“Explore everything around you, penetrate to the further limits of human knowledge, and always you will come up against something inexplicable in the end. It is called life. It is a mystery so inexplicable that the knowledge of the educated and the ignorant is purely relative when contemplating it.”
“Reverence of the infinity of life means removal of the alienation, restoration of empathy, compassion, sympathy. And so the final result of knowledge is the same as that required of us by the commandment of love. Heart and reason agree together when we desire and dare to be [individuals ] who seek to fathom the depths of the universe…..
Reason discovers the bridge between love for God and love for men—love for all creature, reverence for all being, compassion with all life, however dissimilar to our own.
I cannot but have reverence for all that is called life. I cannot avoid compassion for everything that is called life. That is the beginning and foundation of morality…For centuries the human race had been educated with only a set of superficial principles. We were brutal, ignorant, and heartless without being aware of it. We had no scale of values, for we had no reverence for life. It is our duty to share and maintain life. Reverence concerning all life is the greatest commandment in its most element form…” (Schweitzer, Davis and Kirkland, Dimensions, Gage, 1986, p. 39)
As you view the art images of the animals, which art images and poems do you find interesting and compelling?
How are various animals depicted or represented in the art and the poem?
What is humankind’s relationship with animals?
How have different animal habitats been destroyed, leading to either the extinction of animals or their endangerment.
What can be done to encourage a “reverence for nature”? Think of specific initiatives that can help.
Research the history of one of the paintings and/or research the history of one of the animals.
-How have animals been harmed as a result of exploitation, cruelty, hunting “for sport,” and the destruction of their habitat? Why has this been allowed to happen? What efforts have been made to protect animals?
-Which animals face extinction and are currently endangered?
-What efforts are you aware of to protect endangered animals?
-Animals have often been in “service” to humans. How have humans reciprocated? How would you explain the relationship between animals and humans?
-How can we encourage greater awareness and empathy for all animals?
-Can you identify misconceptions that people may have about animals?
-How can youth and adults be inspired to take positive action to help vulnerable and endangered animals? What can be done at the individual, community, and global level?
-Explore one of the following organizations to learn more about environmental and animal protection. Which other organizations can you find that are dedicated to the protection of animals and their habitat?
For more information about teaching resources, please click on the links below.
This noble monarch of the Afric waste
Meets with no rival to contest his reign,
With his surpassing strength and agile stride
He can o’er come each creature of the plain.
He dashes to the earth the tall giraffe
Who towers above the summits of the woods;
He tracks the herds of shaggy buffaloes,
And slays the bull in solitudes;
He preys on nimble flocks of antelopes,
The pallah, oryx, quagga and wild-beest.
O’ertakes the blesbok in its swiftest flight,
On zebra and the eland makes his feast.How grand, how thunderous his savage roar!
First he emits a dull, far-echoing moan
That ends at times with faintly-whispered sighs.
At other times he startles all the herds
With deep-toned roar and wild, tempestuous cries
That sudden sink away in muffled tone,
Like distant thunder fading in the skies.
His roar is loudest in cold, frosty nights
When two troops meet beside a fountain’s flow;
Then each troop sounds a bold, defiant roar,
Each seeking to out-roar the rival foe.
Those grand, nocturnal concerts fill the waste
With universal terror, yet they thrill,
With transport the brave hunter’s fearless heart,
Who lies there close ambush’d, resolute to kill;
A hunter in the glooms of forests hid,
In the dead hour of midnight, all alone;
Ensconced in thicket at the fountain’s edge,
Listing the awful roar, or hollow moan.
The lions roar incessant in the night,
Their sighing moans beginning with the shades
Of evening; gather in the forest depths,
Sounding their warnings in the dim arcades
Thro’ all the day they rest concealed in shade
Of gloomy forests on some mountain side,
Loving the jungles or the tangled grass
In low-lying shelves or in the valleys wide;
From thence they stalk, when ends the sunset glow,
Intent on nightly prowl for wandering foe,
Then in dark night their roar is full of ire,
Their eyeballs glowing like two balls of fire.
Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), Fight Between a Tiger and Water Buffalo, 1908. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH. “https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1949.186” by The Cleveland Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0
“Having never ventured outside France, Rousseau derived his jungle scenes from reading travel books and visiting the Paris botanical garden. He placed this imaginary scene of a tiger attacking a buffalo within a fantastic jungle environment in which botanical accuracy was of little importance (note the bananas growing upside down). Here, sharply outlined hothouse plants are enlarged to fearsome proportions. Rousseau was working on this painting while imprisoned for fraud in December 1907. Officials granted him an early release to finish it for exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants, where this major composition, one of the artist’s largest and most important, appeared in March 1908. A self-taught artist and retired customs inspector, Rousseau was admired by Pablo Picasso and other avant-garde artists for his originality and the naïve purity of his vision.” (Cleveland Museum of Art Note).
All ardent lovers and all sages prize,
—As ripening years incline upon their brows—
The mild and mighty cats—pride of the house—
That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise.
The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy,
They search for silence and the horrors of gloom;
The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom,
Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery.
When musing, they display those outlines chaste,
Of the great sphinxes—stretched o’er the sandy waste,
That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end:
From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies,
And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand,
Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes.
Charles Baudelaire. Flowers of Evil eBook 1857 Publication (English translation by Cyril Scott. London: Elkin Mathews, Vigo St.).
Half loving-kindliness and half disdain,
Thou comest to my call serenely suave,
With humming speech and gracious gestures grave,
In salutation courtly and urbane;
Yet must I humble me thy grace to gain,
For wiles may win thee though no arts enslave,
And nowhere gladly thou abidest save
Where naught disturbs the concord of thy reign.
Sphinx of my quiet hearth! who deign’st to dwell
Friend of my toil, companion of mine ease,
Thine is the lore of Ra and Rameses;
That men forget dost thou remember well,
Beholden still in blinking reveries
With sombre, sea-green gaze inscrutable.
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw—
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air—
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!
Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square—
But when a crime’s discovered, then Macavity’s not there!
He’s outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s
And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair
Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there!
And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty’s gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair—
But it’s useless to investigate—Macavity’s not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
It must have been Macavity!’—but he’s a mile away.
You’ll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumb;
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time the deed took place—MACAVITY WASN’T THERE !
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!
The cat went here and there And the moon spun round like a top, And the nearest kin of the moon, The creeping cat, looked up. Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, For, wander and wail as he would, The pure cold light in the sky Troubled his animal blood. Minnaloushe runs in the grass Lifting his delicate feet. Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance? When two close kindred meet, What better than call a dance? Maybe the moon may learn, Tired of that courtly fashion, A new dance turn. Minnaloushe creeps through the grass From moonlit place to place, The sacred moon overhead Has taken a new phase. Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils Will pass from change to change, And that from round to crescent, From crescent to round they range? Minnaloushe creeps though the grass Alone, important and wise, And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
“The Cat and the Moon” is reprinted from The Wild Swans at Coole. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1919, p. 102
No sooner did the Cheshire appear did it disappear; Alice wonders about the mysterious grinning cat….
“Please would you tell me,”said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, “why your cat grins like that?”
“It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. Pig!”
She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:—
“I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could grin.”
“They all can,” said the Duchess; “and most of ’em do.”
“I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.
“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; “and that’s a fact.”
Vietnam, Tra-Kieu, 1st half of 10th Century, Sandstone Elephant, 900–950. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio. Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1982. “https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1982.10” by Cleveland Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0.
Wilhelm Kuhnert (1865–1926), Migrating Elephants, date unknown. llustration in Southeby’s catalogue-to be included in the Kuhnert catalogue raisonné by Dr Angelika Grettmann-Werner and the late Hansjörg Werner as no. 2745. “https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23148619” by Wikimedia is licensed under CC0 1.0.
