets of Japanese cities to fake dolphins swimming in the canals of Venice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These anecdotes are just human representations of wild animals through press, urban legends, and even Hollywood predictions (seen the surprising film Contagion?). Since the cave paintings, humans have loved to represent wild animals and give them meaning in a way or another. Today\u2019s stories about them are not different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we present here is a selection of five animal representations you might not know about, picked up from Renaissance Italy and Northern Europe. As Simona Cohen well explains in her book Animals as Disguised Symbols in Renaissance Art<\/em>, during this time and in those places, artists depicted wild animals both for the sake of some quest for scientific naturalism and for reasons of adding symbols to their images. Science and fiction coexisted, not unlike what happens today. It was a truly pivotal moment in the human-beast relationship, with art to represent it. Our selection aims at giving an overview of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg as Saint Jerome<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Lucas Cranach the Elder, German, 1472-1553. Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg as St. Jerome<\/em>, 1526. Oil on wood panel, 45 1\/4 x 35 1\/16 inches, SN308. Bequest of John Ringling, 1936, Collection of The John and Mable Ringling. Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida, Florida State University.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This oil on panel held at The Ringling<\/a> in Sarasota dates back to 1526. Cranach depicts the Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg in it, representing him as Saint Jerome to give him honours. Cranach painted at least 8 different pictures of Saint Jerome with the hagiographical reference of the tamed lion. However, this painting presents a much larger amount of animals, cramming them into a catalogue of allegories. Their unrealistic choreography and the unnatural light illuminating them give the painting a surrealistic tone, reminiscent of works by Dal\u00ec or De Chirico. There is an uncanny flatness, an awkward perspective. In the Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Polyxeni Potter writes about the painting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the naturalism so valued in the art of Cranach\u2019s time and his own interest in painting them, the animals in this portrait of St. Jerome remain just icons of human values, […] intended to symbolize characteristics laudable to the patron: monogamy, industriousness, frugality, loyalty, rejection of earthly desires. (Potter 2012)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Leonardo, Study of Insects<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Leonardo da Vinci, Study of Insects<\/em>, approx 1480 and 1503-1505, inv. 15581 D.C., pen and ink on red-colored paper, two fragments on sheet, 129 x 118 mm. Credit: Musei Reali – Biblioteca Reale di Torino.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Leonardo\u2019s drawings of animals are first and foremost scientific studies in anatomy and movement. These two sketches pasted together on one sheet are held at the Biblioteca Reale in Turin<\/a>. The top one depicts a coleopter and dates around 1480, the one at the bottom represents an antlion and was made around 1505. The naturalism of these pictures is stunning, and speaks clearly of the artist\u2019s fascination for nature. However, one should not forget that Leonardo also produced a detailed bestiary of Medieval inspiration, where the symbolism and supernatural properties of wild animals are clearly described. As Simona Cohen writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest scientist-artist of the Renaissance, who prided himself on his empirical methodology, considered these fantastic animal tales with their appended moralizations, to be worth copying. Thus symbolism and empirical naturalism coexisted in Leonardo\u2019s art. He valued and preserved the bestiary tradition, despite its encumbering legends and ethical appendages; it did not conflict with his highly innovative scientific work on animals. Fact and fantasy existed side by side. (Cohen 2008, p.29)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For more about Leonardo’s drawings, check our article<\/a> about recent restorations of his paintings and discoveries about his work process.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Giovanni Mansueti, Saint Jerome in Penitence<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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