At the Met: Animals

Storage Jar decorated with Ibexes, Central Iran, 4,000-3600 B.C.

Humans have lived with, worked with, observed, worshipped, made myths about non-human animals for millennia. When I look at this elegantly delineated ibex, it's hard for me to comprehend that this pot was made 6,000 years ago. In John Berger's elucidating essay, "Why Look at Animals", he describes how humans and animals had lived parallel lives in the past, before the 19th century, in which 

every tradition between man and nature was broken. Before this rupture, animals constituted the first circle of what surrounded man. Perhaps that already suggests too great a distance. They were with man at the centre of his world. Animals first entered the imagination as messengers and promises. 

Berger goes on to describe various ancient myths centering on animals, and how this human/animal relationship changed in modern times. Thinking of that closeness it's not at all surprising that there should be so many depictions of animals in art and artifacts. 

 

Weights in the shape of a frog, Mesopotamia, Iran, or Cypress, early 2nd millenium B.C.

Very simple lines and minimal form are all that's needed to sculpt the essence of an attentive frog. Upraised head, folded legs, bulging eye; she's ready to leap forward. And her rounded volume asks for a caress.

Wall painting from a bedroom, Roman, last decade of the 1st century B.C.

A sensitively rendered bird stands alert in the center of a dark swath of wall, warmly glowing against the polished surface. Someone who knows bird species could probably identify this one since it is so specific in its details.

Figure of a Hare, Egypt, 11th century

Such a lively little hare, with those large ears pricked and the tiny tail raised. I can't help but think that the maker of this piece particularly enjoyed sculpting that alert expression of anticipation.   

Statue of a Predatory Bird, Iran, 12th-13th century

There is a range of depiction from naturalism to abstraction that is very interesting to me. Different cultures have different approaches, all valid, all producing beautiful work. This predatory bird, with its large head and simple sweep of wings is closer to an abstract rendering, but I can still feel his aggressive posture.  There's a fluid line from the jutting beak to the swelling breast and back through the wings which is very satisfying. 

Bowl with fish motif, Iran, 13th century

Dish, follower of Bernard Palissy, French, late 16th century

Here are two favorite ceramic pieces at the Met, a bowl from Iran, and a later dish from France. They show very different approaches to decoration: one simplified and the other complex and full of detail. I love them both. The Iranian bowl has a clear design, having linear elements contrasting with the circling fish at the center. The French dish also has a central element, that of a looping snake, but surrounding it are fish and crustaceans and shells and foliage and an overall texture. It's as though these two pieces provide a clear illustration of abstraction and realism, and how effective each approach can be.

(I highly recommend clicking on the French dish in order to see more of its details.)

Power Object, Republic of Benin, Fon peoples, 19th century

An elephant is a symbol of strength for the Fon peoples, and silver makes the work a prestige item. In the museum description––link above––it is stated that precious objects such as this are filled with "supernaturally potent materials to protect the monarch". This is a culture in which the magical power of animals had not yet receded. 

Flat Bag, Coeur d"Alene, Schitsu'umsh, Coeur d'Alene artist, 1895-1905

We can compare this simplified beaded image of birds with the more realistic Roman wall painting of a bird above, but I don't see that either one is stronger than the other; they are simply different. On this bag, I especially like the way the artist made patterns out of the wings and tail feathers; those diagonals play against each other, creating an animated design. 

Bronze statuette of a horse, Greek, lat 2nd-1st century B.C. 

I've posted all the works above in historical order, but kept this horse for last. This elegant and proud small stallion, sixteen inches high,  presents me with an opportunity to speak of my relationships with animals. I live in a rural area, so have lots of animals nearby: deer, moose, bear, turkey, woodchuck, raccoon, birds of all sorts, and other small creatures. I love having this animal life around me, unless they help themselves in my vegetable garden. And of course I have pets, which John Berger in his essay says are one result of animal marginalization in our culture. I do treasure my inter-species interactions. My most intense experience of working with an animal, though, came when I had a horse. There was a remarkably sensitive communication with this large animal when I was sitting on her back, speaking to her with the weight of my body, the pressure of my legs, the touch of the bit in her mouth, and also with my voice. It was magical, and made the image of the centaur––the human/horse creature––completely understandable. It also made me feel closer to a time when non-human animals were an integral part of our lives. 

Altoon Sultan, Heifers, Pawlet, Vermont, 1987, 30 x 72 in.

I've worked on this post for a couple of days, and this morning I remembered that I too have a painting of animals in the collection at the Met (not on view). I painted Heifers during a time when I worked on agricultural landscapes, and many of them, being dairy farms, included cows. Cows are curious, and I feel that they wonder about me, as I do about them. This mutual regard across species, this wonderment and magic, makes it clear why artists have wanted to depict animals from the time of the earliest paintings, many thousands of years ago. 

