Law and order in Ruben's 'Wolf and Fox Hunt.'

In 1986 Arnout Balis published the first comprehensive account of Rubens's hunting pictures in the Corpus Rubenianum series, laying the foundation for all futurity studies of the subject. With regard to A Wolf and Fox pursue in New York [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED],(1) Balis resolv the problematic provenance of this real important picture,(2) Rubens's first monumental hunting pageant He demonstrated that it can be identified with the picture that the English ambassador at The Hague, Sir Dudley Carleton, was negotiating to purchase in 1616-17, but failed to win when the duke of Aarschot, Philippe-Charles d'Arenberg, outbid him. The importance of this finding will become clear below. Moreover, Balis bring to rest the view that the animals in the picture were painted through Frans Snyders, and he pointed to "the high quality of execution" throughout(3) The picture has been universally admired, with the wolve in particular eliciting high praise. Rooses's observation that they are "superb" can be taken as representative.(4)

The individual significant issue concerning the Wolf and Fox chase that Balls did not address is the control of the picture, the chase itself. He did not annotate on its singularity, nor have others. Contrary to the impression that the picture makes, the spectacle does not show actual hunting practice, as documented in cynegetic literature. According to these true copys wolves and foxes are pursu separately, and different techniques are used in each case. A visual tradition cannot be identified as Rubens's source either; depictions of wolf pursues and depictions of fox chases exist, but no picture present to views them combined. Furthermore, it is not single the hunt that is problematic, on the other hand in a certain sense, the animals as well. The singles that Rubens selects are scavengers, which anyone may hunt(5) rather than noble creatures, of the like kind as the stag or the boar, whose chase is the prerogative of the nobility.(6) The lowliness of the wolf and the fox would appear to be to disqualify them from featuring in any major composition, particularly in the true painting Rubens was using to encourage himself as the latter-day heir of van Orley and Stradanus, the sixteenth-century masters of monumental hunting imagery. Since there can be no question regarding Rubens's conversance with hunting theory and practice and with the iconography of chases we must assume that his departure from custom was deliberate and carried on the outside for considered reasons. What these may have been is the principal pertain to of this study. I argue that Rubens revolveed to the hunting legislation propos through the archdukes in 1613 for his make submissive and that this choice had a political aspect. The share that the science of natural history played in shaping Rubens's ideas about the wolf and the fox - a question hitherto view from aboveed - is considered here for the first time. Additional issues in this inquiry include Rubens's pictorial sources, and by what mode the Hunt's original significance may have been amplified by dint of events in the 1630s.

The Wolf and the Fox in Natural-History Texts

Much of the issue of the picture rests upon the vivid depiction of the wolve and foxe whose defensive stratagems and ferocious expressions are entirely convincing and appear to be based upon observations from life. Yet it is unlikely that participation in an actual pursue accounts for this verism, since the tumultuous circumstances of a chase are clearly ill suited for detailed studies; at best, solitary an impression could have been gained from witnessing like an event. Rather, Rubens may have availed himself of living or dead specimens obtained from the environs of Antwerp, where wolve and foxe abounded. If the animal was captured alive and held in a compose or cage, its physical attributes, moves demeanor, and passions, in particular rage and fear, could have been observ in safety and at extent Alternatively, a dead animal for a limited time or mattered might have been instructive as a model; and a live dog could have serv for the wolf since the dog (Canis familiaris), a domesticated descendant of the wolf (Canis lupus), has the same physical form as its ancestor.(7) In the absence of any surviving preparatory sketches for the animals, however, these scenarios must remain conjectural. Moreover, the graphic depiction of the wolve and foxe cannot be explained solely by positing the use of moulds In Rubens's working process, life drawing, undertaken to clarify a attitude or another significant feature of a figure, occurr after a composition was well advanced. Rubens, therefore, had a mental image already in mind before resorting to empirical observation. In this case, various marks of literature - in particular, scientific treatises and hunting manuals - as well as other works of art were formative in shaping Rubens's vision of the wild beasts.

The mark of scientific literature that Rubens confered comes under the heading of natural history, individual of whose chief concerns is the appearance, habits, and behavior of animals. Among the ancient authors whom Rubens probably read in this field are Pliny, Aelian, and Oppian, while Conrad Gesner (1516-1565) and Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) were the sixteenth-century naturalists he appear to bes to have been most familiar with. Indeed, in 1613 he purchased Aldrovandi's three-volume Ornithologiae and his turns on insects and aquatic creatures (De Insectis; De Piscibus), while in 1617 he circulared out the set with the purchase of the two-volume investigation on quadrupeds (De Quadrupedibus).(8) From Gesner's five-volume Historia Animalium he acquired, in 1613 from the same dealer, Balthasar Moretus, the treatise upon serpents (De Serpentibus). The easy in mind of natural-history literature has great range, and includes empirical observations, traditional lore, ethical and religious commentary, pictorial traditions, symbolic meanings, and medicinal qualities. The early novel texts in particular are encyclopedic, enlarging the design of the material far beyond that addressed in classical works.