File:Studies in pictures; an introduction to the famous galleries (1907) (14774048084).jpg

Identifier: studiesinpicture00vand (find matches)
Title: Studies in pictures; an introduction to the famous galleries
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Van Dyke, John Charles, 1856-1932
Subjects: Painting -- Study and teaching Painting
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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came into existence as a terrorto evil-doers. Eventually the whole representationpassed into the bizarre and was lost in the gold back-ground of Byzantine art. When life and landscape again came to be studiedin the Early Renaissance time the animal was givena share of attention, but it was a very slight share.The flock around St. Joachims shecpfold was asorry-looking collection of wooden shcop; and thecows and horses that appeared in the Adoration ofthe Magi were grotesque-looking beasts, with asemi-human expression of countenance, and mostastonishing bodies. Jn sculpture some of the Italians,like Donatello and Verrocchio, were simply superbwith their horses; but the painters were in no way re-markable. Rnphaels horse was about ns wooden asPaolo Uccellos, and even Leonardo used a horse thattravelled on his hind legs, in true mcrry-go-roundfashion. The Venetians were much better. PaoloVeronese, for example, painted wonderful dogs, Tin-toretto handled all animal life with knowledge and
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THE ANIMAL IN ART 115 skill, and the Bassani were among the first to paintcows and sheep with a proper appreciation of theirpurely animal qualities. The galleries of Italy, and Italian pictures wher-ever found, have the animal more or less in evidence;but unfortunately people do not often see beyond thefigures. The Flight into Egypt is remarkable forthe pretty face of the young Madonna or the accom-panying children; the little donkey is usually notnoticed at all. So, again, in the Adoration of theMagi it is the people that are seen; few there arewho stop to look at the caparisoned steeds, the at-tendent dogs, the cattle at the manger, though theymay be the most telling features of the picture. At the north the chief merit of the Flemings andDutchmen in animal representation seems to havebeen a wearisome fidelity to exterior facts. Theynever grasped the meaning of brute life like themodern Frenchmen. There are, of course, some ex-ceptions to that statement—Kubens, for example.And the

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