Rooks in a Field
Artist: Laurits Andersen Ring (Danish, 1854 - 1933)
Date: 1891
Dimensions:
22 x 29.9 in. (56 x 76 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Place of Origin: The Netherlands
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott and with funds given in memory of Sarnoff A. Mednick
Object number: 2016.13
Label Text:Ring's Rooks in a Field presents an uncanny visual dichotomy. Combining Realism and Symbolism, the work is an amalgam of what the artist actually observed and the symbolic theme he endeavored to express pictorially. On one level the composition depicts a ploughed field near Næstved, Denmark, about 50 miles southwest of Copenhagen, that has attracted a flock of rooks (a member of the crow family). On another level, the bird in the immediate left foreground, its wings outstretched but its claws already clutching the earth as it settles, imbues the scene with a profound aura of foreboding. Associated with ill-omen, the rooks suggest the coming—or even the presence—of death.
On view
In Collection(s)