Koslow, Susan. “Law and order in Rubens’s Wolf and fox hunt.” The Art Bulletin 78, no. 4 (1996): 680-706.
As per Susan (1996), the professor of art history in the Brooklyn College, while painting this scene of ‘Wolf and Fox Hunt’, Rubens wanted to do more than just revive the hunting scenes. He argued that the Hunt celebrated the Hapsburgs, alludes and the Flemish nobility to a specific regional circumstances. He has described about the role that science has played in shaping up of the representation of Prey by Rubens in his painting. According to him, it is the first painting of Rubens when he had created a market for a new style of art. With the same, he stated that this painting is a modern replacement for the tapestries.
Animals have always been one of the most compelling subjects for me and so for most of the artists. The relation in between animals and humans has long been a significant topics of avid interest in both academic and art discourse. However, one of the most spellbinding paintings to me is that of the “Wolf and Fox hunt” painting by Peter Paul Rubens. It was painted it in the period between 1615 and 1621 (Hill and Bracken 2014). In this essay, I shall be explaining this art work and would explain the things about this painting that I found of most appealing. I shall also analyse the form, the style, and the materials, the colours that were used in this painting and why they were used for. I also intend to make a comparison in between the art form of that period in different cultures as well as the art forms of same culture in different period. Furthermore, this paper shall also elaborate on the significance of this kind of art works as well as the significance of Rubens in the history of art.
Wolf and Fox Hunt painting is a huge oil painting of 245.4 x 376.2 cm on a wide canvas with a very dull, soft and earthy colours. It almost looks like a real scene of a hunting day. However, as per one of the articles “Art Museum Gets A Rubens of 1617” presented by the New York times, this painting depicts some of the figures that are supposedly representing Rubens himself and his beloved wife (“Art museum gets a Rubens of 1617;” 2018). He has created a very tense and tidy scene by making use of strong dialogues and rick colours and these features are giving it a natural look. The sky in the painting is looking misty as if it is an early morning scene. Rubens have created this mood by using very soft brushes. It is also to note that there are a great details of a variety of animals including horses, foxes, dogs and wolves (Palmeri 2016). That very ferocious and convincing expressions of these animals is the reason why this painting is so appealing to me. It almost looks like a real life scene. It looks as if the foxes and wolves are hunting the dogs for their food. There is such a great passion and movement in the animals in this painting. The eyes of these animals and the bodily expressions that they are presenting in this painting reveals fear and rage. It looks as if the horses are very excited as they are standing on their back legs. Furthermore, the canines of the foxes and the wolves are extremely sharp and pointed. The painting presents a great exaggeration and detail to their faces and bodies. Moreover, the animals who are lying on the ground appears to be in hurt and suffering. The artist has made use of lot of shading in the creation of the animals as well as in achieving perfect tones and colour. This is making them appear intense and real.
Peter Paul Rubens was a very popular and renowned Flemish artist of 17th century (Beirne and Janssen 2018). He was born in the year 1577 and was died in the year 1640. He is regarded as one of the most influential artists of the Flemish Baroque tradition (Davies 2016). During his entire life, he has painted huge number of paintings and majority of them are of several hunting scenes. Apart from this very painting of “Wolf and Fox Hunt”, Ruben has also painted “The Lion Hunt” in 1616, “Tigers and Lion Hunts” in 1615-20, the “Boar Hunt” in the year 1617 and “The Hippopotamus and crocodile Hunt” in the year 1616. These painting have fascinated a large number of audiences all around the globe. This painting has become famous due to its ability to present the images of the animals that the other artists has no ingress to.
During the 17th century, people used to have very limited knowledge and understanding in relation to the exotic people and animals and this has given such paintings of Rubens their popularity (Carvalho et al. 2015). They were something that depicted very unique scenes which were not that common among the Europeans in their day to day life. In that period, people were not used to of viewing such exotic animals like lions, crocodiles and wolves and therefore, painting of these animals had fascinated such a large number of audiences. This is one of the significances of this painting. This painting has also depicted the culture of the European society in the 17th century. With the same, one of the other significance of such kind of art work is that Rubens have communicated the issue of class difference present within the society of that period through this painting (Hill and Bracken 2014). It is to mention that hunting was restricted for most of the common people. This privilege was only for the mighty and the nobles. This painting has depicted the upper class men and women in their hunting expeditions, which were prohibited to the common people. Those nobles used to keep such exotic animals in their zoos and homes as pets. It is note that Ruben had very close contact with the nobles of that times and hence, he was able to gain access to such images that he tried to forecast through his painting. Most of the paintings by Rubens were been sold to the nobles and so is the Wolf and Fox Hunt that was sold to the duke of Hamilton.
To conclude, I could say that this painting depicts high points of movement and emotion. There is a great exaggeration to the animals and also, the features of the human beings are emphasized. It is also to note that this painting belongs to the European Art Family and at present, it is there in the Met Museum. As I was trying to analyse the painting, I realised that this painting depicts that the wolves and the foxes belong to the people there in the horses, while the dogs belong those men on the foot. The wolves and the fixes were there for hunting and dogs were their food. Through this painting, the artist has brought in a violent nature of hunting making use of different techniques like position, texture and colour. I must say, this painting insists the viewers to think and use their own imagination beyond what is there on the very canvas.
“ART MUSEUM GETS A RUBENS OF 1617;”. 2018. Nytimes.Com. https://www.nytimes.com/1910/05/06/archives/art-museum-gets-a-rubens-of-1617-wolf-and-fox-hunt-shows-figures.html.
Beirne, Piers, and Janine Janssen. “Hunting Worlds Turned Upside Down? Paulus Potter’s Life of a Hunter.” In Murdering Animals, pp. 49-69. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2018.
Carvalho, Mariana, Jorge M. Palmeirim, Francisco C. Rego, Nelson Sole, Aristides Santana, and John E. Fa. “What motivates hunters to target exotic or endemic species on the island of São Tomé, Gulf of Guinea?.” Oryx 49, no. 2 (2015): 278-286.
Davies, Jonathan. “Peter Paul Rubens: Broker of Peace, Painter of Violence.” In Aspects of Violence in Renaissance Europe, pp. 161-192. Routledge, 2016.
Hill, Robert, and Susan Bracken. “The ambassador and the artist: Sir Dudley Carleton’s relationship with Peter Paul Rubens: connoisseurship and art collecting at the court of the early Stuarts.” Journal of the History of Collections 26, no. 2 (2014): 171-191.
Hill, Robert, and Susan Bracken. “The ambassador and the artist: Sir Dudley Carleton’s relationship with Peter Paul Rubens: connoisseurship and art collecting at the court of the early Stuarts.” Journal of the History of Collections 26, no. 2 (2014): 171-191.
Koslow, Susan. “Law and order in Rubens’s Wolf and fox hunt.” The Art Bulletin 78, no. 4 (1996): 680-706.
Palmeri, Frank. “A Profusion of Dead Animals: Autocritique in Seventeenth-Century Flemish Gamepieces.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 16, no. 1 (2016): 50-77.
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