Anguish by August Friedrich Schenck is a painting of grief, sadness and loneliness. Join the Discord: / discord Support us on Patreon: / thecanvas #arthistory #art
Another detail I noticed is the rather relaxed expression of the lamb, the 'smile' and the eyes as if it's asleep. It doesn't seem in pain. It has already let go and has accpeted the fact that it died and has peace with it, whilst the mother is destroyed with pain
I see some remorse in the crows, too. Many look at each other, or just away from the sight, as if their waiting for the mother to stop is uncomfortable. There is a hint of embarassment there I feel, not just hungry instinct. This might be my personal crow-loving bias. Perhaps it's having seen a crow funeral unfold. They gather when one of them dies, they observe, they try to bury the corpse, they attack predators trying to access the corpse. They understand what death of a kin means, and that seeing over the corpse is important. Survival or grief, they are familiar with the situation. And they do understand other animals. There is a video of a crow encountering a mouse. The crow was eating a piece of bread, and the mouse tried to approached shily, but eventually got scared and ran away. So the crow bit off a piece, walked over to the side of the row where the mouse was hiding, left the piece there and went back to its bread, letting the mouse share the meal with safety. This isn't the only instance of crows feeding befriended animals; they show clear signs of empathy. (they are also predators, so they show signs of killing and eating animals as well, of course) In a strange way, there is an implied respect from the crows who seem to avoid scaring the mother away, which they easily could in their numbers. They observe and wait. They know what will happen. They can afford not interfering with the same kind of grief they engage in. Death can wait. The mother, for now, can grieve.
The saddest part about this painting is the lamb. It is smiling, cuddling to the snow, like its quilt. Like its enjoying going to sleep, knowing it will wake up with its mom tomorrow. But it won't. Its a symbol of innocence of a child, and it contrasts with the pain of the mother, who knows what death is. The snow is peaceful, resembling clouds, a dream or heaven, but its also harsh and cold and indifferent. And it will happen to all of us.
To me on a personal level it also illustrates part of loss and grieving when all eyes are on you and you’re surrounded by people but still alone in it you’re the only one who has to and or can process your grief
Considering corvids and their habit to gather to grieve the loss of a member of their community, this was my first interpretation. They are morbid onlookers, mourners, but they are emotionally detached also. Nobody can understand such deep and profound loss without experiencing it, and the alienation between the mother and the “mourners” is unsettling, even without the context of what you know what’s coming next if we take the subject matter literally.
Well stated!! I remember, as a young teen, riding in my grandma's funeral. She was like a mom to me. I remember passing so many people going about their daily lives and them not knowing how my heart was ripped and aching. It was a smallish southern town in the US, where cars coming to a funeral procession will stop out of respect, to this day. I remember looking out the car window and there was one thin old black man with hes hat off, head bowed, paying respect as we drove by, even tho he didn't know up personally. That was decades ago, but I'll never forget it.
@Ghostyfrost9688 I made the comment you're responding to a month ago and I can't stop thinking about it. I've considered getting it as a print and framing it, but it makes me too sad. Ugh. It'll stick with you, too, I bet. ❤️
Just like you said lambs and sheep are associated with Jesus a lot of positive emotions with are also associated with Jesus but things like Purity and innocence. It's literally a dead baby lamb and his mother over him just like Jesus and Mary
This hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria (my city) it's a must see everytime passing through that side of the gallery. It's a huge painting and you feel it's pain radiating out into the whole room. Thank you for covering this work!!
small detail that pains one even more is the trace of the leg of the lamb in the snow showing the last reflex his body ever had or will have ( you can see it moved forth and back erasing the mother's foot print around it ) powerful painting tho
The footprints in the snow could also indicate that she was part of a group of sheeps that abandoned her when her baby died and the screams could indicate a call for the group to come back , to help her baby , to save them and thqt us truly horrifying to me the fear of being abandoned
"Anguish" poignantly echoes in today's world, symbolizing the pervasive loneliness and isolation felt by many, reminding us that the profound emotions of loss and solitude transcend time and connect us across the ages.
I was lucky to see this painting last Sep when I visited the NGV. There are many beautiful paintings hanging on the walls of the NGV Salon. But this is the one impressed me the most. You can feel the sorrow of the mother sheep and the chilling of the crow gang. Thank you for your interpretation.
Similarly, there is also Schenk's painting "Orphan," where the rolls are reversed. This one could be considered even more tragic, as a lamb without its mother will most certainly die, either from the cold, from hunger, or even by the crows.
I think the fact it's a sheep is also revepant, since it makes the feast of the crows more inevitably. If it were a human mother, then she could just carry her baby's body back with her, but a sheep doesn't have that option.