Growth, Decay, Growth

Early spring: the time of year when I spend most of my time in the vegetable garden, preparing rows, planting seeds and home-grown seedlings, weeding and weeding again. It is also a time when I am struck with wonder at the miracle of it all: the seeds germinating, the growth patterns, the yearly emergence of asparagus spears, the delicious fruits and vegetables I'm able to grow. 

 

Although I do understand––a little––about DNA, it still seems remarkable that this teeny broccoli seed, put in soil and watered, will grow into the broccoli plant in the first photo; it is mind-boggling to think about it.

These more recognizable seeds of corn will grow into six foot tall plants. Of course other life forms, including Homo sapiens, have tiny beginnings, all wondrous. 

Working in the garden, and walking in the woods,  also reminds me that decay has a major role in the life cycle. A compost pile is a clear lesson in how scraps of food and plant remains can be transformed over time...

,,,,into a nutrient rich soil supplement.

In a more natural way, years of decaying plant material creates a forest floor welcoming to new plants and trees. 

Over a long period of time I've seen an old pile of logs become more and more part of the forest floor, covered with mosses and lichen, small plants, and young trees; it is now a mound of new green growth, softened in outline.

The plant-covered pile of logs above began just like this one, and I expect that in several years these bare dead logs will be covered with plant life.

Decaying tree stumps are also hospitable to new plants, which create a lively mix of greens, and rich textures.

Many mushrooms grow on dead wood, such as these hemlock varnish shelf mushrooms brightening a tree stump. 

Decaying trees support more than other members of the plant family, and fungi: when I see wood chips scattered over the forest floor, I look for the telltale holes made by pileated woodpeckers drilling for insects. I've often heard the loud rat-a-tat-tat of these large birds hammering in the woods.

This cycle of life to decay to new life reminds me of John Cage's words: 

The world, the real is not an object. It is a process.                                                       

 

Spring Hope

No other season brings with it the excited anticipation, or the hope of Spring. After months of cold within nature's suspended animation come signs that life will begin again. It is very easy to understand how the myth of Persephone was formed, with her living in the underworld for part of the year, and her return to earth in spring; the stirrings of growth do seem to ask for a magical intervention. I returned home yesterday after several days away, and although there was some fresh snow on the ground, there was also a large sweep of bare lawn. This means the robins will soon return to peck at the frozen ground.

At the edge of the pond a spring is running with fresh water.

At another clear circle a tiny shoot of Yellow Flag iris pokes up bravely.

Along the south facing foundation daylilies have emerged, even warming holes in ice.

Snowdrops, the earliest and most hardy of flowers, are raising their pristine heads.

In the woods, the receding snow has exposed mosses at the base of trees, vividly green after the winter's moisture.

Above my back door is a line of Phoebe nests. Each year a female builds a new nest, though I've read that they sometimes use an old one. They'll return soon and soon there will be eggs, then little beaks sticking up above the nest's edge. Sometimes I wonder why they return to this spot, since I annoy them by using the door to go out to the backyard. Then I see the female sitting in the ash tree, bobbing her tail and waiting for me to leave.

When I took a close look at the nest I was surprised that the nest was anchored by mud on its bottom, with grasses and mosses and feathers above. Birds' nests are beautiful things, and a sign of the persistence and hope of life.

As for the other members of my household, Poppy and Blinky have decided that it is indeed spring, and mild enough, though still chilly, to go outside and get some fresh air. We in the animal kingdom, and our friends in the plant kingdom are all full of joy at this turn of seasons, as fitful as it may be.

The Wonders of Winter Survival

A couple of days ago I was amazed and elated watching this little creature––a wooly bear caterpillar––move in my hand; it waved its little legs and raised its head. Oh wow! OMG!! It's alive!

Why was I so thrilled? because a couple of days before I'd brought it inside from the shed, where it was curled up frozen solid from winter's cold. For me this was a little experiment, a test to see if it really was true that some animals survive winter by freezing. I just read a wonderful book about animals in winter––Winter World: the ingenuity of animal survival by Bernd Heinrich––which described the various strategies of getting through winter, from using anti-freeze, to powering down into torpor, to huddling together, to shivering, to lowering body temperature. Any one of those things is amazing. We homo sapiens survived moving north by using fire, wearing clothing, finding shelter; for animals other than us, only shelter is a survival mechanism used by some.

Regarding insects Heinrich writes:

Insects exhibit an exhilaration and a celebration of the exceptions, where anything goes that can.

Each insect species has a life stage at which it gets through the winter. For the Isabella Tiger moth, it is its larval stage, the wooly bear caterpillar. For the beloved Charlotte the spider––the barn spider––it is its eggs; you can see a dead spider at the bottom right, egg masses at the top of the photo above. The insects use a substance in their tissues––glycerol and sorbitol, which are alcohols, converted from glycogen––that act as antifreeze.

