Monday, April 30, 2012

Ars Animalis | Pachyderm Painters

Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant." -- John Donne (1572-1631), English poet

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's a question 13.7 asked with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals. For the final post, a bit of a different look—"art" made by animals; in this case, elephants.]

There are two kinds of elephant art (that is, "art” made by elephants). One is representational, the kind made by Hong, a nine-year-old female elephant who lives at the Maetaman Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

"Two years ago, Hong began painting with her mahout, Noi Rakchang, and has steadily developed her skills," according to the Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project (AEACP), a charity dedicated to saving Asian elephants. Started by the Russian-born American conceptual art duo Komar and Melamid, AEACP raises funds by selling elephant art. Hong and her mahout are members.

"After learning how to paint flowers, she moved on to more advanced paintings. She now has two specialties. One is an elephant holding flowers with her trunk, and the other is the Thai flag. An elephant with so much control and dexterity is capable of amazing work. Just for clarification, with these realistic figural works, the elephant is still the only one making the marks on the paper but the paintings are learned series of brushstrokes not Hong painting a still life on her own."

The other kind of elephant painting is abstract. Those paintings are made by elephants who are given paint-laden brushes and a blank canvas and freedom to paint whatever they want. That's more the style of Nom Chok, a 14-year-old male elephant living at the Ayuttaya Elephant Palace and Royal Kraal in Ayuttaya, Thailand.

"Komar & Melamid brought the idea of teaching elephants how to paint from US zoos to the impoverished countryside of Southeast Asia, where the much needed ban on logging in the late 80's left the remaining few thousand elephants and their caretakers out of work," according to the artist statement on the AEACP website.

"The extensive logging of the countryside and the explosion of the human population in the area led to the destruction of much of the elephants' natural habitat, leaving them with no wild to return to. Thousands of elephants and their lifelong caretakers were left without financial support and have since been forced to beg for food on crowded city streets. The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project is designed to help these surviving elephants and the people that care for them."
  • Do you consider paintings made by elephants to be "art"? [add comment]
  • Are humans the only species that can create art? [add comment]
ACTION ALERTS
  • Support the conservation of Asian elephants by buying elephant art (AEACP)
  • Sign a petition to save the Asian elephant (Elephant Family)
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image: Hong the elephant gets creative (Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project)

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Friday, April 27, 2012

Ars Animalis | Sue Coe

"I would never judge another human being individually...We are all in different stages of awareness and growth, [but] I am extremely critical of illogical economic systems that put profit over any and all other considerations, especially life." -- Sue Coe[1]

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

 Growing up near a slaughterhouse had a powerful effect on Sue Coe. For over quarter of a century, the English artist and illustrator has created overtly political and activist work that sheds light on an issue that society by and large has chosen to ignore: the cruelty to animals in the factory farming and meatpacking industries.

In 2005, for example, she published Sheep of Fools, an illustrated storybook that depicts the horrific and inhumane conditions that occur during the live transport of sheep, shipped across the world's oceans to be slaughtered for human consumption. (For more on this issue, click here.)

Many of her works were created by directly observing animals within slaughterhouses and fur farms. Coe has also tackled other big sociopolitical issues, such as apartheid, sweat shops, prisons, AIDS and war.

In an interview with Graphic Witness, Coe said she hopes that in the future, "animal rights and social justice issues will be more accepted and people will look back on my work and say 'those were the dark ages, when humans used to slaughter animals for food.'"

Coe's work can currently be seen in a solo exhibition running through July 3, 2012, at Galerie St. Etienne in New York City.

Click here to watch the video "Sue Coe: Art of the Animal," part of the "Art of the Animal" video series produced by Our Hen House, an excellent website whose mission is "to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals."




