Dorcas Gazelle 1893 - 1896

This is Wilhelm Kuhnert’s ‘Dorcas Gazelle’, an undated painting, showing a group of gazelles in their natural habitat. Kuhnert, a German artist, was renowned for his detailed wildlife paintings, often produced during his travels to Africa and Asia. Kuhnert's paintings reflect a period when the Western gaze was turning towards the ‘exotic’ landscapes and wildlife of the colonies. As an artist who never shot the animals he painted, Kuhnert saw himself as an objective recorder of nature. However, his work also has to be understood in the context of his time, when Western imperialism and scientific explorations frequently led to the objectification and exploitation of the natural world and its inhabitants. While we can admire Kuhnert's skill in capturing the gazelles' physical form, we might also reflect on how images like this have contributed to a complex and often problematic relationship between humans and the animal kingdom. What does it mean to depict these creatures in a way that both celebrates their beauty and potentially reinforces a sense of human dominance over nature?