The winter wind blowing at the mother's wool is another signal of fleeting life. I see the crows as sinister, seeing rapacious opportunity in the death that is causing another pain. They wish she would just get out of their way so they can feast on the lamb.
It's like a very dark vision of how exposed you can feel as a human, being struck by fate and facing a dark, cruel and merciless clockwork of physical determinations.
Composition wise, there are 2 crows flying next to the lamb. One is "leaving" and the other is "arriving". To me It might refers to the cycle of life and nature
You should check out Pavel Ryzhenko's art. His paintings usually portray historical events of Russia and it reflects on his monarquist views. Maybe could be a good topic on what is happening now in Russia
I like the colour and composition of this painting, but I cannot emphasise with it. It feels forced, staged, unnatural. When I look at it, it is easier for me to take the perspective of the crow in the bottom right, to feel its reserve, but also anticipation.
Props to the artist not only using the murder of crows to frame the subjects by bordering the sheep with their varied poses , but also props for the little gap in the forefront of the scene which lets the viewer be treated as a fellow encircling crow; we can do nothing for the anguish except participate in its viewing as the scavengers watch it.
Nature is cruel at times. Can we, although part of nature, transcend this cruelty? I feel ambivalent about this painting. While obviously wanting us to identify with the anguish of the sheep mother, the heavy-handed symbolism of the scene bothers me. It also disregards how humans remove lambs from their mothers routinely without anyone shedding a tear.
Maybe it’s the music or maybe it’s your delicate narration, but I swear there’s an intense humanity in the sheep’s expression that comes through more because it’s found on a sheep. It’s almost like I’m noticing the detail more. What tragically beautiful painting.
Um olá do Brasil, novamente. O aumento da violência policial no Brasil, nas últimas semanas, seja em São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro,, Bahia etc., e a violência histórica pela qual a população pobre, preta e indígena passou e passa, torna essa pintura muito tocante pra mim. Todas as mães que perderam seus filhos pela violência urbana, rural e nas regiões florestadas... E nós sabemos bem quem são os corvos de colarinho branco e festejam essas mortes
I really don’t see this painting as heartbreaking. Yes, it is sad and I can empathize with this sheep, but the feeling I get when seeing this is positive. It is a triumphant stand against death! Though we know the inevitable must eventually come to pass, we simply do not care. We defend whom we love because that is who we are. At some point, the crows will have their way, but NOT while the sheep standing over it still defies them.
Well sheep don't really live on their own ever, so it's quite far to interpretate that the sheep would end up alone and wouldn't go back to the flock. It wouldn't survive that probably and it wouldn't go far away from a flock either.
Consider the Sheep as the encompassment of a life soon played out and the baby, a metaphor of her impending death. The Crows are the debt owed to a life at its end. Approaching, unconquerable. In the Sheep's cry she is imploring lifes' lament; more time. Ask why the blood is only visible from the lambs' mouth. No sign of trauma without. It suggests an internal meaning not immediately present in the composition as a whole.
This is the circle of life. Animals eat other animals. Carrion eat dead things. There's no reason to waste a dead animal when other animals are hungry. In this case though, the crows will eat the bloody snow and the eyeballs, but they will be unable to get through the lamb's hide unless a bigger predator comes along and tears into it. The presence of the crows may very well attract a wolf or mountain lion or eagle or buzzard. We assume the sheep in the painting is a domesticated sheep for lack of horns and would otherwise not necessarily be exposed to harsh Northern winter elements if they weren't being used as livestock. In other words, wild animals don't live where they can't survive. They just don't. Whereas humans have introduced livestock to climates where they wouldn't otherwise survive, without humans to provide a shelter, a warm barn, guidance down off the mountain, etc. Additionally, the lamb may have died not just of exposure to cold, but of a disease which is communicable among sheep and other animals or even humans. That's very common in the history of the domestication of livestock. Buzzards and vultures specifically serve as a stop to the spread of communicable diseases, which cannot survive the buzzard's digestive system. On the other hand, dogs and wolves and humans which eat a diseased animal might very well spread that disease. When a buzzard or vulture consumes the remains of a diseased animal, it prevents that disease from spreading any further, to other sheep, or to other animal species. Food for thought.
But... Don't you believe non-human animals have no moral value and that, thus, their suffering matters not? Why would the suffering of a fictitious sheep (even if anthropomorphized in its depiction) be in any way moving if an actual sheep's suffering is as moving as the splintering of a rock?