  • Are you vegetarian or vegan? Why did you decide to adopt this diet? [add comment]
  • If you eat meat, do you think about or care where the meat comes from and how the animal was treated? [add comment]
  • If you're a meat eater, have you ever considered giving it up? Why? [add comment]
  • Why do humans treat their pets so well, but generally don't care about the treatment of farm animals? [add comment]
  • Do you think that veganism will ever eclipse carnivorism among humans? [add comment]

ACTION ALERTS
  • Tell Australian prime minister Julia Gillard and agriculture minister Joe Ludwi to end the live exports of Australian farm animals in view of the suffering caused by long journeys and the risk of severe mishandling and inhumane slaughter of the animals after these appalling journeys (Compassion in World Farming)
  • Join more than 2.3 million who have signed the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare (AnimalsMatter.org)
  • Thinking about a diet that doesn't mean killing animals? Get a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit and take the "Pledge to Be Vegan for 30 Days" (PETA)
  • Support Farm Sanctuary, which works to protect farm animals from cruelty, inspire change in the way society views and treats farm animals, and promote compassionate vegan living (Farm Sanctuary)
  • Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter
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NOTES

[1] Mediareader Unquarterly. Interview with Sue Coe by Elin Slavick. January 31, 2002. Accessed April 27, 2012.

image: Sue Coe. "The Barn Next Door (Man with No Heart)," 2004. Graphite, gouache and watercolor on white Strathmore Bristol board. Signed, lower right. Numbered "Pg 6/7," verso. 10" x 20" (25.4 x 50.8 cm). Pages 6 and 7 from The Man with No Heart. Reproduced in New and Used Blab!, 2003, p. 40-41. (Galerie St. Etienne)
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Thursday, April 26, 2012

Ars Animalis | Die Guillotine

German artists will behead a sheep with a guillotine, unless you say no. You have 21 days left to vote.

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

Two students from the Berlin University of the Arts are crowdsourcing the conclusion of a performance piece entitled Die Guillotine (The Guillotine) that features said guillotine and (at least for now) a live sheep.

On their website, the artists, Iman Rezai and Rouven Materne, ask visitors a single question: "Soll dieses Schaf getötet werden?" ("Should this sheep be killed?")

"The guillotine is the most compact reflection of our society," says Materne in the German-only video, adding that the intentionally provocative work is a "criticism of current morality."

As of this writing, the online poll has 147,473 respondents answering yes and 289,0463 voting no. Voters have the next 21 days to decide the fate of the helpless sheep.

Animal cruelty in art and culture is not new. One could point to a wide array of cultural events connected to the torture of animals. Bullfighting comes to mind, or any of a number of culture-specific rituals throughout history involving the death of animals, even human sacrifice.

More recently, at the Trapholt Art Museum in Kolding, Denmark, in 2003, the artist Marco Evaristti put live goldfish in blenders, inviting visitors to press the "on" button to kill the fish.

This theme, in fact, was an early one on 13.7 Billion Years. On March 14, 2008, just a few days after this blog was launched, the post was about the artist Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, who supposedly captured an abandoned street dog, tied him up in an art gallery and left him there to die of hunger and thirst while visitors watched his slow death.

Is this art?
Should live animals be used in art?
Does Die Guillotine make a point? If so, what is it?
Will the fate of the sheep say something about society?

 Add your comments here.

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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Ars Animalis | Britta Jaschinski


"Jaschinski isn’t really a wildlife photographer – she’s a fighter who uses her camera as a weapon in a battle to reclaim our essential respect for her beloved animals." -- Sublime Magazine

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

Across the globe, millions of wild animals are currently suffering in captivity, whether in zoos, circuses or amusement parks. One doesn't need to be an animal rights activist to recognize that such confinement is wrong.

For many years, London-based German photographer Britta Jaschinski has used her art as a way to share this message with the world. Her love of animals started at a young age, having decided to become a vegetarian at the age of 16. While a student of photography at Bournemouth College of Art and Design, Jaschinski was walking through Regent's Park when she noticed the smell of animals emanating from the London Zoo. The rest, as they say, is history.

"Even as a kid I felt uncomfortable going to zoos but I could never express why," she says, in an article in Sublime Magazine. "While other kids licked ice creams and laughed at the animals, I just felt an intense pain in mind and body. And when I developed my photos I could see why I felt so deeply depressed about the fate of the animals incarcerated in the name of education and conservation. My Zoobook was the result."

Published by Phaidon Press in 1996, Zoo is a serious, melancholic work, full of images that are beautiful and heartwrenching.