He wanders lonely, o’er the trackless waste,
Pausing the rolling river’s tide to taste, In the broad desert space.Gone is that multitude,
That rang’d the grassy, limitless domain,
Cropping the sumptuous herbage of the plain, Their sweet, luxuriant food.
Great monarch of the field!
His shaggy head moved grandly at the front,
Triumphant ever in the battle’s front, Scorning to fly or yield.
By Alleghany’s chain,
Where the gray summits of the mountains pile,
In the green vales ‘neath rocky Mount’s defile, The bisons rang’d each plain.
Years since, long-vanish’d years,
These giant herds swept o’er the pastures wide,
By Mississippi’s shore, Missouri’s tide, Speeding their grand careers.
What terrors they had known!
When rag’d o’er prairies the consuming fire,
When wood and plain, one vast funereal pyre, With grassy blaze were strown!
Sw1ft the wild cattle fled,
When flam’d afar red Con flagration’s sword,
Speeding to lakelet marge or river ford, In tumults dread.
How frantic was their speed,
When Indian tribesmen came with bloody hand,
The Blackfoot warriors and the Sioux band, On galloping, desert steed!
How frantic was the race,
While pitiless the whistling arrows sped,
The lassos thrown, the spears with carnage red, In fierce, relentless chase!
How terrible their lot,
When the train’d soldier from some frontier post
With deadly rifle charg’d the flying host With sabre and with shot!
Those great herds pass’d away!
Like leaves autumnal scatter’d o’er the plains;
Not a poor remnant of them here remains, In plain or forest-way.
Crippled and daz’d, alone,
Staggering and reeling, bleeding at each pore,
Last of his race, a sovereign now no more, He gasps his dying moa
For more information about the artist George Caitlin, please open the link here.
Fore information about the buffalo please open the links here and here.
John Gould (1804-1881), Ilustration of the Duckbilled Platypus taken from The mammals of Australia, Taylor and Francis, 1863. Biodiversity Heritage Library. “https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35779” by Wikimedia is licensed under CC0 1.0.
“The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature.”-Albert Schweitzer.
“Surely, we do not want to live in a world without the great apes, our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom? A world where we can no longer marvel at the magnificent flight of bald eagles or hear the howl of wolves under the moon? A world not enhanced by the sight of a grizzly bear and her cubs hunting for berries in the wilderness? What would our grandchildren think if these magical images were only to be found in books?”
How do we restore the grandeur of nature and respect all living things?
Excerpt from: “The ghost that haunts Monteverde’: how the climate crisis killed the golden toad”:
“The loss of the amphibian from Costa Rica’s cloud forest was one of the first connected to the global climate crisis and the global heating of the planet.
“Deep in Costa Rica’s mist-shrouded cloud forest, hundreds of bright golden toads would appear suddenly each April to mate. It was a spectacular sight for those who witnessed it: the dazzling, mostly subterranean amphibians gathered en masse around pools of rainwater and fought aggressively for the right to copulate with the females before heading back underground.
“It was one of the truly great wildlife spectacles of the American tropics,” says ecologist Alan Pounds, resident scientist at the Tropical Science Center’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve, standing at the centre of the toads’ former habitat. “It somehow looked unreal.”
About 1,500 golden toads were observed in 1987 in the area of the highland forest where the entire species resided – the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. But by 1989, only a single male was left after the pools in which the toads congregated dried up. He is presumed to have died not long after. The species was certified as extinct in 2004 and is believed to be one of the earliest terrestrial extinctions linked to the climate crisis.” Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield, The Guardian, Nov. 21, 2022).
Photograph Courtesy of Velorian at wts wikivoyage, Own work, Cloud forest bosque in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve Located near Monteverde (town), in Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica, 2010. “https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23076126” by Velorian at wts wikivoyage is licensed under CC BY-SA 1.0.
