Jan Stobbaerts, The Sow

by Atelier Liesjes

A large sow stands alone in the picture, seen from a diagonal front view. Her body is a pale pink-ochre, almost flesh-coloured, with a heavy, sagging belly that almost touches the ground; the skin is painted almost translucent, with the occasional grey shadow beneath her belly. Her head hangs low, her snout points to the left, and her ears are limply folded forwards. Behind her lies a dark opening, containing a door painted green; to the right stands a rough wooden fence and a peeling brick wall with white patches of lime. The ground is a mixture of straw, earth and manure, with short, scratchy strokes in yellow, grey and brown. The light falls flat and grey, without harsh shadows. A round stamp or collector’s mark is visible in the bottom left-hand corner; in the bottom right-hand corner is the painter’s flourish-like signature.
Stobbaerts portrays the animal without any idealisation and without a narrative: no farmer, no piglets, no stable mates. It is precisely this that lends the sow a certain monumentality, an almost dignified air. The paint is applied sparingly and quickly, with long strokes across the flanks and short dabs in the mud; in some places, the canvas ground remains visible. The palette of pink, ochre, grey-green and umber is warm and earthy. Thus, this canvas stands in the tradition of the realistic animal painting, in which the ordinary farm animal is made the subject of attention.
Jan Stobbaerts (Antwerp 1838 – Schaerbeek 1914) grew up in Antwerp and spent his entire life painting livestock, stables and windmills. He studied at the Antwerp Academy and is regarded as the most important Belgian livestock painter of his generation, a realist who breathed new life into the seventeenth-century Flemish tradition. His work is held in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. A simple, characterful piece for a country-style interior.