According to the Amazon.com review, Jaschinski "lets her stark black-and-white compositions stand without commentary; viewers are left to form their own opinions. Among these dark and unsettling images of animals behind bars is a haunting--and nearly heart-breaking--picture of a decidedly unhappy gibbon, imploring the camera to free him from captivity. Words could only diminish its impact."

Click here to visit Britta Jaschinski's website.

ACTION ALERTS
  • Say NO to irresponsible elephant breeding programs at zoos. A recent in utero death of an elephant calf at the Memphis Zoo in Tennessee brings to light the irresponsible and inhumane practice of elephant breeding in captivity. (Force Change)
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image: Captive polar bear in zoo, by Britta Jaschinski
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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Ars Animalis | Olly & Suzi


"Whatever anyone thinks of them or their work, no one on Earth does what they do." -- Rupert Murray, director, Wild Art: Olly and Suzi Paint Predators

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

Since 1993, British artists Olly Williams and Suzi Winstanley have been collaboratively painting wildlife. Together, they have gone on over 50 expeditions to various ecosystems around the world to paint exotic and endangered predators and prey in their natural habitats—and in close proximity. Their work has not only raised awareness about endangered species, but also money to help save them.

Sometimes they even enlist their subjects to be participants in their creations, getting paw-prints or bite-marks. Some of their works have involved a shark attacking a painting of itself, a pack of cheetahs inspecting a large paper portrait and a pack of wild dogs feeding on an image of themselves.

The specific ecosystems in which they have created site-specific performance-based work include the Alaskan interior, North Pole, East African bush, Kalahari desert, Australian outback, Galapagos Islands, Nepalese jungles, Venezuelan Amazon and Antarctica.

"Our art-making process is concerned with a collaborative, mutual response to nature at its most primitive and wild," they write on their website.

In July 2011, Olly and Suzi worked underwater with giant mantas in the Maldives, hosted by Soneva Fushi, an eco-friendly Maldivian island resort. A quarter of the proceeds from the subsequent exhibition was donated to the Blue Marine Foundation, a London-based ocean conservation charity founded in 2010 by the people behind The End of the Line, a documentary film about the crisis of overfishing.

The 60-minute documentary film Wild Art: Olly and Suzi Paint Predators aired on BBC 4 in 2009.

"I wanted to find out whether their close encounters with the animals produced better pictures and what their art was for," said Wild Art director Rupert Murray. "Whatever anyone thinks of them or their work, no one on Earth does what they do."

Click here to see Olly and Suzi's work.

Click here to see a three-minute trailer of the documentary.

ACTION ALERTS
  • Say YES to putting corals on the Endangered Species List. Corals provide the backbone of coral reefs which provide habitat for fish. The Center for Biological Diversity lauched a lawsuit to get America's corals protected in 2009, and now a study by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) backs up the Center's findings: 56 of the 82 corals studied are likely to go extinct unless decisive action is taken to protect them. (Care2)
  • Sign the End of the Line pledge to eat only sustainable seafood (End of the Line)
  • Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter
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image: A shark takes a bite out of its own portrait, project by Olly Williams and Suzi Winstanley (Ollysuzi.com)
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Monday, April 23, 2012

Ars Animalis | Strandbeests


"I want to put these animals out in herds on the beach, so they will live their own lives." -- Theo Jansen

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

The kinetic sculptures of Dutch artist/engineer Theo Janssen don't depict real animals, but after seeing them, no one can deny that they have an animalistic look, and in particular, move like animals—albeit strange, otherworldly animals.

Like Eadweard Muybridge, whose groundbreaking stop-action photography captured animals in motion, or Thomas Eakins, whose painting The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand examined the precise movement of horses, Jansen is interested in the science and nature of locomotion. But unlike those pioneers, Jansen isn't just studying natural locomotion, but actually creating it.

His sculptures are remarkably beautiful fusions of art and engineering: large robots that walk along beaches, fueled solely by wind power. He calls them "Strandbeests," which is Dutch for "beach creatures."

From his website:

"Since 1990 I have been occupied creating new forms of life.

Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don't have to eat.

Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storm and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beach, so they will live their own lives."


