The Human Relationship with Animals in Art
Mission Statement
My aim for this project is to explore the depictions of human and animal relationships in art and techniques used to portray them. In today’s world the link between humanity and that of nature are strained through endangerment, extinction, pollution, deforestation, and general corruption of the animal kingdom. Conservation is a big passion of mine and It’s important to me to have this opportunity to explore representations of this within the art world.
I would like to explore the fine line between illustration and fine art on top of this. I am intrigued to see what aspects or characteristics of an animal artists are most drawn to and how they are featured within their work. Perhaps even anthropomorphic representations of animals.
Something else I would like to investigate is the interaction or intersection between humans and the contrast between creatures and the contexts of said representations.
What I hope to achieve from this project is an expanded understanding of natural forms and colour and perhaps how to achieve a liveliness within my future pieces as I enjoy doing art most when it is centred around animals and thus, I am excited to see what I make of this project. I hope to achieve a more refined understanding of the natural world and the collaboration of art, science, and humanity within its study and representation.
Disclaimer: My research will have to be restricted to just the internet due to quarantine and self-isolation; but even then, there is an abundance of resources. I may also be unable to produce big pieces of work, but I will aim to keep them of a good quality.
CHAPTER 1
Walton Ford
Walton Ford is an American watercolour artist born in 1960 who makes paintings and prints in the style of naturalist illustrations and follows the 19th century traditions of natural history art. Throughout his life he has held a fascination with the natural world, much fuelled by his father who would take him to natural history museums, exploring, and fishing when he was young. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design and was granted a BFA degree in film making in 1982.
Much of Ford’s art is made with all sorts of symbols, clues, and jokes which reference texts ranging from colonial literature, to myths, to travel tales and legend. His art often critiques the history of colonialism, industrialism, politics, natural science, and humanity's effect on the environment. He claims that he is always “Looking for stories so much better than what [he] could make up” [2]. An example of this would be his collection of black panther paintings that tell the story of a female black panther that escaped from Zürich zoo in Switzerland in 1933 that was loose in the swiss countryside for ten weeks before being shot along with a leopard. Another instance would be his Madagascar collection which includes the elephant bird, a long extinct giant bird, and its fictitious interaction with Spanish pirates- completely undocumented but possible.
A lot of his works are of extinct species and mythical creatures such as his Californian Griffin, which he adapted to what he would believe a griffin would look like in California- merging two native species of falcon and lion. “I deal with how animals live in the human imagination, the kind of cultural history of animals” and the “hypnagogic comment on our relationship with the natural world” [2].
Looking at his art style, it is very reminiscent of Natural History Museum dioramas. There is no middle ground to a lot of his paintings and very low horizons which makes them particularly vertiginous (there is frequently a hill drop off behind his creatures). And the lighting can often be a little peculiar due to the different light sources as if it were in a museum (the background and an inherent spotlight). Some of his other paintings are reminiscent of Japanese/ Chinese art with the use of the plain paper for the sky. The paper sky is supposed to aid in the taxonomic information of the painted animal as well as the low horizons as it is less distracting and makes the subject clearer. All this further exaggerates the Victorian study impression given off by his work.
The titles of his pieces are almost always in reference to some type of literature and add an extra layer of meaning or context to his paintings. For example, a painting called ‘Madre’ of one of his bears alludes to the fact the bear is female, and the violent display is probably territorial for its young.
The ‘Tiger of wrath’ painting of his I studied is incredibly detailed and utilises the ‘paper sky’ background so that all the attention is surrounding the tiger and doesn’t overwhelm the piece. It’s structured in a cascading way diagonally across the frame which draws the eye across the entire tiger and down to its face, especially within the way it’s illuminated to be slightly brighter at the head and darker towards its rear, this really generates a sense of depth and imposing feel of the tiger. There’s a suspense to it as the cascade structure makes the tiger appear to be leaping down perhaps onto something; and this combined with the burning ropes truly elicits the kind of story Ford strives for. The fur is very directional and provides a good movement and frames the shape of the big cat.
My impression from doing his work is that there is a reason is a reason his paintings are watercolour, gouache, and ink as it generates a richness and depth of colour that I struggled to achieve with acrylic. Ford’s pieces are typically very large, and this allows him to generate a hyper-realistic level of detail. Even if I did only choose one section, A4 was too small to achieve his level of detail. The bigger scale allows Ford to create a more impressive piece as it becomes more imposing and life like and it diminishes his brushstrokes to only really appear when painting hair. His palette is more muted than the one I used and so my colours come across a bit harsh- and my lack of fine paint brushes meant I went in with a black pencil to try and elicit a fur texture but only made it more illustrative where Ford’s work teeters more towards the fine art side of things. When I do my response, I will try and take more time with it and mute my colours a bit more so that they’re more natural and realistic like Ford. Over the last few projects, I have worked a lot with tigers, and so I am feeling them becoming more of a strength of mine.
