Two Sheep In A Landscape 1796

George Morland painted these two sheep in a landscape in England sometime in the late 18th century. Animal paintings were not especially highly regarded at the time, and the art world was still dominated by historical paintings and portraits, genres seen as more serious and intellectual. Morland specialized in rustic and sentimental scenes like this one, however, which appealed to middle-class tastes. You can see the influence of Dutch Golden Age painting here. The picture participates in an artistic discourse about the countryside, and the place of rural life in a rapidly urbanizing society. How did the rise of an art market shape the development of genres like animal painting? To understand more, look into the history of the Royal Academy and the rise of landscape and genre painting in the eighteenth century.