Click here to watch a video of one of Jansen's Strandbeests in action.

Click here to see Jansen discussing his work.



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image: Theo Jansen's "Strandbeest" (Strandbeest.com)
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Friday, April 20, 2012

Ars Animalis | Dogs Playing Poker

"A curator would not group abstract expressionist paintings with velvet Elvises, or dogs playing poker." -- Douglas Rosenberg, professor, Department of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

In 1903, the St. Paul-based publishing company Brown & Bigelow commissioned the artist C.M. Coolidge to produce a series of 16 paintings to advertise cigars. Of the 16, nine depict dogs playing poker.

This one, A Bold Bluff (originally titled Judge St. Bernard Stands Pat on Nothing), which shows a St. Bernard making a big bet with a weak hand, and the similar Waterloo, together fetched $590,400 at an auction at Doyle New York in 2005, part of Doyle's annual "Dogs in Art" auction, which coincides with the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

The Dogs Playing Poker series inspired many imitators, most famously a number of paintings of dogs playing not only poker, but pool and craps, created in the 1950s by American illustrator Arthur Sarnoff. Today, the concept remains a lasting meme.

"For some the paintings represent the epitome of kitsch or lowbrow culture, a poor-taste parody of 'genuine' art," writes Martin Harris on PokerNews.com. "For others they stand as cogent, insightful symbols of America's middle class. Many, though, for various reasons, have a genuine fondness for the humorous paintings, which arguably stand among the most well-known depictions of poker in mainstream popular culture."

Coolidge had a knack for creating memes. In addition to his card-playing canines, he also created "comic foregrounds," the faceless, life-sized cutouts of funny characters in which carnival-goers could place their own faces to take photographs of themselves in humorous situations. But a comic foreground using Dogs Playing Poker for actual dogs to stick their heads through? Haven't seen it...yet.

ACTION ALERTS
  • Sign petition to mitigate "Black Dog Syndrome" and save black dogs and cats in shelters from being disproportionately euthanized (Force Change)
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image: Dogs Playing Poker (A Bold Bluff), 1903, by C.M. Coolidge
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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Ars Animalis | The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand

This painting is thought to be the first to examine the precise movement of horses.

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

Painted by the American artist Thomas Eakins between 1879-1880, The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand depicts four horses driven by American civil engineer Fairman Rogers as he takes his wife Rebecca Gilpin Rogers and friends through Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Drawn by a team of four horses, a four-in-hand is a carriage has reins rigged so that it can be managed by a single driver.

For the horses, Eakins analyzed photographs to accurately portray their unique gaits. The work is considered the first painting to examine the exact movement of horses. Both Eakins and Rogers were admirers of Eadweard Muybridge's pioneering stop-action photography that captured horses and other animals in motion.

ACTION ALERTS
  • Add your name to a petition to end horse-drawn carriages in New York City. When a New York City carriage horse named Smoothie heard loud drumming in Central Park, she became startled and galloped onto the sidewalk and between two poles that caught her carriage. She struggled to keep running but eventually collapsed and died. Another horse startled by the noise ran into the street and collided with a car. Carriage horses in New York City ache and wear down their hooves hauling 1200 pound carriages in the bitter cold and sweltering heat, constantly inhaling toxic car exhaust. They suffer from exhaustion because at night, they can't lie down comfortably in their tiny, feces-filled stalls. Additionally, horses cause traffic jams and accidents, and congest an already crowded part of the city. Horses need socialization, pastures to graze in and miles of open space to run -- they don't belong in the hustle and bustle of New York City. (NYCLASS)
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image: The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand (1879-80), Thomas Eakins, Philadelphia Museum of Art (Wikimedia Commons)
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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Ars Animalis | Cattleya Orchard and Three Brazilian Hummingbirds

"The hummingbird competes with the stillness of the air." -- Chogyam Trungpa (1939-1987), Buddhist meditation master

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) was an American painter most known for his depictions of New England coastal salt marsh landscapes. Though his peers were Romantics and landscape painters from the Hudson River School, he is considered to be a departure from these styles. Instead of grandiose depictions of the Hudson River Valley, he chose quiet and restrained portrayals, focusing on the repetition of certain motifs and the accurate rendition of light and atmospheric conditions.

