In the previous article, we delved into the fascinating history of the connection between pigs and art. We explored the symbolism that accompanies this unusual combination. Now, on to the next stage of our exciting journey. At first glance, pigs and high art may seem like incompatible concepts, but the world of art is always full of amazing surprises and unexpected combinations. On this fun exploration trip, we look at 8 stunning paintings that prove that pigs and fine art make a perfect and inspiring pair.

Unusual muses and artistic masterpieces: pigs in the spotlight

“Pigs are not just creatures, they are colorful characters in the great drama of art, capable of expressing harmony and laughter, thereby adding their own unique note to the palette of artistic creativity.” - Thomas Hogan 

 

 

Pigs are mysterious stories revealed by the canvases of a time when pigs became the muses of art. Their roots go deep into history, the fabric of which is permeated with various symbols and myths. Across eras and regions, pigs dance in the shadows of the gods, joining cultures and rituals.

These funny creatures seem to have a magical ambiguity, being the source of abundance, fertility and prosperity, and at the same time the embodiment of gluttony and impurity. They penetrated religious ideas and everyday customs, acting as a mirror of the internal contradictions of humanity.

In painting, pigs transcend conventional images, traveling through genres and styles, as if revealing their cards in a game with fate. These piglets dance under a generous brush whirlwind, revealing their souls and discovering new facets of their influence on the artistic landscape and human life. Take a closer look at this piggy world - where art flourishes, and pigs inspire the magic of creativity.

Saint Anthony's Pig

 

Saint Anthony in the painting, which is attributed to Bosch, prays earnestly, and the devil, to distract him, sends monsters of different sizes, each more wonderful than the other. Next to the raging creatures is a cute pig with a bell in its ear: traditionally a pig symbolizes lust and insatiability, but the bell puts it in the category of positive heroes.

 

Saint Anthony was considered the patron saint of people suffering from ergotism: this painful disease, the symptoms of which include mental disorders and gangrene, is caused by ergot alkaloids, a fungus that often affected rye flour. The Hospital Brotherhood of St. Anthony treated such patients: the monks stored bread not contaminated with fungus in case of epidemics, and smeared ulcers on gangrenous limbs with lard. They raised the pigs themselves to produce lard. The pigs bred by the Antonite monks were allowed to graze on special lands, and the bell distinguished these “medicinal” pigs from all others.

A pig with bad news (and genes)

 

In 1496, all of Germany was talking about this pig from a small Alsatian village: leaflets with its image and description were very popular and spread panic - the birth of animals with genetic abnormalities was considered a harbinger of great disasters, even the end of the world. The pig had one head, four ears, two tongues, two torsos and 8 legs - two of them on top.

Dürer could not see this monster: the pig lived only one day. But his engraving gives the impression of a reportage photo: he reproduced the pig according to the description (and added age to it), but placed it against the backdrop of a real castle from Landser. In 1515, Dürer undertook to depict a rhinoceros, which he had never seen, relying on drawings and descriptions of eyewitnesses. And it won’t be as successful as what happened with the pig (after all, he saw a lot of healthy pigs) - Durer’s rhinoceros wears armor and a horn on its back.

In the land of running roasted pigs

 

A running fried pig (with a knife so that the lazy person can immediately cut off a juicier slice) and a peeled egg are one of the most striking characters in the Land of Lazy People: the inhabitants of this country will not raise livestock and waste energy on preparing dinner - the food itself rushes towards them. They made their last effort when they gnawed a hole into this magical land in the mountain of porridge (in the upper right corner of the painting).

Residents of the country, lounging under a table with dishes reminiscent of the Wheel of Fortune, think that they have caught luck by the tail. But Bruegel, of course, condemns them. And he ridicules not only laziness - a vice to which people of different classes are subject: a peasant, a soldier and a scientist are lying down in the painting. It is also a political satire. This is also a statement on the current agenda. The Duke of Alba with Spanish troops had just walked through the territory of the Netherlands, exterminating the “heretics” (Protestants): impressed by the horrors of this campaign, Bruegel had already painted the painting “The Triumph of Death”, and here he hints to his people that this is not the time to sit with your mouth open, waiting. when a fried bird flies into it. And dreams of houses with roofs made of pies are also out of time.

As for the pigs, they repeatedly helped Bruegel teach the audience with a smile. Here is a bonus selection of fragments from Bruegel’s painting “Dutch Proverbs”:

 

Throwing roses in front of pigs means wasting valuables on the unworthy.

Pigs in the living room

Rubens painted this painting to hang in his own living room. And it belonged to the artist until his death. Rubens scholars are interested here in the upper right corner of the painting - there is one of Rubens’s first experiments in the landscape genre. We are on the bottom right, with an illustration to the Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke.

The younger of the two sons asks his father for his share of the inheritance - and goes to great lengths: when the inheritance is spent, he is forced to herd pigs, and is so hungry that “he was glad to fill his belly with the horns that the pigs ate, but no one gave it to him” ( by horns we mean the fruits of the carob tree - the Jews ate them only in times of famine, and in prosperous times they fed their livestock).