This painting strongly reminds me of the ending of Bresson's "Au hazard Balthazar", with the now calm corpse of the tormented donkey lying on the ground and the sheep around it worshipping it
Another detail I noticed is the rather relaxed expression of the lamb, the 'smile' and the eyes as if it's asleep. It doesn't seem in pain. It has already let go and has accpeted the fact that it died and has peace with it, whilst the mother is destroyed with pain
its probably a biological smile that is often seen with babies. it happens involuntarily because of the muscles on the face.
As a former Slaughterman, I can confirm that is exactly how a lambs face looks when dead
I see some remorse in the crows, too. Many look at each other, or just away from the sight, as if their waiting for the mother to stop is uncomfortable. There is a hint of embarassment there I feel, not just hungry instinct.
This might be my personal crow-loving bias. Perhaps it's having seen a crow funeral unfold. They gather when one of them dies, they observe, they try to bury the corpse, they attack predators trying to access the corpse. They understand what death of a kin means, and that seeing over the corpse is important. Survival or grief, they are familiar with the situation.
And they do understand other animals. There is a video of a crow encountering a mouse. The crow was eating a piece of bread, and the mouse tried to approached shily, but eventually got scared and ran away. So the crow bit off a piece, walked over to the side of the row where the mouse was hiding, left the piece there and went back to its bread, letting the mouse share the meal with safety. This isn't the only instance of crows feeding befriended animals; they show clear signs of empathy. (they are also predators, so they show signs of killing and eating animals as well, of course)
In a strange way, there is an implied respect from the crows who seem to avoid scaring the mother away, which they easily could in their numbers. They observe and wait. They know what will happen. They can afford not interfering with the same kind of grief they engage in. Death can wait. The mother, for now, can grieve.
Crows are just like us in almost every aspect.
The saddest part about this painting is the lamb. It is smiling, cuddling to the snow, like its quilt. Like its enjoying going to sleep, knowing it will wake up with its mom tomorrow. But it won't. Its a symbol of innocence of a child, and it contrasts with the pain of the mother, who knows what death is. The snow is peaceful, resembling clouds, a dream or heaven, but its also harsh and cold and indifferent.
And it will happen to all of us.
To me on a personal level it also illustrates part of loss and grieving when all eyes are on you and you’re surrounded by people but still alone in it you’re the only one who has to and or can process your grief
I also get similar themes of onlookers that are unable or inexperienced in consoling grief in the crows beyond the likeness of death
Considering corvids and their habit to gather to grieve the loss of a member of their community, this was my first interpretation. They are morbid onlookers, mourners, but they are emotionally detached also. Nobody can understand such deep and profound loss without experiencing it, and the alienation between the mother and the “mourners” is unsettling, even without the context of what you know what’s coming next if we take the subject matter literally.
Well stated!! I remember, as a young teen, riding in my grandma's funeral. She was like a mom to me. I remember passing so many people going about their daily lives and them not knowing how my heart was ripped and aching. It was a smallish southern town in the US, where cars coming to a funeral procession will stop out of respect, to this day. I remember looking out the car window and there was one thin old black man with hes hat off, head bowed, paying respect as we drove by, even tho he didn't know up personally. That was decades ago, but I'll never forget it.
Why am I crying? I’m 51 and have never seen this painting before. I’m gutted😢
RIGHT ON, NE TOO!
I’m a 32 year old man and I’m crying lol
Art is powerful if you respect it!
@Ghostyfrost9688 I made the comment you're responding to a month ago and I can't stop thinking about it. I've considered getting it as a print and framing it, but it makes me too sad. Ugh. It'll stick with you, too, I bet. ❤️
This portrait reminds me of how true love it’s depicted in Vinland Saga. “Only dead people can express true love. Because they no longer can hate”.
I think that the fact we see a dead lamb could hint at a more religious aspect to the painting too.
Yes!
Just like you said lambs and sheep are associated with Jesus a lot of positive emotions with are also associated with Jesus but things like Purity and innocence. It's literally a dead baby lamb and his mother over him just like Jesus and Mary
@@deforestshell3037 Not just Mary, but God as a grieving parent also
It’s like Nietzsche says that “god is dead”. Maybe it’s a nihilistic peice. But that’s js my interpretation 🫶
@@Moonshine1234but nietzsche wasnt a nihilist
This hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria (my city) it's a must see everytime passing through that side of the gallery. It's a huge painting and you feel it's pain radiating out into the whole room. Thank you for covering this work!!
I can't take this painting. It breaks my heart.
small detail that pains one even more is the trace of the leg of the lamb in the snow showing the last reflex his body ever had or will have ( you can see it moved forth and back erasing the mother's foot print around it )
powerful painting tho
One of my favorite paintings! It’s so touching !!
i love the powerful commentary you do on art peices and you always depict them beutifuly keep up the work !
i never thought the crows would eat the lamb , i always thought they were mourning together
this really shows that one's suffering is another one's opportunity
I love these breakdowns and interpretations, some of my favorite videos.