Ford fits in well with my aims for this personal study as the entire aesthetic for his pieces are that of a 19th century illustrator and presents the creatures the same way as one would for taxonomic reference. His art also comments a lot about the relationship between humanity and other living creatures, particularly historically. As with a lot of his paintings, including ‘Tiger of Wrath’ you see man made ropes, evidence of human civilisation, and the destruction of said civilisation. I believe it also provides a statement about the reclamation of wildlife over humanity, which follows tidily with my personal study.
CHAPTER 2
Chris Austin
Chris Austin is a painter based in Toronto, Canada. His work evokes a surrealist vision of the natural world to depict unusual encounters in this fantasy world. He has utilised a selection of his paintings to feature a figure in a yellow rain mac which takes the place of the viewer in a way to almost bear witness to the levitating sharks, whales, and other marine life. His pieces appear to ask the viewer to reflect on their preconceptions of the natural world, using sharks as a highly stigmatised animal to do this.
"Fear of the great white shark by humans has probably been around since the first-time ancient man encountered one. Despite their fearsome reputation and celebrity status, very little is known about this awesome apex predator.
Sharks, in particular great whites, have always been one of the most fearful species on the planet even though less than 10 people die per year due to shark incidents. Simply put, we are not on their menu. I'd like to help change that misguided perspective through my artwork. Apex predators are essential to the balance of any healthy food chain and the same goes for our oceans. Healthy oceans need healthy shark populations." -Austin [6]
I am studying the gouache painting; ‘Where the sky meets the sea’. Within the painting a pod of five orcas are captured sailing through the air towards the horizon. It’s a contemporary piece that addresses certain issues of the modern world, such as whaling, captivity of wild caught marine life, and mistreatment of the sea. The title of the piece offers many connotations to the audience, one for me being that the whales are suspended in a place between our world and heaven, existing between the bisection of mortality. I personally enjoy this piece as I have a passion for the natural world and the ability of inferring my own interpretation of the painting makes it that more attractive to me.
There is an atmosphere created by the painting, one of ethereality. The whales are delicate and peaceful, and the bright colours of the horizon generate a feeling of hope. I believe this links to my topic of how humanity interacts with that of the animal kingdom, but in a way that demonstrates how society generates stigmas and representations for certain animals. Walton Ford seems to address the cultural aspect of this theme of humanity and animals, where Austin draws emphasis on how circumstance or context can drain away the stigma of something like an orca or great white shark. To see sharks depicted as gliding through the air peacefully really removes a lot of the fear attached to the animal, especially not seeing it as a threat in his works.
In a lot of his paintings he includes a figure in a yellow rain mac which is where he wishes to place his audience and how he depicts humanity in his art. It demonstrates a potential for humanity and wildlife to exist alongside each other instead of against. There is something also quite childlike and innocent about the yellow figure, which could suggest it’s the younger generation with the potential to undo any damage caused in the past. Its hope provoking.
The painting has been composed in a way to generate a sense of direction. The low horizon draws a lot more attention towards the whales and the luminescence of the clouds. The angle created the impression of having the perspective of one of the whales and a movement is generated to the piece in an almost wave like structure. The negative space in the top left is used to provide a lightness and to balance out against the black and business of the pod.
I enjoy the way Austin uses a rich pink base layer to his painting, allowing it to influence the overall hues of the piece to have a dreamy-pink quality where it shows through and offers a warmth against the coolness of the blue areas. The brush strokes are delicate and contribute directly to the textures of the waves and clouds. He appears to use short strokes to allow more detail and seems to sometimes use a partially dry brush to achieve rougher textures with painting.
I think studying Austin offers a lot of benefit to my own work- like the use of light and movement to capture a moment in time and to portray a story and feeling. It really generates an atmosphere.
CHAPTER 3
Kate MacDowell
Kate MacDowell is an artist from Portland, Oregon whose work focuses predominantly on natural forms and how they are impacted by human civilisation through climate change, pollution, and other unnatural interventions. She studied ceramics full-time upon returning to the United States in 2004 after working overseas. She uses her art to respond to issues in a personified way, where the use of human features within her porcelain animals create a more associative link with the audience for her underlying message to come across. Some of her animal sculptures take on anthropomorphism when they're dressed in safety equipment to protect them from manmade dangers, for example the rabbit with a gasmask. Living in many different environments and cultures has led MacDowell to have a comprehensive perception of the world that finds its way into her pieces. She has also ‘collected visual imagery and ideas from [her] travels through Renaissance Italy, Classical and Minoan Greece, Nepal, and Thailand.' which she claims to have influenced the stylization of her work.
