Dead Swan

Given the hap haserdly approach to placing the dead animals it seems to be that they were killed for recreational hunting rather than practical hunting for the purposes of not starving to death.

The landscape in the background is quite sparce seeming to indicate that this is a regular hunting ground.

The first thought that came to me looking at this painting was: Death. An then, as I looked on, the setting became more clear but also puzzling at the same time. The painting is an allegorical composition rather than a captured scene. And this means that each element included has a symbolic significance.

The dead animals are dripping off a stone sculpture as disgraced offerings at an altar while in the background a somber and solemn nature is depicted.

The animals have deliberately been killed and the rifle lies discarded on the ground.

A wasteful death of beautiful and graceful creatures above which stone statues of imaginary beautiful creatures look eternal and immovable.

The entire composition makes me think of the sacrifice of youth, beauty and life on the altar of imaginary beauty frozen into eternity into a stone structure.

I don't know the intent behind the painting, so this is just my opinion on what's painted. At first I didn't know what to think because it seemed heartless how the animals were slain and thrown upon an alter. And then noticing the hunters in the back after another I thought it reminds a little of how we slayed anyone back in the day that did not follow our same beliefs. They would make the deaths become a show, a message to others that walked by. Showing they no longer viewed them as human and if anyone dared to not follow would have the same fate. Then with the dark skies in the back could be a sunset or sunrise, but it adds to the over all feeling of coldness. Also it seemed how we give sacrfices to Gods we belive in or the ones we created and not give a second thought to what were taking from the world, even ourselves. Still a beautiful painting, it's a masterpiece.

I see great power and great sadness depending on who is looking at this. One can show accomplishment and strength of who put the beautiful swan here. But I see sadness of loss. I see a perfect example of beauty being ruined by man...

Paining depicts small hunting game, dead animals tied to stone pedestal, firearm placed near them. In the background, hunters are chasing their next victim by the shore. The scene leaves an impression of a sacrifice bein brought to an altar decorated with stone statues depicting glory and holyness. But this glory is set in stone, it's lifeless - not part of the serene wilderness around it. Yet the natural life brought to it is now also cold and lifeless, as if the statues demanded a spark of life been taken away from what has brought to them. And yet there's beauty in those statues too, but that aesthetics does not apply to the naturalist side of us; instead it applies to the part of us which attempts to ascend our nature and become civilized. But that comes at the cost for that which is natural, around us and inside of us. What really drives us to ascend the nature and exploit it? When why did this conflit began? But maybe what we should be asking instead is this: why have we been so successful at it, at dominating over the natural world even to our own peril nowedays. Is it not because this altar of civilization of ours is lit by the divine lightning? Or maybe not divine lightning, but there's something in our civilization which seems to gain more energy - it burns brighter and brighter. And it demands more sacrifices along the way. And in a way, are we not all hunters looking for the next game, to bring onto the altar of our way of life