Reflections:
Based on your reading of this articles, what can be done to protect and improve the natural quality of life for the incredible myriad of insects, amphibians, mammals, birds, and other great creatures of our planet?
To learn more about the Monte Verde Nature Reserve Please open the link here.
In his poem “Horses,” Pablo Neruda (1914-1973) recalls seeing horses in a bleak “skyless” winter without light. He saw the horses from his window stepping like “ten gods of broad clean hoofs” with their manes like salt spray” and colour like “amber and honey.” While Neruda “obliterated” from his memory the cold winter day in Berlin but he writes “I shall not forget the light from those horses.” For Neruda, the horses had an almost supernatural power and light that inspired him. There is a mystical quality to horses that poets like D.H. Lawrence also highlight.
To read the poem “Horses” by Pablo Neruda please open the link here.
For more information about Pablo Neruda please open the link here.
“When Paulus Potter died of tuberculosis before he was thirty years old, he had already profoundly influenced the way animals are depicted in European art. Potter created portraits of animals, making them his picture’s focus, not just a backdrop for human action. The precocious son of a painter, his first dated work is from 1640. He entered Delft’s Guild of Saint Luke in 1646 and later moved to The Hague. He is said to have wandered the Dutch countryside, sketchbook in hand, equally sensitive to how farm animals behave at different times of day and to light’s vicissitudes from morning to dusk. Few of his contemporaries were more attuned to nature’s moods or to the timeless harmony of beast, landscape, and weather. Potter’s strong feeling for composition is seen in the way he grouped forms and used silhouette. His most successful paintings are small.
His contemporaries recognized Potter’s talent. The famous Dr. Nicolas Tulp, who had spotted the young Rembrandt van Rijn’s genius twenty years earlier, persuaded Potter to move to Amsterdam in 1652, whereupon he became Potter’s mentor. In the 1800s, Potter’s life-size The Young Bull was as famous as Rembrandt’s Night Watch. Potter’s etchings show the same sensitivity as his paintings.” (Getty Art Museum, Los Angeles, California)
Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
“They’ll molder away and be like other loam.”
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers’ land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers’ time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights……
Let us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,
And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches—and talk about mail carriers and
messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks.
Let us write of olden, golden days and hunters of the
Holy Grail and men called “knights” riding horses in the rain, in the cold frozen rain for ladies they loved.A roustabout hunched on a coal wagon goes by, icicles drip on his hat rim, sheets of ice wrapping
the hunks of coal, the caravanserai a gray blur in slant of rain.
Let us nudge the steam radiator with our wool slippers and write poems of Launcelot, the hero, and
Roland, the hero, and all the olden golden men who rode horses in the rain.
In the grey wastes of dread,
The haunt of shattered gulls where nothing moves
But in a shroud of silence like the dead,
I heard a sudden harmony of hooves,
And, turning, saw afar
A hundred snowy horses unconfined,
The silver runaways of Neptune’s car
Racing, spray-curled, like waves before the wind.
Sons of the Mistral, fleet
As him with whose strong gusts they love to flee,
Who shod the flying thunders on their feet
And plumed them with the snortings of the sea;
Theirs is no earthly breed
Who only haunts the verges of the earth
And only on the sea’s salt herbage feed-
Surely the great white breakers gave them birth.
For when for years a slave,
A horse of the Camargue, in alien lands,
Should catch some far-off fragrance of the wave
Carried far inland from this native sands,
Many have told the tale
Of how in fury, foaming at the rein,
He hurls his rider; and with lifted tail,
With coal-red eyes and cataracting mane,
Heading his course for home,
Though sixty foreign leagues before him sweep,
Will never rest until he breathes the foam
And hears the native thunder of the deep.
And when the great gusts rise
And lash their anger on these arid coasts,
When the scared gulls career with mournful cries
And whirl across the waste like driven ghosts;
When hail and fire converge,
The only souls to which they strike no pain
Are the white crested fillies of the surge
And the white horses of the windy plain.