In a metaphorical sense, the parable illustrates the forgiveness of God the Father: the son left him, but when he came to his senses and returned, he was accepted into his father’s arms. Rubens's prodigal son has yet to return to his father and beg for forgiveness, while in the meantime he prays to be allowed to share a meal with the pigs. And he does it much more emotionally than Durer’s prodigal son, for example (which perfectly demonstrates the difference between the art of the Baroque and the Renaissance).

How a family screwed itself over

 

Jan Steen became famous for his paintings depicting noisy, depraved and slovenly families. With such a topic it is easy to slip into tediousness, but Stan was saved by his sense of humor.

The mistress of the house depicted in the painting “Cavardak” fell asleep - and everything in the house turned upside down: the dog began to taste the pie, an illiterate woman taught a man with a book, a boy smoked, and a girl who should have exuded modesty flirted with her gentleman.

In this turmoil, a pig snuck into the house - and no one cares about it except the loving gentleman who throws roses (we would say beads) in front of the pig: the tradition of literally illustrating proverbs is still relevant 100 years after Bosch and Bruegel, who are very succeeded in this. Above the heads of all these shameless people hangs a basket - a symbol of fate: it is filled with what will sooner or later fall on the heads of these sinners - so, the crutch symbolizes poverty, but everything is clear about the rods.

Swinely in ancient mythology

The sorceress goddess Circe became famous for her ability to harm men. She poisoned her husband, the king of the Sarmatians, in order to take the throne. The men who did not reciprocate Circe’s love (even though she was a beauty) were a little more lucky: she turned the sea god Glaucus into a monster with the help of a potion, and another king she had her eye on into a woodpecker.

But the most famous and large-scale crime of Circe is described in Homer’s “Odyssey”: with the help of a potion, she turned Odysseus’s companions (more than 20 people!) into pigs.

No, they didn’t drink anything with a strength of 40 degrees: only wine and magic.

Having seated the guests in chairs and on stools, Circe
Served them a mixture of cheese and honey with barley meal and Pramnian
Bright wine, sprinkling in a potion of her magical blend
Into the cup, so that their memory of homeland would fade; and when
It was served, and they had tasted the drink, with a swift
Wave of her wand, the enchantress drove them into the swine enclosure,
Each finding himself there with bristly hide, a swine's
Snout, and the grunting of a pig, yet retaining his reason.

Fortunately, Odysseus, who was given an antidote to Circe's potions by Hermes, saved his comrades. He “had” to share a bed with the goddess and feast at her table - and she returned his friends to human forms (and even moreover, the men became even stronger and more beautiful than before they were in the pigskin).

The English painter Brighton Riviere specialized in animal painting, so he depicts not the rescue operation performed by Odysseus, but the pigs themselves. As Homer says, they retained the human mind - so they could realize the horror of their situation: Rivière focused on the emotional pig faces.

Synthetic pigs

Finally we got to the pigs, not burdened with heavy meanings and meaningful hints.

Gauguin, like many other artists from Europe and America at the end of the 19th century, arrived in Brittany in search of paintings of patriarchal life, untouched by progress. And I found it. Not only rural pastorals and pigs, but also a new artistic method - synthetism: its adherents combine on the canvas what they see in reality and their feelings towards what is depicted. It is subjective feelings that make the color of the paintings incredibly bright. As for the pigs, we hope these are not Gauguin’s inner demons (they should have been more terrible), but animals he observed in reality.

If a pig could draw

American artist Jamie Wyeth painted portraits of many celebrities - John Kennedy, Andy Warhol, Arnold Schwarzenegger, his great father, after all. And his first success was also ensured by the portrait.

In 1971, Jamie presented his work at a joint exhibition with his father and grandfather. The highlight of the program was a huge - more than two meters wide - painting of the youngest of the Wyeths. It was "Portrait of a Pig". In the most literal sense.

Wyatt will write pigs many times: he lives on his farm for a long time, so for him they are not exotic, but ordinary neighbors. Wyeth takes these models of his very seriously: he captures not only their appetizing forms, but also their characters. And he succeeds in the latter, even when the painting shows only the rear view!

“When I draw a seagull or a pig, I like to think that if that pig could draw, it would draw itself exactly the way I did. That’s what excites me,” says Jamie Wyeth.

In conclusion, pigs in art and culture prove to be surprisingly multifaceted symbols, intertwined with rich layers of myth, religion and art. Displaying both positive and negative aspects, they become a mirror of human aspirations and contradictions.

Works of art that feature pigs as muses provide us with an opportunity to reimagine these four-legged creatures and see them in a new light. From ancient to modern times, pigs continue to inspire artists, forcing us to consider the deeper meaning of their presence in our culture.

Thus, pigs and high art create a unique combination, reminding us that beauty and inspiration can happen in the most unexpected and unusual places. In this exciting journey through art, pigs not only maintain their place in cultural heritage, but also continue to inspire new creative discoveries.

Our unique catalog features paintings from different genres and eras, including works where pigs become an integral part of the artistic inspiration. You'll find pig portraits created by master artists who have deftly captured their personality and character. These works immerse the viewer in a wonderful world where pigs become not just objects of depiction, but real personalities that make you smile and capture the imagination. Our catalog invites you to a fascinating exploration of the influence of pigs in art, revealing a wide range of themes and creative approaches.