Animals in Art History

Hey dear Hive community, first of all I hope that you are all well and you had a day that was full of positive experiences! In this post, I would like to write something about art history and hope you can expand your knowledge a little.

Here you can see some works of art made by the painter Leo von König (1871 - 1944) and Mathias Gasteiger (1871 - 1934) and all have one thing in common and present animals. The appearing of animals has strongly influenced art history and it can also be called its own genre which has been here for thousands of years and it can be said that animals have been painted again and again since the beginning of humanity. The first paintings probably date back to prehistoric times and there are discoveries of caves in which paintings of animals have been discovered and with the change of humanity, the reference to the animal world changed more and often animals were also presented in connection with mythological or divine context. Over the millennia, the relationship with animals changed more and more and it came to the fact that people more and more solidified contact to the animal world and this was also reflected in art and in some cultures animals were so strongly revered that this is also reflected in art or mythology as in ancient Egypt, where numerous gods were depicted in shapes of animals. Animals have shaped pretty much all art epochs and it is often found in architecture, painting, sculpture, metal art, pottery and many others and in the Middle Ages the protective function of animals also became more and more consolidated and this was also more and more integrated into the works.

Those who made sure that animal painting developed into an independent genre at the time were painters of the Netherlands in the 17th century which is often described as the golden age and during this time it happened that more and more painters devoted themselves to the topic and the list of artists is long. Well-known Dutch painters of this time were Roelant Savery (1576 - 1639), Melchior de Hondecoeter (1936 - 1695) or Paulus Potter (1625 - 1654) to name just a few examples. The representation of the animals varies depending on the epoch and in particular it has also influenced the portrait painting and as a symbol of nature, animals are still an important topic in art today. With industrialization, more people decided to keep pets and this has also changed in the representations in art and there was more and more criticism of society's attitude towards the animal world and the ever-growing factory farming was often an important point to criticize in art. The relationship between humans and animals deteriorated sharply at that time and the emergence of zoos was often used as a topic to subliminally criticize the changed relationship and through the choice of the stylistic devices or colors it was not only to represent the animals but certainly also to went into the level of feelings and to put them in the foreground. To this day, animals are an important source of inspiration for numerous artists and you can see how animals have been expressed pretty much everywhere in the history of art.

Thank you very much for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about art history! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!