Thursday, February 09, 2017
Beyond the feeders, where the lawn was dappled with sun and shade, a blackcap prepared to defend half an apple - but the chaffinch wasn't interested anyway.
A few days ago I took some pictures of a raven in trees against a snowy hillside, with the vague feeling that they reminded me of something. It came to me today: The Hunters in the Snow (1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder - often seen on Christmas cards. (Actually, it's always depressed the hell out of me for some reason, but never mind - it's still a masterpiece.) Later: The birds here are probably not ravens but crows and a magpie (borne out by a wikipedia entry) - perhaps lifelike enough to disprove my original suggestion that they were stylized representations. Interesting, though, is a quote from Cäcilia Bischoff, that "the combination of Alpine mountains with Flemish architecture renders pointless any search for reality". (artsandculture.google)
// posted by Christine @ 11:34 AM 
