beautiful paintings of animals from cats to fish

Animals always have been the stars of myths and stories. Dragons, lions, unicorns and butterflies. We gave them spacial powers, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. The White rhino for instance is almost on the brink of extinction because of the superstitious belief that the horn is a potent fertility medicine!!!

The dragons and unicorns are already extinct as you know ;-) But in many paintings, animals are painted for symbolic reasons. The fish representing Christ, The lion often representing royalty and the Eagle became a symbol for America as the Bear is for Russia.

Symbolism always played a big role in history of painting. You see the lions and dolphins on the mosaic walls of the roman empire, The Greek gods turned themselves into animals, Like when Zeus kidnapped Europe, he did so in the form of a bull. Remember the snake and the dove in the bible stories. We used animals as symbols to explain abstract ideas like proud, wisdom, falsehood, peace or cunning.

Throughout the ages humans always have kept animals. Cats to keep the mouse and rats away from the harvest storage, Dogs for guidance and to guard. Horses and Donkeys for heavy labor. We do love animals and some of them became over the years domesticated. We love our pets, and many artist too, they found it impossible not to give them a place in there artworks.

This woodcut from Ando Hiroshige shows us a jumping carp, showing his power and elegance. Carps always have been in high regard in Japan, and like goldfish they are treated very respectfully. No wonder because a well bred carp can cost as much as $100,000. Top breeders are treated like stars and go all over the world giving lectures on their techniques.

Vincent van Gogh was influenced by the woodprints of Ando Hiroshige and made several copies. around 1900 the japanes arts became well known in Europe and the new style Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil in Germany, was influenced by him and by Japanese art in general.