Then in their strength and pride
The stallions of the wilderness rejoice;
They feel their Master’s trident in their side,
And high and shrill they answer to his voice.
With white tails smoking free,
Long streaming manes, and arching necks, they show
Their kinship to their sisters of the sea-
And forward hurl their thunderbolts of snow.
Still out of hardship bred,
Spirits of power and beauty and delight
Have ever on such frugal pasture fed
And loved to course with tempests through the nigh
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn’t just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily, Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James, Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey— All of them sensible everyday names. There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames: Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter— But all of them sensible everyday names, But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular, A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified, Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular, Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride? Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat, Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum— Names that never belong to more than one cat. But above and beyond there’s still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess; The name that no human research can discover— But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable.
The Greek philosopher Diogenes (404-323 BC) is seated in his abode, the earthenware tub, in the Metroon, Athens, lighting the lamp in daylight with which he was to search for an honest man. His companions were dogs that also served as emblems of his “Cynic” (Greek: “kynikos,” dog-like) philosophy, which emphasized an austere existence. Three years after this painting was first exhibited, Gerome was appointed a professor of painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he would instruct many students, both French and foreign. Retrieved March 11, 2023.
Elbridge S. Brooks (1846-1902), Animals in Action; Studies and Stories of Beasts, Birds and Reptiles; Their Habits, Their Homes and Their Peculiarities, 1901. Boston: Lothrop Pub. Co. Washington, DC. Library of Congress. “https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44320485” by Internet Archive is licensed under CC0 1.0.
UNCONQUERABLY, men venture on the quest
And seek an ocean amplitude unsailed,
Cold, virgin, awful. Scorning ease and rest,
And heedless of the heroes who have failed,
They face the ice floes with a dauntless zest.
The polar quest! Life’s offer to the strong!
To pass beyond the pale, to do and dare,
Leaving a name that stirs us like a song.
And making captive some strange Otherwhere,
Though grim the conquest, and the labor long.
Forever courage kindles, faith moves forth
To find the mystic floodway of the North.
J Jack London (1876-1916), was an American novelist, adventurer, activist, and journalist. His novels and short stories focus on the elemental struggles of individuals and animals amid harsh environmental conditions. Short stories such as “To Build a Fire” and novels such as White Fang and Call of the Wild brought
London critical acclaim and popularity. London was also an early innovator of the science fiction genre. To read more of his adventure stories please click on the links below.
Gustav Mützel (1839-1893), Northern Mammals.Reindeer, 1915. Nordisk familjebok (1915), vol.21, Till art. Polarländer [1][2] Nordisk Familjebok has credited the image to Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig. “https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=100291869” by Nordisk familjebok is licensed under CC0 1.0.
“Like the Ornithorhynchus^ this remarkable creature is only found in the south-eastern portion of the great land of the South. It is in the brushes which skirt the sea side of the mountain-ranges between the district of lUawarra and the River Clarence that it is most numerous ; here, among the leafy branches of the great trees, the Koala remains sleeping during the daytime ; but at nightfall this lethargy gives place to more active habits, and it then moves about with agility in search of its natm-al diet, which is said to be the tender buds and shoots of the Eucalypti.
Like too many others of the larger Australian mammals, this species is certain to become gradually more scarce, and to be ultimately extirpated ; I have not hesitated, therefore, to give a Hfe-sized head, as well as reduced figures, which, with a full account of the economy of the animal, will be found to follow the present page.” Retrieved November 19, 2022 https://archive.org/details/mammalsAustrali1Goul/page/14/mode/2up
While once abundant, the Koala Bear is now endangered. Research the history of now endangered animals like the Koala bear. Identify the factors that contributed to the species decline. What efforts, if any, are being taken to restore the “grandeur of nature” with respect to helping animals like the Koala?
John Frederick Lewis (1804-1876), A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount Sinai, 1842, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut. “https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:10761” by Yale Center for British Art is licensed under CC0 1.0.
