Wildlife Art Information
Prehistoric cave paintings and sculptures from the ancient world are among the very earliest of mans artworks, and often include depictions of wild animals and birds. These depictions were of creatures familiar to the people who created them although it should be kept in mind that their perspective on animals was different to our own. To these ancient humans animals and birds were food or danger which is a significantly different view from our current one.
The evolution of people's attitudes to wild animals and birds is clearly reflected in wildlife art. After their initial lives close to wild animals, humans grew to separate themselves from the natural world, and this is reflected in the fact that wildlife was mostly absent from long periods of western art. Religious views at the time ignored the natural world and focused on the human realm.
Later, in the romantic art period, animals were used in the typical emotional conceptualizations of the time. For example, tigers were often represented as evil animals with downcast shameful gaze, contrasting with lions shown as noble beasts with head held high.
Around this time wildlife in art was also often about the boundaries between the human world and the natural world, rather than a view of nature in its own right. For example, there was art depicting a lion attacking a domestic horse.
Landseers paintings of stags were among the most popular of all artworks in the Victorian age and are still well loved today. Wildlife art became a popular and much loved subject. Audubon's wonderful book on the birds of America is considered the finest ever published picture book.
Conservation of nature is currently a hot topic and many wildlife paintings are created to increase public awareness of the important issues of conservation of nature. Also nature is of great interest to many people as a subject in its own right, and wildlife art reflects this interest showing wild animals and birds in their natural habitat.