In the 1860s and 1870s, Heade made several trips to Central and South America, where he painted over forty works depicting exotic tropical bird species, many of them hummingbirds. This one, Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds, an oil on mahogany panel from 1871, was part of a series planned for a book called The Gems of Brazil, which may have been inspired by the works of Charles Darwin and Frederic Edwin Church. Though the book was never completed, Heade continued to paint hummingbirds, often in combination with orchids.

The painting is housed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which offers this description:

"Lichen covers dead branches; moss drips from trees; and, a blue-gray mist veils the distant jungle. An opulent pink orchid with light-green stems and pods dominates the left foreground. To the right, perched near a nest on a branch, are a Sappho Comet, green with a yellow throat and brilliant red tail feathers, and two green-and-pink Brazilian Amethysts."


Human activity—in particular logging and urban sprawl—have destroyed vast stretches of wild bird habitat. Since 1967, for example, the population of Rufous Hummingbirds have declined 60 percent, according to the Audubon Society. "Mounting threats are putting dozens, if not scores, of bird species in immediate peril," wrote David Yarnold, president and CEO of Audubon, in an email in December. "Many of these species were considered common just four decades ago."

ACTION ALERTS
  • Tell Reckitt Benckiser, Spectrum Brands and Liphatech to stop flouting government safety rules and stop selling rat poisons that have caused fatal hemorrhaging in owls, Bald Eagles and other birds and wildlife. Most recently, a Red-tailed Hawk, the mate of the renowned and beloved Pale Male, was killed in New York City. (American Bird Conservancy)
  • Tell Congress you support the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act, which provides support for or vital conservation efforts, including monitoring efforts, habitat restoration, education, and other projects in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. (Audubon Society)
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image: Cattleya Orchid and Three Brazilian Hummingbirds (1871), by Martin Johnson Heade, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Wikimedia Commons)
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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Ars Animalis | A Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother

"Delacroix frequently went with his friend, the animal sculptor Barye, to see the big game in the Jardin des Plantes. But mostly he was content to observe his own cat." -- Gilles Neret

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

The painter Eugène Delacroix had a deep interest in animals as subjects, and in particular, wild cats. Many of these works show the big felines attacking or devouring prey. In his 1830 painting Jeune tigre jouant avec sa mère ( A Young Tiger Playing with its Mother), however, he depicts a moment of tenderness between a tiger mother and child.

In his 1999 book Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863: The Prince of Romanticism, Gilles Neret writes:

"Wild animals fascinate him: 'Tigers, panthers, jaguars, lions! Whence come the feelings such things inspire in me?" He visited the Pasha's zoo and, in Paris, observed and drew the big cats of the Jardin des Plantes in the company of his friend, the animal sculptor, Barye. Though when he wanted to depict a tiger, he was often content to allow his own cat to model…He explained this attraction to himself in his Journal: 'The true man is a savage; he is at one with nature as it is…Men are tigers and wolves driven to destroy one another.' Théophile Gautier saw a resemblance between Delacroix's face and manner of those of the lions that he painted: 'His tawny eyes, with their feline expression, his slender lips stretched tight over magnificent teeth, his firm jaw line emphasised by strong cheekbones…gave his features an untamed, a strange, exotic, almost alarming beauty.'"


The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1831 and now resides in Room 77 at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

ACTION ALERTS
  • Join Ricky Gervais, Susan Sarandon, Stephen Fry and tell the world's governments to save the endangered tiger (TigerTime.info)
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image: Eugène Delacroix, A Young Tiger Playing with its Mother, 1830 (Wikimedia Commons)
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Monday, April 16, 2012

Ars Animalis | Goya's Dog

"There is not a single contemporary painter in the world that does not pray in front of The Dog." -- Manuela Mena, curator, Museo del Prado

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

When he was 72 years old, the Spanish painter Francisco Goya moved into a house outside Madrid. Though the two-story building was named "Quinta del Sordo" ("Deaf Man's House") by the previous owner, it was an apt name for the new tenant: Goya was almost completely deaf at the time. These were dark years for the celebrated artist, who developed a bleak outlook and feared going insane.

