Jagdbeute 1912

Carl Reichert made this oil painting, Jagdbeute, with small brushes and a steady hand to illustrate the story of the hunt. Just imagine him, carefully building up the forms of the dogs in layers of warm browns and blacks. There's something both gentle and fierce about this scene. The tight, cropped composition, the way the dogs press in around the fox, makes you wonder if Reichert felt a little sympathetic toward his subjects. He must have been thinking about man's relationship to animals. The dachsunds are alert and focused, their bodies low to the ground and their eyes fixed on the fox, who is looking back at us. The painting has a narrative quality reminiscent of folk art, yet it is also rendered with a highly refined technique akin to academic painting. All the brushstrokes create this contrast of softness with the grim reality of nature. Artists throughout time have been inspired by this tension, using it as a way to represent the world around them.