Animalier school

The animalier school was a late-18th- and 19th-century genre and group of artists devoted to the depiction of animals, centered in France with practitioners in England, Italy, Germany, Russia, and North America. The term was coined by the French press and Salon jurors - often dismissively - but the opening of the Jardin des Plantes zoo fed a public appetite for animal subjects that patrons like the Dukes of Orléans and Luynes rewarded. Antoine-Louis Barye set the standard with dramatic bronze combat groups; Rosa Bonheur became the most celebrated painter of the field; and George Stubbs's anatomical horses were its great precursor. Sculptures were modeled for exhibition and cast in large bronze editions for middle-class interiors, making the animalier one of the 19th century's most commercially successful subjects.

Defining characteristics

• Animals as the primary subject, not decorative staffage
• Anatomical precision - musculature, coat, and movement studied from life or dissection
• Dramatic encounters: hunts, predator-prey struggles, rearing horses
• Small bronzes patinated for domestic display, produced in editions
• Plain, moody natural settings that keep attention on the animal

Key figures

• Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875) — Sculptor who defined the animalier bronze with lion and tiger combat groups
• Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) — Most celebrated animalière painter (The Horse Fair)
• George Stubbs (1724-1806) — Anatomist-painter of horses whose work prefigured the genre (Whistlejacket)
• Pierre-Jules Mêne (1810-1879) — Prolific producer of hunting and sporting bronzes
• Rembrandt Bugatti (1884-1916) — Expressive bronzes of zoo animals observed at Antwerp

Example works

• Whistlejacket — George Stubbs (c. 1762)
• The Horse Fair — Rosa Bonheur (1852-1855)

Sources

• Animalier school - Wikipedia encyclopedia

← Back to the catalog