The Shortest Follies Are the Best

Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 18, No. 3, March 2012 541 “T is a kind of commerce betwixt beasts and us, a certain relation and mutual obligation, whereof there is no other reason, but that they belong to one and the same master, and are of the same family that we are,” wrote French philosopher and theologian Pierre Charron. Not a new idea, this partnership between humans and animals dates back 9,000 years to the domestication of animals in the Stone Age. And as far back as the Paleolithic Age, art on cave walls suggested a close, if perilous, human association with wild and dangerous beasts—a short folly, not common today, except among hunters and adventurers. Animals feature prominently in art of all ages, and in the 17th century, no longer as part of human scenes but as the primary subject matter. This shift signaled a change in the balance of power between owner and subservient beast, between humans and work animals. Dutch painter Paulus Potter understood this and expressed it by moving away from the human fi gure, traditionally the artist’s “noblest calling.” Some of his paintings contained no humans at all, bringing instead to center stage the horse or milk cow, the donkey or the mule, which until the advent of machines, were primary providers of agricultural, industrial, and other services. Potter received early instruction from his father, a noteworthy landscape and fi gure painter, and from Nicolaes Moeyaert and others, who painted biblical and mythologic scenes. But soon he took off in his own direction, precocious, prolifi c, and popular, learning from nature and painting furiously, as if anticipating his demise before the age of 30 from tuberculosis. He joined the guild of St. Luke in Delft, married well, and was soon noticed by Dutch surgeon and mayor of Amsterdam Nicolaes Tulp, who had also earlier commissioned young Rembrandt van Rijn to paint the famed Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. At the mayor’s invitation, Potter moved to Amsterdam, where, like Rembrandt before him, he became Tulp’s protégé. The portrait of Tulp’s equestrian son Dirk was Potter’s last work. His painting The Young Bull (1649) was to become as famous as Rembrandt’s Night Watch. During his brief artistic career, Potter became the most famous animalier of his day and a pioneer in featuring farm beasts outside the biblical or mythologic context. His approach infl uenced the presence and appearance of animals in European art. He painted them with sensitivity Paulus Potter (c. 1625–1654) God Appearing to Abraham at Sichem (1642) (detail) Oil on canvas (100.4 cm × 130.8 cm) From the collection of Dr. Gordon Gilbert, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. Photo by Ray Bassett