A couple of well-loved frog species in my area––wood frogs and peepers––survive winter by freezing solid, just like the wooly bear. It's hard to believe that this plump and active leaper becomes a block of ice in winter. Toads dig themselves into unfrozen ground and hibernate, keeping their body temperature a little above freezing, but the wood frog, gray tree frog, chorus frog, and my favorite spring peeper, all can be frozen in winter with no ill effects. Similarly to insects, they use alcohols to allow ice to form between the cells, but not inside them, which would be deadly. Heinrich describes the miraculous:

In about fifteen hours, the frog is frozen solid except for the insides of its cells. Its heart stops. No more blood flows. It no longer breathes. By most definitions it is dead. But it is prepared to again revive at a later date. 

I saw this black bear in the field in front of my house last spring. During the summer into fall, it likely ate ravenously, storing up lots of fat for its winter hibernation. When the weather began to get cold, it found a nice den in which to spend the cold months. There are interesting things about bears in hibernation: their body temperature does not go down more than a couple of degrees but they don't drink or urinate all winter; although they are sedentary for months, they don't lose bone mass. How, Heinrich asks, are they able, after five months of rest, "to get up and walk up a mountain"? No bed sores, no major loss of muscle mass, no hardened arteries from all the fat they consume.

We inadvertently simulate a hibernation-like state of inactivity in our modern environment, a new state of nature to which we are not well adapted.

Golden-crowned kinglet

Photo by Gary Irwin, courtesy of Wikipedia

One of Heinrich's favorite mysteries is how a tiny bird––the Golden-crowned kinglet––with so little body mass to keep it warm, can survive northern winters. It is smaller than a warbler, not much larger than a hummingbird. They have to eat constantly in order to have enough weight to make it through the losses of the cold nights. They do things that other birds do: fluff up their feathers to create air pockets and thus more insulating warmth, huddle together in a shelter, shiver to warm the body. In the end, Heinrich believes it's a matter of luck for individual survival, with a good balance of various strategies. I love what Heinrich has written about these birds, ending his fascinating book:

Undampened enthusiasm and raw drive would matter. I do not and cannot ever know the combination of happiness, hunger, or emotions that energize a bird. But whenever I've watched kinglets in their nonstop hopping, hovering, and searching, seen their intimate expressions, and heard their constant chatter of tsees, songs and various calls, I've felt an infectious hyperenthusiasm flow from them, and sensed a grand, boundless zest for life. They could not survive without that in their harsh world. Like us, they are programmed for optimism.
....They defy the odds and the laws of physics, and prove that the fabulous is possible. 

*I'll be away for a few days; see you next week. 

Animal Portraits

Bichitr, Portrait of the Elephant 'Alam Guman, India, ca. 1640; opaque watercolor and gold on paper, whole page 18.1 x 12.6 in.

Image courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

We love our pets, and those of us who've had the honor of knowing and working with large animals love them too. One day at the Met I saw the painting above and was surprised that it was actually a portrait, not a generic painting of an elephant. The inscription within the gold reads:

Likeness of 'Alam Guman Gajraj [the arrogant one of the earth, king of elephants, whose value is one lakh [a hundred thousand rupees]. 

He was given to the Mughul emperor Jahangir during New Year celebrations in 1614. This painting made me think about other works that treated animals as important beings, worthy of being immortalized in art.  

Paulus Potter, The Bull, 1647; oil on canvas, 92.7 x 133.5 in. 

Image courtesy of the Maritshuis.

Although this bull isn't named, I've always thought of him as a grand character, the star of a large and detailed canvas. The painting used to be known as The Young Bull, and I don't know why the title has changed, but he is certainly an "arrogant one of the earth".

George Stubbs, Eclipse at Newmarket, with a Groom and a Jockey, ca, 1770; oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 51 3/4 in. 

Photographed from a comprensive Stubbs catalog. 

George Stubbs is mainly known as a painter of horses, and it is easy to dismiss him as such. But his paintings are so beautifully made, with clarity of form and structure, that they transcend their subjects. I've seen Stubbs paintings at the Yale Center for British Art, and was entranced by them. Since we're talking about the subjects, we can admire this portrait of Eclipse, a famous racehorse of his time. Stubbs was an anatomist, and did detailed studies of horses and of other birds and mammals, including humans. 

George Stubbs, Ringwood, a Brocklesby Foxhound, 1792; oil on canvas 39 1/2 x 49 1/2 in.

Ringwood was certainly a handsome fellow, and Stubbs' portrait of him shows his regal bearing and gentle expression. There is poignancy in his gaze, a bit of sadness around the lifted eyelid. In my Stubbs catalog, I read that the breeding of hounds improved greatly over the 18th century, and Brocklesby hounds were very influential; so Ringwood was an important dog, just as 'Alam Guman was an important elephant. 