On the walls of Quinta del Sordo, between 1819 and 1823, Goya painted 14 strange, dark, haunting works that depicted such themes as violence and witchcraft, the most famous being Saturn Devouring His Son. They were never intended to be seen by the outside world. In his 1983 book Goya: The Origins of the Modern Temper in Art, Fred Licht notes that these so-called Pinturas Negras ("Black Paintings") "are as close to being hermetically private as any that have ever been produced in the history of Western art."

Among them is this enigmatic painting, known simply as The Dog, in which a small canine peeks out from behind an unidentified mass, gazing upward at some unknown thing. It is also known as A Dog, Head of a Dog, The Buried Dog, The Half-Drowned Dog, The Half-Submerged Dog or Goya's Dog. It is not known if Goya titled any of his Black Paintings, which are on permanent display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

In his 2004 book Francisco Goya: A Life, American novelist Evan Connell writes, "There's a lonesome dog—nobody ever saw a lonelier dog—who could be lost in a sandstorm, possibly sinking into quicksand, bewildered by a senseless universe. Nothing but the pooch's head. What does it think?"

The Spanish artist Antonio Saura called The Dog "the world's most beautiful picture." Rafael Canogar, also a Spanish artist, called it the first Symbolist painting of the Western world.

In his 2004 book Goya, Australian art critic Robert Hughes writes, "We do not know what it means, but its pathos moves us on a level below narrative." Manuela Mena, curator at the Prado, said, "There is not a single contemporary painter in the world that does not pray in front of The Dog."

ACTION ALERTS
  • Promote greyhound adoption just by clicking your mouse. In honor of April's Adopt-A-Greyhound Month, the GREY2K USA Education Fund is eager to launch a focused effort to educate Floridians about dog racing and to promote the adoption of ex-racers. Their idea is to erect colorful billboards across the state that point readers to a web site with adoption information and local rescue group links. The magazine Good is offering a starter grant of $2,500 to non-profit groups with the best, most productive idea. The project with the most votes will win the prize. Please vote for this important greyhound adoption campaign and help ex-racing dogs get adopted into loving homes. (Good Maker)
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image: The Dog (between 1820 and 1823), by Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), oil on canvas, 131 cm (51.6 in) x 79 cm (31.1 in), Prado Museum (Wikimedia Commons)
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Friday, April 13, 2012

Ars Animalis | Myojakdo

Korean painter Byeon Sang-byeok depicted cats and birds with amazing detail

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

Eighteenth-century Korean painter Byeon Sang-byeok was so good at depicting cats and birds that he earned the nicknames "Byeon goyangi" ("Byeon cat") and "Byeon dak" ("Byeon rooster").

This work, Myojakdo (literally, "Painting of Cats and Sparrows"), an ink and wash painting ("sumukhwa") on silk, is considered to be a prime example of "yeongmohwa," a Korean genre painting of birds with other animals.

The title of the work combines the words for cat ("myo") and sparrow ("jak"). "Myo" is similar to the Han Chinese word "mo" ("old person," between 80-90 years old), while "jak" is similar to the Han Chinese word for "magpie," which is considered an auspicious bird in Korean culture. Consequently, cats and sparrows were common subjects in Korean paintings to symbolize longevity and good fortune.

Painted around 1730, during the Joseon Dynasty, Myojakdo has been praised not only for its exquisite detail, but also for its simple yet dynamic composition, which exudes a powerful sense of movement. It is housed at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul.

ACTION ALERTS
  • Tell China to stop cat slaughter. Every day in China, cats are hooked by the neck, skinned and thrown into boiling water to be made into a meal. Many of them are stolen from households or residential areas around the country. Crammed into cages so tightly they can barely move and shipped by trucks, most of the cats are severely injured, many with broken limbs and starved, when they arrive at their destination in Guangdong Province in southern China. Here they are sold to restaurants where they meet their grisly fate. (Care2.com)
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image: Myojakdo (~1730, during the Joseon Dynasty), by Byeon Sangbyeok, (Wikimedia Commons)
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Thursday, April 12, 2012

Ars Animalis | Two Monkeys



"The creature in the sky got sucked in a hole. Now there's a hole in the sky and the ground's not cold. And if the ground's not cold, everything is gonna burn. We'll all take turns, I'll get mine, too. This monkey's gone to heaven." -- "Monkey Gone to Heaven," Pixies

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

This painting of two chained monkeys was painted in 1562 by the Flemish master Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Monkeys were common figures in Flemish paintings of the period, and fettered monkeys have traditionally symbolized man trapped by his earthly desires.

