Animals in paintings and poems

So many painters, I found, wonderfully capture in paint the grace, ferocity or fidelity of animals. I was greatly taken with the faithful lion in Antonello Da Messina’s Saint Jerome in his Study. It is pictured in dark silhouette, ignored by its former saviour who is engrossed in spiritual exploration as he pours over his translation of the Bible. Outside the windows, birds soar, images of unbounded liberty:

“While the faithful lion, his front paw raised,
Longs to roam the desert whence he came,
And break free from the bounds of prayer and praise
To a distant God without a name…”

 

Yet it

“remains loyal to the gentle human
Who once, so long ago, healed his sore pain…”

In dramatic contrast is Rousseau’s Tiger in a Tropical Storm with his “weaponry of war” that seems composed of the violent elements:

“The sharp-fanged, piercing, open jaw,
Each raking, devastating claw…
While his low growl of rumbling thunder
Deepens to a roar, presaging murder…”

 

Humankind’s everlasting search for meaning in the world is examined by Holman Hunt, whose tragic Scapegoat must bear all our sins:

“Dare you meet his bold, accusing stare?
Freed from guilt by him, can you now bear
To bend and touch his thickly matted side
And feel his poor heart labouring inside?”

In Stubbs’ Horse Attacked by a Lion we see both the “pitiless predator” and its victim, the desperate horse, evoked equally powerfully through the artist’s consummate “skill”. The horse’s

“Eyes, furious, glaring, gleaming,
Nostrils flaring, mane streaming,
Pure white body, soon to be defiled”

exemplifies

“The undaunted spirit of the wild,
Which the ravening beast will kill”

 

amidst a beautiful, indifferent, natural landscape.

Coming next: Landscapes in paintings and poems

 

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