Boy with two donkeys 

Rudolf Gudden’s pencil drawing "Boy with two donkeys," captures a scene of quiet companionship. The donkey, a symbol of patience, humility, and burden-bearing, appears throughout history, from carrying religious figures to becoming a common beast of burden. Consider its appearance in the ancient Egyptian tale of "The Golden Ass," or Apuleius’s "Metamorphoses," where transformation into a donkey is a metaphor for the base and animalistic aspects of human nature. Then we find it in Christian iconography, bearing Christ on Palm Sunday, symbolizing peace and service. The boy’s relaxed posture upon one of the donkeys evokes a deep connection between humanity and nature. We see echoes of the classical motif of the "puer senex," the wise child, who carries an old soul within a youthful form. This reflects a human desire to find harmony in nature, perhaps a yearning to return to an innocent state, free from the burdens of modern existence. This motif reappears in various forms, revealing our ongoing dialogue with the natural world.