''Anguish'' (french: Angoisses or ) is an 1878 oil painting by
August Friedrich Schenck. It depicts an anguished mother sheep standing over the dead body of its lamb, surrounded by a multitude of crows.
Perhaps Schenck's most famous painting, it is held by
National Gallery of Victoria, in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
since 1880. The painting was an early acquisition by the gallery, just a few years after it was founded, and has been voted the most popular of the gallery's 75,000 works on two occasions, in 1906 and 2011.
Description
The painting depicts a distraught
ewe bleating in grief, her breath freezing in the cold air. The mother sheep is standing over the dead body of her lamb, a trickle of blood running from its mouth into the white snow, in a scene reminiscent of a
pietà
The Pietà (; meaning "pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his body was removed from the cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form o ...
. The pair of sheep are encircled by a murder of black
crows that crowd ominously around under a dull grey cloudy winter sky, waiting for an opportunity to scavenge the carcass. The painting's muted tones – almost monotone shades of white, grey, brown and black – reflect its despairing subject matter. It measures and is signed "Schenck" in the lower left corner.
Tedd Got, a senior curator at the National Gallery of Victoria, has suggested that the work may have taken inspiration from the 1872 book ''
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
''The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals'' is Charles Darwin's third major work of evolutionary theory, following ''On the Origin of Species'' (1859) and ''The Descent of Man'' (1871). Initially intended as a chapter in ''The Descen ...
'', in which
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
argued emotions have biological originals, and that animals have similar emotions to humans. It has also been interpreted as a commentary on the cruelty of society, represented by the crowd of opportunistic crows.
History
Schenck was born in
Glückstadt in
Holstein, now in Germany but then in Denmark, and lived and worked for most of his life in France. The painting was exhibited at the
Paris Salon
The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...
in 1878,
under its French title ''Angoisses'', and then in London the following year. It was engraved by in 1878 for the French periodical ',
and by in 1879. The painting was bought by the London art dealer
Agnew's Thomas Agnew & Sons is a fine arts dealer in London that began life as part of in a print and publishing partnership with Vittore Zanetti in Manchester in 1817 which ended in 1835, when Agnew took full control of the company. The firm opened its Lo ...
and then sold to the National Gallery of Victoria. It arrived in Australia in 1880. It retains its original gilt frame.
Schenck reversed the scene in his c.1885 painting, ''L'Orphelin, souvenir d'Auvergne'' ("The Orphan, memory of Auvergne"), now held by the
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...
, in which a lamb stands above the body of its dead mother, before a line of black crows waiting on a wooden fence.
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...
References
{{reflist
External links
Anguish by August Friedrich Albrecht SCHENCK Leanne Cole
Anguish (1878) by August Schenck Amuze Art Lectures
1878 paintings
Paintings in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria
Sheep in art