'Encounter' (after Bewick) Painting

Encounter In The Truth in Painting Derrida referred to the passé-partout as a metaphor for one of the succession of physical and conceptual frame that surround an artwork. Encounter is based on a Thomas Bewick frontispiece by for Aesop’s Fables. It depicts a huge eagle killing a small deer. The image is a vignette, in both senses of the term, as it fades out into the page and is an ornament at the head of a book which plays a part in one’s understanding of the material to follow. A small illustration is turned into a painting which is scaled up to many times the original size. Its ‘frame’ has therefore already been altered to fit the more Romantic aspect of its subject, which is a darker view than the beatific eighteenth century belief in which Bewick operated. The passé-partout device acts as a frame within a frame in which each scene becomes a little world, a contained environment. According to Lubbock,(2006) ‘Vignettes create inescapable situations’. This ‘inescapable situation’ is further enhanced by its historical context, both as an art work and a vision of nature. By translating the wood engraving into a contemporary 21st century painting yet another perspective is created. Animals are often perceived as being a-historical, but in fact the destinies of humans and animals became closely associated from the late 18th century onwards in visual culture. Dramatised taxidermy also found expression in Hancock’s Struggle with the quarry, 1851 which was exhibited at the Great Exhibition.This innovation in the science of taxidermy was seen as a tour de force of ingenuity as it represented both scientific progress and zoological knowledge (Donald, 2007, p.89) In recent decades important material employed by Thomas Bewick for his illustrations of birds and mammals were re- discovered in the attic of the Great North Hancock Museum. His view of nature as being a continuum which embraced both destruction and harmony was a process which combined direct observation with taxidermy. As Lubbock writes (2006):’‘Bewick's vignettes are images of immediate experience. They communicate what it's like to be in the middle of something, to feel things in the present tense, and to be entirely absorbed in your sensations’.

Painting:Oil on Other

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:48 W x 48 H x 0.5 D in

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