1890
oil
canvas
From the collection of National Gallery of Victoria
Anguish is a 1890 oil by August Friedrich Schenk, a Post-Impressionism work, depicting Lamb, held at National Gallery of Victoria.
This painting shows a sheep standing over a dead lamb on a snowy ground. The sheep is looking up and opening its mouth as if it's crying out. There are many black birds, probably crows or ravens, standing around the sheep and lamb. Some birds are flying in the background. The sky is cloudy and gray. The sheep seems to be in a state of distress, and the birds appear to be waiting for something to happen. The overall mood of the painting is one of sadness and loss. The use of chiaroscuro, a technique that uses strong contrasts between light and dark, adds to the dramatic effect of the scene.
Anguish (French: Angoisses or Angoisse) is an 1878 oil painting by August Friedrich Schenck. It depicts an anguished mother sheep standing over the dead body of her lamb, surrounded by a murder of crows. Perhaps Schenck's most famous painting, it is held by National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia since 1880. The painting was an early acquisition by the gallery, a few years after it was founded, and has been voted the most popular of the gallery's 75,000 works on two occasions, in 1906 and 2011.
Source: wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The painting depicts a distraught ewe bleating in grief, her breath freezing in the cold air. The mother sheep is bravely and defiantly standing over the dead body of her lamb, a trickle of blood running from its mouth into the white snow, in a scene reminiscent of a pietà. The pair of sheep are encircled by a murder of black crows that crowd menacingly and ominously around under a dull grey cloudy winter sky, waiting for an opportunity to scavenge the carcass. The painting's muted tones – almost monotone shades of white, grey, brown and black – reflect its despairing subject matter. It…
Source: wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Schenck was born in Glückstadt in Holstein, now in Germany but then in Denmark, and lived and worked for most of his life in France. The painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1878, under its French title Angoisses, and then in London the following year. It was engraved by Charles Maurand in 1878 for the French periodical L'Art, and by Tiburce de Mare in 1879. The painting was bought by the London art dealer Agnew's and then sold to the National Gallery of Victoria. It arrived in Australia in 1880. It retains its original gilt frame. Schenck reversed the scene in his c.1885 painting,…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Source: wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck (23 April 1828 – 1 January 1901) was a painter who was born in Glückstadt in the Duchy of Holstein, which at the time was under Danish control but part of the German Confederation.
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