The piece I am studying is Panhandlers: House Sparrow. It comprises of a cluster of sparrows with human hands. The title itself suggests a lot about the piece that isn’t directly obvious from viewing it. A panhandler is another term for beggar. This information changes the perspective drastically by portraying the birds in need. Even the language of the hands portrays this, with open upward facing palms. Overall, this conveys her message of how nature is in need at the hands of humanity.
All the birds are huddled together in a way of nervousness. One of the birds is particularly low to the floor even more submissively that the others. This generates a tone of vulnerability and MacDowell positions the birds at different levels to create a route for the audience's eyes to travel from the bright to dark.
MacDowell hand sculpts each of her pieces from porcelain, ‘often building a solid form and then hollowing it out’ or slip casting for duplicates. She claims that she ‘chose porcelain for its luminous and ghostly qualities as well as its strength and ability to show fine texture. It shows both the impermanence and fragility of natural forms in a dying ecosystem, while paradoxically, being a material that can last for thousands of years and is historically associated with high status and value. [she sees] each piece as a captured and preserved specimen, a painstaking record of endangered natural forms and a commentary on our own culpability.’ (MacDowell [7] )
The porcelain offers a real delicate bone feeling to her pieces. Like MacDowell said, it creates a ghostly mood and almost makes it feel unfinished or even a shadow of what it should be. The absence of colour allows a greater focus on texture and refined detail. The eyes of her birds don't really have any life to them, which is a little haunting and almost sinister. I feel that the porcelain captures the light quite dramatically and generates starker shadows to make the intricate details more obvious in the empty colour palette.
I really enjoy MacDowell’s pieces. This piece I was drawn to because the human hands aren’t immediately obvious until further inspection. In all honesty I found it comical at first because it's so unexpected. However, the more you mull the piece over and study it the more you can appreciate the cause and message behind it. The penny drops and you can identify the statement it makes about the vulnerability of the climate we live in.
The mood of her pieces does feel more ghostly to me than anything. Like a fever dream, or the way Scrooge faces the four apparitions who wish to reform him. I believe that is essentially what MacDowell is aiming to achieve. Something haunting that will stick with her audience and to make them walk away and think about the meanings of her sculpted porcelain. My reaction to Panhandlers altered once I saw the title and suddenly there was a story or idea behind it. It made it more enjoyable to me as the birds had more character given to them and a message to impart.
Studying this piece allowed me to develop my sculpting skills as I needed to focus on minute details such as the human hands which were difficult (I made two left hands at first) and the overall shape of something so small. My clay also had more of a grain to it, so it will have a rougher texture in the end, not that I’m adverse to that at all.
I believe Kate MacDowell deserves a place in my project through her messages of conservation which clearly demonstrates a relationship between humanity and animals within art, especially through her anthropomorphism. It also taught me to work on smaller animal forms and achieve finer details and proficiencies in my sculpting.
CHAPTER 4
Jennifer Gennari
Jennifer Gennari is a classically trained figurative artist who studied for three years in realism under Daniel Graves at the Florence academy of art and worked as a painting assistant to Jeff Koons. She went on to pursue teaching. She enjoys painting animals and is passionate about legitimizing the life we have alongside them.
The piece of hers that I’m studying is ‘Bastet’. Bastet is the Egyptian goddess of the home, domesticity, women's secrets, cats, fertility and childbirth. The painting displays a woman staring at the audience with flowers in her hair and sphinx cats by her hips. The body language of the woman is direct and powerful and portrays her ethereally in combination with the gold halo behind her head. Cats in Egyptian times were thought to be magical and would be considered to bring luck. Gennari uses a lot of this Egyptian iconography within her painting to make it thematic, and it makes it appear as if it could even be a mural in a place of worship. It also imparts a strong female representation.
The use of gold leaf in combination with the oil paints imparts a greater sense of value and prestige. This painting is very reminiscent of Gustav Klimt’s Judith and the head of Holofernes painting. Especially with the drapery and hair shape and powerful representation of women.
In Bastet, Gennari uses curved lines and circles to draw focus into the woman, and the detailed flowers adds intrigue to the face and her stern expression. The drapery then draws the eye down to the cats and hieroglyphic background. There is a triangle configuration to the painting where the point of focus is the face, and it expands outwards and downwards with her sloping arms to the plants and cats. The painting is tall and narrow to emphasise this.
The painting style is fine and detailed, and the smoothness of the skins contrasts with the rough texture presented in the flowers and gold leaf in the background. Gennari also makes use of two backgrounds for more contrast between the random tones of the gold leaf and the structured pattern of the hieroglyphs. Gennari uses a lot of cool hues, such as the blue, green, and purples, to contrast with the yellows in the gold to make them seem brighter and halo-like. Cool colours tend to be less overpowering and can make spaces appear larger or more distant. In Bastet’s case, it moves the woman further forward and generates a layered effect that situates her between the background and cats.
