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Rousseau “Exotic Landscape II” -Lindsay Litton?I quickly decided to focus on Rousseau and his selection of jungle paintings for the "Animal" theme, but which to choose? Rather perversely, I've chosen Exotic Landscape II, where the animals barely feature and it's not even obvious what they are! I just love the stylised design of the foliage and, as in many of his jungle paintings, the way the animals are lurking in their surreal habitat.Rousseau claimed he had "no teacher other than nature", although he admitted he had received "some advice" from two established?Academic painters,?Félix Auguste Clément?and?Jean-Léon Gér?me. Essentially, he was self-taught and is considered to be a na?ve or primitive painter.His best-known paintings depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle.His inspiration came from illustrations in children's books and?the botanical gardens in?Paris, as well as tableaux of taxidermy wild animals.?To the critic? HYPERLINK "" \o "Arsène Alexandre" \t "_blank" Arsène Alexandre, he described his frequent visits to the?Jardin des Plantes: "When I go into the glass houses and I see the strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream."?Rousseau exaggerated the size of common plants and flowers, creating a lush environment for the creatures that populated his fantasy landscapes. The animals sometimes blend into the background or hide in the trees,?like?in this painting from the National Gallery of Art in Washington.2) Whistlejacket by George Stubbs – oil on canvas ;1762- Janet Hunt?This magnificent painting hangs in The National Gallery.One’s first sight on walking into the gallery is of a life size chestnut stallion , rearing slightly in the “levade”position ,balanced on his hind legs , ready to leap forwards. There is nothing else in the painting , except small shadows under his hind hooves. A contemporary critic wrote “ a supremely beautiful specimen of the pure bred Arabian horse at its finest.”I fell in love with Whistlejacket many years ago—he was so utterly glorious that he took my breath away and I could only stand and stare? ---- I love him still!!Janet Hunt?3) Blue Fox by Franz Marc (1911)- Gill MartinI found this month’s theme quite difficult as there seem to be few paintings where the animal is the major focus.I came across this painting by Franz Marc in a book on Expressionism. Franz Marc was part of the German Expressionist Movement which was active from around 1905 to the 1920s. It started originally in Germany and encompassed film, literature and other art forms as well as painting. Like many of the Expressionists, Franz Marc’s work is characterized by bright primary colours, simplicity and a sense of the artist’s inner feelings. He used colours to denote specific meaning: blue for masculinity and spirituality, yellow for feminine joy, and red for violence. Most of his mature work portrays animals in natural settings but in bright colours as in the Blue Fox. Although this would not be my usual choice, I like the bright colours in his work and his positive attitude to animals and nature.4) Leonardo Da Vinci-“Cats and Lions and a Dragon”-Anne PinnockLEONARDO DA VINCI (VINCI 1452-AMBOISE 1519)Cats, lions, and a dragon?c.1517-18Black chalk, pen and ink, wash | 27.0 x 21.0 cm (sheet of paper) |?RCIN 912363I do love Da Vinci’s drawings of animals, especially cats. The way he represents their movements and mannerisms is so lifelike. “A sheet of more than twenty drawings of cats and lions in a wide variety of positions; lying asleep, sitting, prowling, playing, fighting, and in one case frightened, standing with humped back and fur standing on end; in the lower half, drawn at an odd angle, is a study of a dragon, with its head bent back over?its shoulder. One of the most charming of all of Leonardo's drawings, it covers the full range of his modes from the most stylised and 'Leonardesque', in the coiling dragon, to the most acutely observed and unaffected, in the many studies of domestic cats. The most detailed studies, at centre right, show the cats sleeping, and seem to have been done directly from the life, with the subject motionless; by contrast the depictions of cats fighting had to be visualised on the basis of fleeting impressions. In most of the fights it is difficult to discern which limb belongs to which cat, and in the study at lower centre he has drawn the two cats locked together as a single unit, almost symmetrical, in the manner of a Romanesque carving.?Surrounding the studies of domestic cats are seven drawings of a single lioness, mostly crouching or prowling. Lions were well enough known in Italy at the time – they were, for example, kept in a cage behind the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence, as one of the symbols of the city – and Leonardo shows in these drawings a clear understanding of their anatomy and proportions.” Royal Collections Trust ................
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