NOTES ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS IN ART
LOOKING back over the vast field of historic art it is obvious that the representation of animals has occupied a very important position—even the prehistoric cave-men display their artistic instinct in animal draughtsmanship, and in that alone, and their naturalistic scratched and incised outlines have set down for us in unerring characterization, the forms of the mastodon, reindeer, and other animals of the primitive hunter.
Judging from these relics it would seem as if naturalistic sketching preceded systematic ornamental or decorative treatment of animals in design such as distinguishes the art of the ancient civilizations of the East.
Egyptian treatment of birds. from hieroglyphics of the 18th Dynasty.
Tombs of the kings. Thebes.
Long before such systematization as we find in ancient Egyptian art, no doubt the power of depicting animals became important in the tribal state, when it was necessary for each tribe to have their distinguishing totem, and to be able to establish their identity or respectability by unmistakable portraits, if not of their ancestors, at least of their protecting animal deities and symbolic progenitors. Nature worship, which became
elaborated in a symbolic religious system under the ancient Egyptians, under the conditions of mural and glyptic art led to that severe and dignified formalism combined with essential characterization in the treatment of birds and animals which has never been surpassed and which have given splendid types for the mural painter and sculptor for all time. Heavier and more formal and architectural in their sculptural treatment of symbolic animals, such as the winged bulls which form essential architectural features, the Assyrians, when they came to the treatment of actual scenes of life (such as the lion-hunts of their kings, carved in low relief on the walls of their palaces,) showed a freer and more naturalistic feeling which breaks through a prevailing formalism and convention sometimes with almost startling power, as in the celebrated wounded lioness of the Nineveh slabs in the British Museum.
Lion from Assyrian Bas-relief.
Persian Lion from the frieze at Susa (Perrot & chipiez)
Lion from a Theban bas-relief. (Perrot & chipiez)
There is a considerable resemblance in treatment between the Assyrian lion in sculpture and the lion of ancient Persia as he appears at the
palace of Susa, though, heightened with enamel, the latter acquires a certain decorative and distinctive ferocity. A lion from a Theban bas-relief shows the simpler and more abstract treatment of Egyptian art.
This Perso-Assyrian type of lion might almost be called a central Asian type, and is curiously perpetuated in the well-known supporters of the pillar over the gate of Mycenæ.
In fact the later Greek lion shows marked traces of his descent from his Asian prototypes. The influence of the same decorative formalism, more especially of the mane and hirsute appendages, is indeed traceable through Byzantine times, from the bronze lion of St. Mark to the heraldic lions of the middle ages. The same influence is seen again in the remarkable group of lions forming the capital of a column discovered at Sarnath near Benares in India, associated with many other sculptures of Graeco-Buddhist origin.
Græco-Buddhist Group of Lions carved in marble forming summit of a column excavated at Sarnath n^r. Benares
For perfect monumental treatment of horses, when truthful action and vitality are perfectly united with linear rhythm and decorative effect, we must still turn to the pan-athenaic frieze—despite the opinion of the Yorkshire horse-dealer who pronounced them "only damned galloways, not worth ten pounds apiece!" They remain full of life and movement and as examples of most delicate relief sculpture governed by ornamental feeling.
Animal forms from early Greek pottery
I should just like to mention, while speaking of Greek art, the practice of the early vase painter, who, frequently using animals as his main decorative motive, had a system by which he was able to harmonize many different kinds in, say, a running border, or succession of borders. This was done partly through the influence of the brush and partly by the recognition of typical resemblances even in apparently diverse forms. The basis of unity was the oval or ovoid shape of the bodies of all animals and birds. The vase painter with his ornamental purpose in view exaggerated this resemblance, governing his individual shapes by a sort of invisible volute-like curves, he gained a rhythmic decorative effect without loss of identity in his forms.
With the development of heraldry in mediaeval times we come upon a world of spirited and vividly decorative design in which the forms of animals play a very important part. A very instructive study might be made of the mediaeval heraldic lion alone. The heraldic designer had to be emphatic in his forms, and distinct though simple in characterization. As with the Greek vase painter, profile best served his purpose, and effective silhouette became all important. When the lion is "passant regardant" in mediaeval heraldry the full face has a curiously human character, as in the arms of Prince John at Eltham which Mr. G. W. Eve gives in his "Heraldry as Art."
The Lion in English heraldry.
Arms of Prince John of Eltham,
Westminster Abbey.