From their folded mates they wander far,
Their ways seem harsh and wild;
They follow the beck of a baleful star,
Their paths are dream-beguiled.
Yet haply they sought but a wider range,
Some loftier mountain-slope,
And little recked of the country strange
Beyond the gates of hope.
And haply a bell with a luring call
Summoned their feet to tread
Midst the cruel rocks, where the deep pitfall
And the lurking snare are spread.
Maybe, in spite of their tameless days
Of outcast liberty,
They’re sick at heart for the homely ways
Where their gathered brothers be.
And oft at night, when the plains fall dark
And the hills loom large and dim,
For the Shepherd’s voice they mutely hark,
And their souls go out to him.
Meanwhile, “Black sheep! Black sheep!” we cry,
Safe in the inner fold;
And maybe they hear, and wonder why,
And marvel, out in the cold.
Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), Château de Chantilly, date unknown. Musee Conde, Chantilly, Oise, Paris, France. “https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chantilly,_Rosa_Bonheur,_sheeps_in_the_Pyrenees.JPG” by Wikimedia is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Unknown artist eighteenth century after George Stubbs, 1724–1806, A Horse Frightened by a Lioness, c. 1800. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. “https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:39500” by Yale Center for British Art is licensed under CC0 1.0.
Edward Hicks (1780-1849) was born in Landhorne, Pennsylvania. He was a self-taught “primitive” American painter. Hicks found work as a Quaker minister; his art is inspired by Old Testament biblical verses, Hicks painted at least sixty-two versions of “The Peaceable Kingdom.” Hicks reconciled his religious beliefs with his artistic talents.
Amid war, destruction, and devastation artists like Edward Stuart Church and Edward Hicks envisioned an idyllic world where animals, humans, and all living things were at peace.
Click on the link below to view more paintings of animals by artists.
It was easy enough
to bend them to my wish,
it was easy enough
to alter them with a touch,
but you
adrift on the great sea,
how shall I call you back?
Cedar and white ash,
rock-cedar and sand plants
and tamarisk
red cedar and white cedar
and black cedar from the inmost forest,
fragrance upon fragrance
and all of my sea-magic is for nought.
It was easy enough—
a thought called them
from the sharp edges of the earth;
they prayed for a touch,
they cried for the sight of my face,
they entreated me
till in pity
I turned each to his own self.
Panther and panther,
then a black leopard
follows close—
black panther and red
and a great hound,
a god-like beast,
cut the sand in a clear ring
and shut me from the earth,
and cover the sea-sound
with their throats,
and the sea-roar with their own barks
and bellowing and snarls,
and the sea-stars
and the swirl of the sand,
and the rock-tamarisk
and the wind resonance—
but not your voice.
It is easy enough to call men
from the edges of the earth.
It is easy enough to summon them to my feet
with a thought—
it is beautiful to see the tall panther
and the sleek deer-hounds
circle in the dark.
It is easy enough
to make cedar and white ash fumes
into palaces
and to cover the sea-caves
with ivory and onyx.
But I would give up
rock-fringes of coral
and the inmost chamber
of my island palace
and my own gifts
and the whole region
of my power and magic
for your glance.
I am the autumnal sun,
With autumn gales my race is run;
When will the hazel put forth its flowers,
Or the grape ripen under my bowers?
When will the harvest or the hunter’s moon,
Turn my midnight into mid-noon? I am all sere and yellow, And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods,
The winter is lurking within my moods,
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief.
Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals)
Is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough.
We have a higher mission:
To be of service to them whenever they require it.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is one of the largest collections of digitized illustrations of animals, plants and other forms of life (i.e. biodiversity) on the internet. This project hopes to facilitate a partnership between the BHL and the Wikimedia Commons to their mutual benefit. In order to convince the BHL to commit scarce resources to this task, we want to start by showing them the value of the Wikimedia Commons as a facilitator in making their content widely available and as a way to enhance their brand. A mailing list is available to discuss BHL/Wikipedia collaborations.
