Flemish school of the 17th century.
"Hunting scene".
Oil on canvas. Retouching.
The sky has restorations and repainting.
Measurements: 95 x 115 cm.
We see in this canvas a hunting scene with different animals (a bear and up to six dogs), a particularly violent moment full of tension and even pathos, features that are reflected in the composition, the light and the chromatism as well as in the expressions of the animals. The scene is accompanied by a human presence as the owner of the animals is shown unsheathing a spear while threatening the bear. During the 17th century in Flanders there was a growing demand for paintings to decorate the houses of the bourgeoisie. Apart from portraits and large canvases with religious, historical or mythological themes, artists specialised, painting medium-sized works that gradually increased in format, with still lifes, animals, landscapes and genre scenes. Paintings reproducing collectors' cabinets of the period are explicit in this respect, to the point of giving rise to a new, independent genre of painting. Undoubtedly, the future of this painting would have been different without Rubens, whose art revolutionised the Flemish art scene by introducing a new, fully Baroque approach and bringing a sense of unity and opulent sumptuousness to the ordered and encyclopaedic display of his countrymen's precious depictions. The specialists, either indebted to his manner or subordinate to his work, worked along new lines, adding an accessory object, a landscape or a decorative background to their compositions. Within 17th-century Flemish still-life painting two trends can be distinguished, the static, represented by Clara Peeters and Osias Beert, and the dynamic, with Frans Snyders and Paul de Vos. This work belongs to the second of these schools, which is characterised by following the Rubensian Baroque in a purely dynamic sense. Dynamic still lifes are characterised by compositions with pronounced diagonals, as seen here, and by the frequent presence of live animals interacting with the objects in the still life, captured in full movement.