Rooks in a Field

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Rooks in a Field

Artist Laurits Andersen Ring (Danish, 1854 - 1933)

Place of OriginThe Netherlands

Date1891

Dimensions22 x 29.9 in. (56 x 76 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased 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

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 33

Collections

Paintings

Published ReferencesChristensen, H.C.C., Tillaeg til Fortegn20else over Malerier og Studier af L. A. Ring, Copenhagen, 1922, nr. 237 (Catalogue Raisonné of Ring's works).

Hertz, Peter, Maleren L.A. Ring, Copenhagen, 1934, pp. 250, 264.

Wivel, Henrik, L.A. Ring, Copenhagen, Fogtdal, 1997, p. 24, fig.10 repr. (col.).

Nørgaard Larsen, Peter, ed., L.A. Ring: On the Edge of the World, Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kust, 2006, pp. 47, 228, repr. (col.) p. 47.

Frederiksen, Finn Terman, Den bevingede Knokkelmand: L. A. Ring imellem realisme og symbolisme, Randers, Randers Kunstmuseum, 2007, pp. 98‐100, repr. p. 101.

Exhibition HistoryKunstforeningen, Arbejder af L. A. Ring, 1924, nr. 89.

Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst; Randers Kunstmuseum; L.A. Ring. On the Edge of the World, 2006-2007.

Label TextRing'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.