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), Illustration in Aid to the Identification of Insects (Plate 182), 1730. Image taken from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, edited by Charles Owen Waterhouse (Lithographs by Edwin Wilson). E.W. Janson Pub. (1880-1882). “https://archive.org/details/MariaSybillaMer00Meri/page/n69/mode/2up” by Internet Archive is licensed under CC0 1.0.
Claude Augé (1854-1924), Reptiles, 1932. Illustration taken from Nouveau Larousse Illustré, edited by Claude Augé published in Paris by Librarie Larousse 1897-1904, this illustration from vol. 7 p. 263 “https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reptile003d.jpg” by Wikimedia is licensed under CC0 1.0.
Hurt no living thing:
Ladybird, nor butterfly,
Nor moth with dusty wing,
Nor cricket chirping cheerily,
Nor grasshopper so light of leap,
Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat,
Nor harmless worms that creep.
Jan van Kessel (Flemish, 1626–1679), Insects, Butterflies, and a Dragonfly, 17th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. “https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/366820” by Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed underCC0 1.0.
“Jan van Kessel produced numerous studies of plants and animals and distinguished himself from his predecessors in this field through his emphasis upon the depiction and aesthetic arrangement of insects. The artist likely drew from prints and from life when drawing the array of insects on this sheet. He occasionally painted insects like these on the drawer fronts of the cabinets that insect collectors used for display. The jarring juxtaposition of Van Kessel’s animate painted insects with the dried and pinned specimens contained within the drawers that his depictions decorated would have surprised and delighted those privileged enough to have had access to the elite spaces in which these collections were housed.” Retrieved November 19, 2022 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/366820
At evening, sitting on this terrace, When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara Departs, and the world is taken by surprise …
When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing Brown hills surrounding …
When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio A green light enters against stream, flush from the west, Against the current of obscure Arno …
Look up, and you see things flying Between the day and the night; Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.
A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches Where light pushes through; A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air. A dip to the water.
And you think: “The swallows are flying so late!”
Swallows?
Dark air-life looping Yet missing the pure loop … A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight And serrated wings against the sky, Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light, And falling back.
Never swallows! Bats! The swallows are gone.
At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to bats By the Ponte Vecchio … Changing guards.
Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one’s scalp As the bats swoop overhead! Flying madly.
Pipistrello! Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe. Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;
Wings like bits of umbrella.
Bats!
Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep; And disgustingly upside down.Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!
In China the bat is symbol for happiness. Not for me!
“Albertus Seba (1665-1736) was a pharmacist and lived in Amsterdam, near the IJ. He supplied medicines to the ships of the Dutch East Indian Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). Through his work he had a lot of contact with passengers and merchants. They showed him rarities that they had encountered on their travels. A trade arose in these objects, which allowed Seba to expand his collection. At one point he had correspondents all over the world: people who looked forward to special objects for him. For example, he collected a large collection.
Seba sold his first collection to Tsar Peter the Great. The Tsar paid him 15,000 guilders. Immediately afterwards, Seba began a new collection, which became even larger than the first. He also opened his collection to scientific research. Scholars even visited him, including Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). Linnaeus was a Swedish physician and botanist, who, among other things, devised a system to organize and name plant families. We use his naming system in the 21ecentury still. Linnaeus considered Seba’s collection of great scientific importance.” Parts of the collection played a role in Linnaeus’ systematic description of nature” (Wikipedia).
Please click on the links below for more information to learn more about Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities.
By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.
His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.
He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner light.
But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:
For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face
At evening, sitting on this terrace,
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise …
When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing
Brown hills surrounding …
When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio
A green light enters against stream, flush from the west,
Against the current of obscure Arno …
Look up, and you see things flying
Between the day and the night;
Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.
A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches
Where light pushes through;
A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.
A dip to the water…..
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