According to All-Art.org:

"Only once in Bruegel's paintings do we see how this world, the city of Antwerp, actually looked, and that solely in passing, as the background to Two Monkeys (1562). This puzzling picture is unusually small, measuring a mere 20 x 23 cm. The animals appear to be squatting in the vaulted window of a fortress; they are chained, and nutshells are strewn about. Bruegel could have been thinking of the Netherlands proverb "to go to court for the sake of a hazelnut", in which case the monkeys would have lost their lawsuit and their freedom for the sake of something as unimportant as the kernel of a nut. The work may also reflect the oppressive atmosphere under Spanish rule, or could be seen in connection with Bruegel's departure from Antwerp. Given the total absence of knowledge regarding the circumstances that prompted this picture, however, the observer would be advised to place all speculation on one side - indeed, as we should usually do - and simply see what the painting is saying to him: the dejection of the creatures, and the temptingly beautiful urban panorama, unattainable for those imprisoned in massive fortress walls."


The 1989 song "Monkey Gone to Heaven," which appears in Doolittle, an album by the American rock band Pixies, is about environmentalism, man's relationship to the divine and what author Ben Sisario described as "confusion of man's place in the universe," in 33 1/3, his book about Doolittle.

VIDEO: Monkey Gone to Heaven



ACTION ALERTS
  • Tell Congress that you support the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R.1513/S.810), which would end the unimaginable suffering of our closest cousins. An estimated 1,000 chimpanzees are caged in 9 biomedical research and testing laboratories or "warehouses" across the U.S., which is the only country besides Gabon that continues to conduct invasive research on chimpanzees. (Jane Goodall Institute)
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image: Zwei Affen, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1562 (Wikimedia Commons)
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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Ars Animalis | The Lamb of St. Agnes

"It is all very romantic and torrid and lush, with marvelous moments and imagery. It is imbued with the revival of romantic, courtly love which was coming back into vogue in the early 19th century." -- Father John Zuhlsdorf on John Keats' "The Eve of St. Agnes"

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

"St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith."


In his 1819 long poem "The Eve of St. Agnes," the English poet John Keats described the traditional Catholic ritual that was performed by young girls on January 20, the day before the feast day of the patron saint of virgins, Agnes of Rome, who was sentenced to death by the Roman prefect Sempronius after she refused to marry his son. She died a martyr at the age of twelve or thirteen on January 21, 304. Agnes is buried beneath the high altar in the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome.

The name "Agnes" is a Latinized form of the feminine Greek adjective "hagnē" meaning "chaste, sacred or pure." In art, Agnes is depicted with a lamb, as her name is similar to "agnus," the Latin word for "lamb." This oil painting, by the Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán, was created between 1635 and 1642. It is housed in the São Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil. He also painted this work, Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), in the beginning of the 17th century:



According to superstition, a girl would be able to see her future husband in a dream if she performed a particular ritual on the eve of St. Agnes, which involved going to bed without supper and lying naked with her hands under the pillow while looking up to the heavens. Her future husband would appear in a dream, kiss her and have a feast with her.

In Keats' poem, a young girl named Madeleine performs the ritual, welcoming her lover Porphyro into her sleeping chamber before both flee their warring families into the uncertain future of the dark winter outside.

Read the entire poem here.

Gerolamo Frescobaldi's "Fiori Musicali" was composed in the same year that Zurbarán started painting Saint Agnes. [Click here to listen.]



Franz Schubert's "Trout Quintet" was composed in the same year as Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes." [Click here to listen.]



