On a recent trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was particularly struck by a specific painting: “Gamepiece with a Dead Heron” by Jan Weenix. It is full of both life and death and shows that, while humans have manipulated nature to best serve our own interests, we will all eventually succumb to the circle of life.
The painting's focal point seems to be the “trophies” from a recent hunt (dead fowl) juxtaposed with a rather magnificent bouquet of flowers. Some of the flowers are full and thriving, while others are withering and appear smaller, weaker, closer to death.
To the left in the middle ground, we see swans floating peacefully down the river and a man walking a dog. Above, the sky fluctuates from dark to light, possibly representational of the theme of life and death common throughout the work. Humans seem to be the decision makers in what lives or dies, and how elegantly it is (or isn't) done. Dogs are bred as companions and the swans are alive, while the heron, falcon, and other small birds are dead in the center. There is a tree in the background whose leaves seem to be dying in what is presumably the beginning of autumn, marking a changing of the seasons and a transition from the growth and life of summer to the darker days of winter.
A small but significant part of the painting lies in the bottom left corner; a bird whistle made from a lobster claw. What was once a tool for survival for one animal, has now been turned into a tool of death for another, more sophisticated animal, the human, and used to summon unknowing birds to their untimely demise.
The fragility of life and inevitability of death seem to be the overarching ideas represented in this painting. In my opinion, a closer look at the deceased heron confirms this. Its eyes are still open, depictive of death looking right back at us. Dried blood lingers on the beak and the ground underneath; remnants of the struggle for survival, and a reminder that we, as humans, for better or worse, are responsible for the death of this bird, and perhaps nature at large.
I strongly recommend spending some time with this painting.
Contemplate what it says to you and consider the implications of life and death strewn throughout.
Who knows, maybe it will deepen your appreciation for nature or art at large, or, at the very least, life itself.
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