Among the finest examples of the treatment of animals in decorative art of an heraldic and symbolic character are the designs of the twelfth and thirteenth-century textiles, in the celebrated Sicilian silks, or those of Lucca of the fourteenth century. In these fabrics the animal forms are used with the greatest ornamental effect, the conditions of the repeat of the pattern and the exigences of the loom being essential, and, frankly acknowledged, contribute to the character and beauty of the result.
It has always been the frank and workmanlike acceptance of the necessary conditions of the materials and methods of production, which, while defining the character of the treatment, gives both character and beauty to decorative art, and we find this especially true in regard to the treatment of animal forms in all kinds of design.
SICILIAN SILK, THIRTEENTH CENTURY (FISHBACH).
SICILIAN SILK, THIRTEENTH CENTURY (FISHBACH).
SICILIAN SILK, THIRTEENTH CENTURY (FISHBACH).
The pursuit of superficial imitation in modern times, the pictorial aim which includes atmospheric effect and the representation of values, textures, and surfaces, extending its influence over all the arts of design has done much to destroy the dignity, the character, and the decorative reserve of ancient and mediaeval design in the treatment of animals; the so-called naturalistic aim producing palpably absurd effects in sculpture and in heraldry, for instance. With the modern revival of design and knowledge of the handicrafts this mistake has been largely corrected. Artists have discovered the peculiar qualities proper to different materials and processes and their value as means of expression in design is much more generally understood and acknowledged, while fresh study of nature has helped, with these, to make a fresh and appropriate convention in the treatment of animals possible. The Japanese have taught us that marvellous fidelity to nature may be united with decorative effect in the treatment of animals—especially birds and fishes, and that certain facts of structure and surface or colour may become, under skilful treatment, brilliant parts of a design—as the scales of a fish in inlays of pearl, or in lacquer: the plumage of a bird in silk embroidery, or the system of structure of the feathers expressed in the delicate lines of cloisonné enamel. Examples of Chinese art might be referred to also for excellence in the same qualities united with more decorative reserve and dignity.
FROM THE "HUNDRED BIRDS" OF BARI.
I have not mentioned Indian art, except the example at Sarnath, which, at least, as regards the Hindu side abounds with examples of the decorative treatment of animals, the temples being frequently a mass of animal life in carving, continuous courses being formed of elephants, horses, and bulls in succession. The peacock, too, being a sacred bird, constantly appears. At the old palace of Man Mandir at Gwalior, Central India, I saw a carved stone bracket in which a peacock had been very effectively treated for its constructive purpose: and in the south, at Tanjore, I saw the splendid bird, in the quick, with tail like a sweeping robe, perched upon the sacred colossal bull which, carved in black stone (or marble, darkened with successive libations of votive oil) reposes in the court of the great temple, and whose living prototype might easily be found drawing an ox-cart in the town.
Peacock bracket.
Man Mandir Palace.
Gwalior.
Elephant bracket
Man Mandir Palace
Gwalior
At Gwalior, too, I noted a treatment of the elephant in a carved stone bracket in the old palace of Man Mandir, which in structure recalled the wondrous columns of the temple at Steerungum at Trichinopoly in the south, though in the latter case the subject is mainly the horseman, but the resemblance is in the arrangement which seems characteristic of Indian (Hindu) carving. At the Guest House, Gwalior, also, elephants' heads were treated ingeniously as the corbels supporting balconies. It was modern work, but evidently influenced by the carvings in the old palace above mentioned. There was an abundance of floral carving and geometric pierced work in this Guest House, besides, extremely skilful and beautiful in detail, showing that the modern Hindu architectural carver had by no means lost his cunning. This, of course, was a native state.
Elephant corbels
Guest House
Gwalior
One almost wonders that golden images of favourite race-horses are not set up in—well, some of our public places, for it cannot be said that there is no animal worship in our own country, though the votive offerings in art usually take the form of sporting prints, or paintings of fat stock with straight backs and short horns.
ELEPHANT CORBELS,
GUEST HOUSE, GWALIOR.
Animal painting was once an honoured and prosperous career in England, and prints after Landseer covered a considerable acreage in the early Victorian epoch. Do not his lions still support Nelson in Trafalgar Square, and perhaps afford some protection to unpopular speakers on that historic plinth? I think, however, most of us would prefer the little lion which was modelled by Alfred Stevens, both as a dignified representation of our National Totem and as an example of native artistic style and treatment.
Lion by Alfred Stevens,
formerly part of the outer iron railing
of the British Museum.