ACTION ALERTS
  • Tell Canada to stop the slaughter of healthy rare heritage Shropshire sheep. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has elected to destroy a healthy flock of rare heritage breed Shropshire sheep at Wholearth Farmstudio, a Northumberland County farm that conserves heritage livestock genetics. If the 44 animals are killed, the breed will be several steps closer to extinction with only 107 registered breeding females, 38 ewe lambs and 16 rams remaining in Canada. (Change.org)
  • Make compassion a part of the Easter season, sponsor a rescued sheep in need (Farm Sanctuary)
  • Get a free vegetarian starter kit (PETA)
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image: Saint Agnes, by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1635-1642, oil on canvas, São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, Brazil (Wikimedia Commons)
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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Ars Animalis | Roundel with Three Apes Building a Trestle Table

"The more we learn of the true nature of non-human animals, especially those with complex brains and corresponding complex social behavior, the more ethical concerns are raised regarding their use in the service of man -- whether this be in entertainment, as "pets," for food, in research laboratories, or any of the other uses to which we subject them." -- Jane Goodall, British primatologist

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

Made in Germany between 1480 and 1500, this stained glass roundel depicts an odd scene: three apes working together to assemble a trestle-leg table. This type of table, which is favored for its ease of set up and storage, was the most common table in the Middle Ages. Why this scene was depicted remains a mystery.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses this piece in the Cloisters Collection:

"Whether this scene was intended to convey anything beyond its obvious whimsy is uncertain. Fables and moralities abounded throughout the Middle Ages, satirizing those who attempted functions for which they were totally unsuited, as, for example, an illiterate working as a librarian. Here, the composition brings to mind alphabets by such artists as the Master E.S., in which the letters are formed by contorted figures or by the arrangement of everyday objects. With its seriflike corners, the tabletop resembles the letter I. Are the apes in the process of deconstructing an alphabet?"[1]


Half a millennia later, some bonobos are doing precisely that. For the past seven years, researchers at the Bonobo Hope Great Ape Trust Sanctuary in Des Moines, Iowa, have been developing a lexigram communication system for bonobos to communicate with humans, using wall-mounted, iPad-like touchpads. In addition, the sanctuary has developed Bonobo Chat, an app of the lexigraphical system "installed in personal interconnected keyboards bonobos can carry around with them" that functions as "a human-bonobo translator, where users can speak to the device in English and Bonobo Chat will translate the sentence into lexigram form for bonobos to understand."[2] This is pretty edgy stuff: We are reaching across tens of millions of years to communicate with our distant (yet genetically very close) relatives.

[RELATED: Bonobo Peace Sign]

While this goes on, invasive experimentation on primates continues, causing unimaginable suffering in nine American laboratories. The United States and Gabon are the only countries in the world that conduct this fundamentally unethical, unconscionable research. On April 13, 2011, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) introduced a bill, H.R. 1513 - the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, which would put an end to this needless suffering while saving American taxpayers millions of dollars.[3] The bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Health on April 14, 2011, and has been languishing there ever since. Please click on the action alert below to show your support for Rep. Bartlett's very important legislation. The United States must join the rest of the world and stop conducting invasive research on our fellow primates.

ACTION ALERTS
  • Tell Congress that you support the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R.1513/S.810), which would end the unimaginable suffering of our closest cousins. An estimated 1,000 chimpanzees are caged in 9 biomedical research and testing laboratories or "warehouses" across the U.S., which is the only country besides Gabon that continues to conduct invasive research on chimpanzees. (Jane Goodall Institute)
  • Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter
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NOTES

[1] Metropolitan Museum of Art. Roundel with Three Apes Building a Trestle Table. December 3, 2010. Accessed April 10, 2012.
[2] Acelar De Leon, Don Michael. Apes communicate with humans using iPad-like interface. April 3, 2012. Accessed April 10, 2012.
[3] Bartlett, Roscoe. H.R. 1513 - the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act. 112th Congress of the United States. April 13, 2011. Accessed April 10, 2012.

image: Roundel with Three Apes Building a Trestle Table, c. 1480–1500; German; colorless glass, vitreous paint and silver stain; 10 1/4 x 8 7/8in. (26 x 22.5cm); The Cloisters Collection, 1990 (Wikimedia Commons)
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