Hello there everyone! It’s time to discuss something silly (as if anything I ever write is ever serious), and I promise it’s a really fun subject everybody seems to love! This week’s topic is big, voluptuous, prominent in art – and no, it isn’t nude women (get your minds out of the gutter) – This week we are talking cows! Why? Because Cow Appreciation Day is July 11th, and art history proves humankind appreciates their cattle!
Images of cows go back far: think prehistoric cave paintings with figurative people, animals, and the real star of the show: cattle. Most famously, Lascaux Cave in France is home to a large bull cave painting, but others have been found in Spain, India, and Africa. Unsurprisingly these robust beasts have been depicted so early on, people began to domesticate cattle over 10,000 years ago, an important staple of the early human diet!
Since cattle were so crucial, early people began to have more spiritual connections to these majestic lumpy beasts. For example, Egyptians have numerous deities with cow forms such as Hathor, Ptah, and Menthu among others. In Greece, sacrificing bulls and cows as offerings to the Gods was commonplace, and when metal coins were put into circulation an ox was stamped into one side. Of course, the Romans were also sacrificing for the gods and bull mosaics often decorated wealthy Roman homes. More gruesomely, Greeks designed a large hollow figure called the Sicilian Bull. Allegedly anyway, it is still unclear if it was real or not, but the purpose of the bull was to have a person, usually someone committed of a crime, inside the bull over an open fire where they would be roasted to death. Apparently, this method was used on some saints, so depending on how you choose to see it, the Sicilian bull is cool to look at but so terrible.
Now onto something less awful: European and American cow paintings! Who doesn’t love a field full of beautiful bovines happily grazing without nefarious use? Everyone who’s anyone painted cows: Vincent Van Gough, Georgia O’Keefe, Titian, Picasso, so on and so forth. I could write an entire book about Dutch cow paintings, so for the purpose of this blog just know the Dutch LOVE their cows. In western cultures, they represent prosperity, strength, simplicity, and stability… so consider that next time you eat a steak! Do we absorb the wealth from cows when we consume them? Or view them in art? They are questions to ponder!
At Bruneau & Co we have our very own cow art coming up for auction this summer. It’s a painting of a stately brown cow by James McDougal Hart (1828-1901), a second-generation Hudson River School painter. Hart studied at the Dusseldorf Art Academy for three years as well as under artist Friedrich Wilhelm Schirmer. He later went on to serve as the Vice President of the National Academy of Design. Among his students, was a prominent female Hudson River artist named Evelina Mount best known for her floral still life paintings. So, if you’re a big ole’ bovine lover, make sure to check us out!