American School, Cat and Kittens, ca. 1872/1883; oil on millboard, 12 x 13 7/8 in.

This intense cat with her kittens were not important, not named, yet there's a distinct sense that the unknown artist was picturing very specific animals, each with his or her distinctive markings. I get the feeling that for them, play was a very serious business.

Alex Katz, Dog at Duck Trap, 1975; lithograph in 10 colors, 29 1/8 x 43 in.

Image courtesy AlexKatz.com

When I think of contemporary artists portraying animals, this Alex Katz print of his dog came to mind. What a sweet, happy fellow (though it might be a female). From another print you can see at the link above, I learned that the dog's name was Sunny, which seems quite appropriate.

Anne Arnold, Sunny (Skye Terrier), 1978; acrylic on terra cotta, 22 1/2 x 10 x 36 in. 

All Anne Arnold images courtesy of Alexandre Gallery

Anne Arnold was a great animal portraitist; her sculpture is full of wit and charm; I am smiling while working on this, enjoying the presence of her marvelous beings. Her work is also about recognizable personalities: when I saw the image of this sculpture I thought it must be Alex Katz's dog, down to the lolling tongue, and sure enough, when I clicked on the information, there was Sunny.

Anne Arnold, Quixote (Cat), 1982; acrylic on terra cotta, 14 1/2 x 14 x 13 in.

Anne Arnold, Ishmael, 1982; fired and painted clay, 16 3/4 x 15 x 18 in.

Ishmael and Quixote must be Maine coon cats because of the ear hair and the abundant bib-like hair on their chests. They both have a stolid seriousness, and an imperious gaze.

Anne Arnold, Sitting Cat, ca. 1988; carved wood polychrome, 20 x 21 x 7 3/4 in.

This cat, not named, is more lithe; a quicksilver intelligence, ready to run and leap.

Anne Arnold, Gretchen (Dachshund), 1978; acrylic on terra cotta, 20 1/2 x 9 x 16 in.

What a sweet girl Gretchen is! She sits like a good girl, attentive to what is being said; expectant too.

Anne Arnold, Grip (Bull Terrier), 1978; acrylic on terra cotta, 24 1/2 x 34 x 10 in. 

Grip is all attention, or maybe he's actually posing for this portrait. When I first saw this sculpture, I immediately thought of the dog in Little Rascals, the white dog with a circle around his eye. It turns out that Pete the dog was a succession of American pit bull terriers, so I was correct in seeing the resemblance. Although Arnold's sculpture is simplified compared to the heightened specificity of Stubbs' paintings, it is still accurate in form and feeling, and so sensitive to personality. For as we know, animals are as varied in their characters as humans, and every bit as worthy of commemoration in portraiture.

A Walk in the Woods: Tracks

It was a beautiful day today, mild enough, with temperatures in the teens, for me to take a snowshoe. The storm earlier in the week brought only a few inches of very fluffy snow, so it wasn't a strenuous walk. The world looked beautifully pristine with the new whites brightening the landscape. It was a fresh canvas for the marks of animal tracks, laid over the pentimento of earlier passings. Deer tracks wandered across the woodland path, curving and crossing.

My snowshoes and pole marked a trail alongside that of a large mammal....

....who I can't identify although I was taught the difference between canine and feline tracks (my mind is a sieve).

What I most enjoyed were the wandering tracks of small mammals, adding another linear element to the landscape, across tree shadows. This animal went into the old sugarhouse, and I could see its tracks leaving on the other side; perhaps it sought shelter there.

The rhythmic line of tracks flows up to the tree, around it, and up and down across the drifts.

Here an elegant curve from rock downwards, and around a small tree. These are lines worthy of Matisse.

Then there are wide tracks made by small mammals; it's possible that because the snow is so soft a wider track is formed.

With the track above and with this, there is a look of a railroad, a highway, as opposed to the thinner lines. It's wonderful to think of the hardiness of all the wild creatures, who make it through bitter winters. The woods come alive with the crisscrossing of many tracks.

I took this photograph a couple of weeks ago, not in the woods, but in front of my house. A mouse headed across the snow to my compost pile, which is behind me. All winter I see small tracks leading to the compost, a feast for winter survivalists. Some come from my shed; as my FedEx driver put it "everyone needs a home". A couple of mornings ago, early, while it was still quite dark, I looked out my kitchen window toward the garden. I saw a large shape on top of the post near the compost pile. It was an owl, waiting for his rodent meal. He noticed me and flew off. I hadn't seen an owl there in several years, so it was exciting; it was also a reminder of how precarious life is for all wild beings, especially in winter.