The Bull
Paulus Potter, 1647
Mauritshuis, The Hague
A work of the artist’s brief mature period, Paulus Potter’s monumental Bull of 1647 heralds animal painting as a fully independent genre. Its tremendous scale, previously reserved for biblical and historical subjects, heroizes the mundane, as does the foregrounding of the farmyard animals in space. Not only the scale but the intense realism elevates these beasts, notably the bull: the whiskers protruding from its snout, the saliva hovering on its lower lip, and the coarse fur that covers its powerful physique all derive from after-life observations. Yet Potter combined elements from bull specimens of various ages to achieve an idealized representation, an artistic practice with roots in antiquity. That this work dates to one year before the official separation of the Dutch Republic from Spain suggests that this portrait-like painting of sheep, a ram, and cattle – the last a mainstay of the republic’s economy – was intended to celebrate Dutch prosperity.
— Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Eleanor Wood Prince Associate Curator of European Painting and Sculpture before 1750, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Object details
The Bull 1647
Oil on canvas | 235.5 x 339 cm | inv. no. 136
Mauritshuis, The Hague
Paulus Potter
Enkhuizen 1625 – 1654 Amsterdam
Gallery
