Leseprobe

69 Savery drew on the Old-Testament’s Noah’s Ark to combine animals in extraordi- nary diversity and number in a landscape painting. Beyond indigenous species, he shows interest in exotic beasts, reflecting contemporary tastes, reports from travel- ling Dutch and Flemish merchants and scientists, and illustrated animal books from the mid-16th century on. As a court painter to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II for almost a decade (up to c. 1613), Savery visited imperial menageries in Prague, where he drew non-European animal species from life. In a woodland landscape Savery has gathered more than 150 recognizable species, mostly in pairs, resting in shade or congregating at pools. The imposing ark rises up in the blue-tinged distance. While animal pairs march onto the ark which will protect them from the flood, the animals in the foreground are still in a paradisiacal state, unconcerned about sur- vival. The careful arrangement of specific species according to the chromatic accents of their plumage or fur unites the multipartite composition into an organic whole. The proud, long-maned, white horse in the central foreground was apparently mod- elled on the famous Spanish warhorse that Archduke Albrecht VII of Austria, regent of the Spanish Netherlands, lost to Maurice, Prince of Orange, during the 1600 Battle of Nieuwpoort. Savery has captured the elephants, ostriches, pelicans, and parrots in natural poses, clearly directly observed. By contrast, the rigid forms of the birds of prey, frozen in mid-flight, are not convincing and were obviously painted after stuffed specimens.  |  un