From the presentation of wildlife in the Romantic Divine, to the more extreme artistic expressionism seen in early modern art history, artists have found multiple ways of drawing inspiration from animals to convey their artistic messages. Here are some of the strangest and most abstract paintings inspired by animals.
By Georgia Mott
1. Carel Weight’s ‘Allegro Strepitoso’ (1932)
First on our list of paintings inspired by birds is Carel Weight’s ‘Allegro Strepitoso’. Weight composed ‘Allegro Strepitoso’ with the intention of creating dissonance between surrealism and realism in his piece, and uses this ambiguity to play with the interpretation of the piece for those viewing. The forefront of the piece depicts a disturbing scene of a lion attacking two women visiting the zoo. However, the rich colour palette paired with the farcical proportions of the lion instead generates a playful atmosphere. Weight has said that he deliberately did not use a real-life picture of a lion for the centre of the piece, in order to create a lion with deliberately comedic proportions, deliberately reinforcing a sense of ambiguity between the realistic and expressionism in art.
2. Louis Wain’s ‘In the Vineyard’ (undated)
The pinnacle of the Art Nouveau movement, Wain’s ‘In The Vineyard’ depicts a playful image of a group of cats. Wain’s art is surrounded by speculation and controversy, as the psychedelic colour palette and form of the painted cats was allegedly driven by Wain’s battle with schizophrenia, and the impact it had on his art. Personal mental health issues aside though, Wain’s art demonstrated foundational elements of the Art Nouveau style, whilst blending features of the Art Deco and Psychedelic Art movement, providing an eccentric twist on anthropomorphic animal paintings.
3. Andre Masson’s ‘Ibdes in Aragon’ (1935).
‘Ibdes in Aragon’ is part of a series of paintings created by Andre Masson, depicting the Spanish landscape in accordance with the Surrealist artistic style. Here, Masson uses the colours of the roosters at the forefront of the paintings to inspire the colours used for the landscape. But the jagged depiction of the roosters contrasts sharply with the soft and blended backdrop of the landscape.
4. Frida Kahlo’s ‘The Wounded Deer’ (1946)
Frida Khalo was famous for her self portraits, but this is the only one in which she depicted herself as a animal-human hybrid. Frida Khalo’s art tends to be full of symbolic meaning, and this piece is no exception, often interpreted as a meditation on the tribulations of womanhood, as well as resignation about one’s fate.
5. Frans Snyders’s ‘Concert of Birds’ (1629)
Concluding our survey of paintings inspired by birds, Snyders’s ‘Concert of Birds’ is a famous Romantic-era painting inspired by animals. With its depiction of birds gathering, choir-like, to sing in harmony, it shows how artists of the time often imagined nature in an idealised way, giving animals human-like qualities. Snyders also plays on the Christian foundations in Romantic art, showing the birds singing happily under a heavenly sky.