Gennari’s work portrays animals in an equal light to the human figures and each is presented with equal importance. This continues her initial aim within her art to demonstrate the importance of the relationship humans have alongside animals. She does this within Bastet by representing two religious symbols alongside each other where both appear as a part of the other with equal power. As I found out more about the painting, the more of an impression it left as there is a stronger idea behind it.
The mood of the work is empowering and fierce and I like this piece because it demands a respect from the viewer. The painting is of a large scale and would likely be imposing and I enjoy how the cats are being featured as something beautiful as well as the lady.
Studying this piece allowed me to develop my portrait skills and blending as well as practicing the use of cooler colours. I also found that the flowers were deceivingly difficult but important as they included a certain flair of femininity to the piece.
CHAPTER 5
Ian MacGillivray
Ian MacGillivray is a sport and wildlife artist born and raised in Inverness. The landscape of northern Scotland surrounded him from a young age and offers inspiration to most of his works in his adult life. He studied fine art painting at Maidstone College of Art and has appeared in the Rountree Tyron Galleries and the house of Bruar Gallery. He currently lives in Cheshire.
The painting I studied is called ‘Squeeze’ and features about twelve dogs trying to fit through a small gap in the fence. It’s a group study of the dogs and this creates quite a busy painting which provides a lot of interest as there is a lot going on to move the eye around the piece. I also enjoy the amount of movement in the painting as I can imagine there being a lot of wagging going on, and MacGillivray even goes to blur some of the space around the dog’s tail to achieve this.
Initially when I first saw this piece, I thought the blue lines of the fence stood out too much or looked odd. But in hindsight there would have been a lot of negative space at the top and less depth. The blue lines help to make the background look more out of focused and far away. It also provides a division between the dogs to create layers.
The piece feels personal to MacGillivray because there is a strong feeling of domestication, not only with the dogs but the environment also. This can be seen with the well-worn gap the dogs use and fences which makes the land feel well used. It feels familiar in a way as an English person I’m very familiar with these fences and I imagine a lot of other people are too.
‘Squeeze’ has a strong perspective to it- it has a higher angle to make it feel as if it’s a person looking down at these dogs. Perhaps even MacGillivray. It feels familiar to me which is why I like it. The mood is somewhat dreary because of the weather but the mess of dogs forces energy into the piece.
It is painted in oils and a lot of attention is put into the dogs, and the brushstrokes become a lot more gestural as the eye moves outward from the focal point. Especially in the background to help achieve the blurry-misty look. There is also evidence of the raw canvas in the corners which helps emphasise the messy and hectic nature of the painting.
MacGillivray uses cool tones in this painting which helps in the wet weather atmosphere being portrayed. I like how he compliments the browns with blues for this purpose. The blue grid lines for the fence are bright against the background to emphasise this divide between layers further. For the background I especially enjoyed the use of the lavender tones in the teal to make it feel both natural and dreamy.
I like the painting a lot because of the energy and the dreamy atmosphere from the foggy background makes it feel nostalgic. The dreariness is classically British, and you can see how evocative it is of MacGillivray’s life growing up in northern Scotland.
From studying ‘Squeeze’ I learnt a lot about colour arrangement and the tertiaries. It also helped my perspective with the depth and the different angles of dogs which was interesting to do. I feel it adds to my project well because of the domestic aspect being represented in the dogs and environment. In one way it portrays a certain power human have over animal. But in a different way- which I prefer- it portrays the purposeful relationship we have with animals as they are game dogs and are likely part of a family.
Conclusion
Through this project, I have studied the different ways the human-animal relationship is represented in art. Chris Austin had underlying interests in conservation and the welfare of the animals he depicted. Walton Ford and Jennifer Gennari cared about the historic and literal portrayal of animals in power and how they live both with and against humanity. Kate MacDowell homogenises animal and human properties into one entity and finally Ian MacGillivray presents the familial relationship between humans and animals through domestication.
From my studies I feel I have improved my understanding of natural forms and colour. It allowed me to study many different types of animal: feline, canine, marine, and aviary. With studying Jennifer Gennari, I was also able to study some human portraiture alongside it all.
I found the process behind Walton Ford’s pieces the most interesting as the context holds significance in the way he draws inspiration. Though my favourite study to do was of Kate MacDowell’s porcelain sculptures. I found that feeling the form in my hands was more informative than observation and offered multiple perspectives to the piece for study.
Each artist demonstrates a different medium and method to producing art. In this study I was able to examine watercolours, gouache, oils, and porcelain and familiarise myself further in their use.
Bibliography
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