This piece is called "Anguish" by August Friedrich Schenck.
Our eyes are immediately drawn to a female sheep
in the center of the painting.
Her head tilts up to the sky
and we can see her breath reminding us of the cold winter air.
It's almost like we can hear her cry.
If we scan down we see the lifeless body of a lamb lying beneath her,
blood trickling from its mouth onto the white snow
that blankets the ground.
We can see the raking of the lamb's leg imprinted in the snow
providing us with a clue
that, if the lamb is indeed dead,
it hasn't been for very long-
Encircling them is a group of crows
which, I just learned, is actually called a murder.
If you ever need to know that for trivia or something.
There are footprints that surround the sheep
leaving us to wonder whether they're from from the mother sheep
encircling her lamb or the crows.
There's almost no color in this world
which makes it feel more like Mars or Hell.
The sheep is almost the same muddy brownish gray color as the sky,
The black forms of the crows
stand out against the white snow on the ground.
These little details are so powerful
but you only need to take a quick glance at this painting
to know immediately what's going on.
A mother sheep cries out in despair over the death of her lamb,
as a group of crows wait patiently to feast on it.
This painting is gut-wrenching
but I think the most interesting and potentially disturbing part about it
is the crows.
They could pester and peck but they don't.
They simply wait because when you think about it
that's all they really need to do.
The worst case scenario for them?
The mother sheep eventually moves on.
The best case scenario?
She becomes weak and falls from exhaustion
and the birds get to feast on both of them.
Looking at it this way,
the crows seem to embody the cruelty and selfishness that exists in our world.
I think we should pause for a second.
This is all very harsh-
Let's dim the lights and I invite you to envision something with me now.
Someone has died.
OK, that was still pretty harsh, but follow me here.
An attentive group gathers around them all dressed in black.
What does this sound like to you?
Like a funeral, right?
Does this painting look any different to you now?
What if, instead of representing brutality,
the crows are supposed to be mourning alongside the mother sheep?
In fact, in the wild crows are known to hold funerals for their fellow crows
who have died .
Maybe Schenck depicts them doing the same here.
Not much is known about August Friedrich Schenck.
Let's just say he'd know Jan van Eik or Leonardo da Vinci
in terms of his acclaim.
We know he was a Danish artist born in 1828.
we know he later moved to France to study art
When "Anguish" was first exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1878
it really resonated with people.
There are a couple of reasons for this.
First of all, in the 19th century,
death was at the forefront of everyone's minds.
Diseases like tuberculosis were rampant
and took many people .when they were young
and also because Queen Victoria
was mourning her late husband, Prince Albert, at the time,
which made death weirdly fashionable, I guess,
but also because a few years, before this painting was created,
Charles Darwin released is book
"The expression of the emotions in man and animals".
This book introduced the idea that animals share some of the same emotions
like joy, sadness and pain,
that humans do.
These were groundbreaking ideas
and shifted people's mindsets from thinking about animals
as purely existing for our consumption and pleasure
to thinking of them as more like us.
Dr Ted Gott, Senior Curator, in International Art,
at the National Gallery of Victoria
suggested that this painting
may have been inspired by Darwin's groundbreaking ideas.
A critic described the artist in 1878 as one of our finest animal painters.
He is one of those originals of the species not yet extinct
who prefer dogs to men
and find more sweetness in sheep than women.
This was meant to be a compliment, I think.
Indeed, Schenck clearly admired animals
and had a gift for portraying them
in a way that touches our hearts
better than many paintings of actual people.
And this piece was so popular that the artist decided
to make another similar painting titled "Orphan",
where the roles of the lamb and sheep are reversed.
Schenck was a very successful artist in his life,
so much so that he was made a Chevalier of the Legion.
But times and tastes changed
and by the mid 1900s,
people thought his art was cheesy, corny
and, over the top, emotional.
Needless to say Schenck became somewhat of a forgotten artist
although this piece sits among paintings
from much more popular artists such as Rembrand
and Monet.
It's consistently ranked as a crowd favorite.
This piece is currently hanging
in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
The gallery has around 75,000 works in its permanent collection
but "Anguish" has been voted twice as one of the Museum's most popular works,
once in 1906 and once in 2011.
I think the success of this painting speaks to the fact
that whether it's 1878 or 2023,
the feeling of pain and loss resonates with almost everyone
because we're all human.
Unless you're a sheep then you're a sheep.
But let's go back to the first interpretation of this painting,
the one where the crows are cruel and selfish
and patiently waiting for their next meal.
When we look at the crows like these,
they can almost look like pure evil to us.
But let's think about this a little deeper.
Let's drink in the scene for a sec.
It's the dead of winter.
These crows are probably starving,
huddled together, waiting for the only sustenance they can find
and I think, if we were in their shoes, or talons, I should say,
how would we feel?
Probably cold, hungry, maybe anxious about the future.
Would we be mourning the little lamb
or would we be waiting for our next meal?
I wonder if Schenck is encouraging us to ask the tough question
of what we would do in this situation.
because maybe the only cruel thing in this painting is the winter.
This painting is painful, sad, beautiful and very, very special.
I had to show it to you guys
but because I know it's super heavy
I wanted to end with some of my favorite cute animal paintings.