Your art selections are truly inspiring! I've gained so much knowledge and appreciation from following this channel.
The footprints in the snow could also indicate that she was part of a group of sheeps that abandoned her when her baby died and the screams could indicate a call for the group to come back , to help her baby , to save them and thqt us truly horrifying to me the fear of being abandoned
Not every eye on you is your friend or want your good. This painting have much messages and lessons.
The crows gathered together and all black looks like a funeral
"Anguish" poignantly echoes in today's world, symbolizing the pervasive loneliness and isolation felt by many, reminding us that the profound emotions of loss and solitude transcend time and connect us across the ages.
I was lucky to see this painting last Sep when I visited the NGV. There are many beautiful paintings hanging on the walls of the NGV Salon. But this is the one impressed me the most. You can feel the sorrow of the mother sheep and the chilling of the crow gang. Thank you for your interpretation.
You explained the emotions that I felt, but could not articulate. As always, you keep giving us great content.
i love this one 😭😭
Thanks you!
One of my all-time favorites. So happy to have accidentally stumbled upon it on RUclips.
My heart cries.
Similarly, there is also Schenk's painting "Orphan," where the rolls are reversed. This one could be considered even more tragic, as a lamb without its mother will most certainly die, either from the cold, from hunger, or even by the crows.
I think the fact it's a sheep is also revepant, since it makes the feast of the crows more inevitably. If it were a human mother, then she could just carry her baby's body back with her, but a sheep doesn't have that option.
Paintings don't have sounds sadly. To hear what this truly represents to probably any viewer.
Thanks!
The winter wind blowing at the mother's wool is another signal of fleeting life. I see the crows as sinister, seeing rapacious opportunity in the death that is causing another pain. They wish she would just get out of their way so they can feast on the lamb.
It's like a very dark vision of how exposed you can feel as a human, being struck by fate and facing a dark, cruel and merciless clockwork of physical determinations.
Composition wise, there are 2 crows flying next to the lamb. One is "leaving" and the other is "arriving". To me It might refers to the cycle of life and nature
"For sale.
Baby shoes.
Never worn."
Sadness.
Thanks, now I'm sad
"So please, please, please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want"
Heartbreaking to say the least
That painting makes me want to believe that animals have souls and someday she'll be with her baby again. (I don't care how corny that sounds!)
I hope you’re vegan
Of course they have souls, they feel emotion, pain, they love, they grieve. Anybody who thinks animals can't have souls is just arrogant and foolish.
@@sebastianrosa7935what is a soul?
You should check out Pavel Ryzhenko's art. His paintings usually portray historical events of Russia and it reflects on his monarquist views. Maybe could be a good topic on what is happening now in Russia
I’m fucking crying?!
WILSONNNNNN
Crying af
🕊️🇵🇸🐑🇵🇸🕊️
?
I feel like I want to write about it! What if sheep could talk! Can language help us from pain? Can the pain go away?
Thanks to u ❤
The Future isn't Promise, but Crows and Loss.
😢😢😢
Why did the lil bebe die tho 😭
it was a murder
@@hammel-c ba-dum tsss
Haulin' to see Ballen. Lol
That was a bit brief???
Anyone knows what music is in the video?
Ecosystem by Anna Dager
Reminds me of what Jesus, Himself went through..
Impregnating a teen with himself?
first here?
To comment I suppose
Yes, you're first...
Don't use music! Let the painting speak.
I like the colour and composition of this painting, but I cannot emphasise with it. It feels forced, staged, unnatural. When I look at it, it is easier for me to take the perspective of the crow in the bottom right, to feel its reserve, but also anticipation.
Have you ever lost somone, somone who meant the world to you, that you truly loved with every piece of your soul?
Only death can pay for life.
Props to the artist not only using the murder of crows to frame the subjects by bordering the sheep with their varied poses , but also props for the little gap in the forefront of the scene which lets the viewer be treated as a fellow encircling crow; we can do nothing for the anguish except participate in its viewing as the scavengers watch it.
Props to you for using "murder!"
Incredible how a painting of an animal can evoke such powerful human emotions
We are also animals.
@@kattihatt That is true to a certain degree
@@frankniti4647 what do you mean?
Emotions are emotions, human or not. Animals mourn their young. It’s tragic we humans fail to see that 😭
At first glance, this painting's message seemed too obvious to be engaging, but thanks to this analysis I appreciate it more now.
Powerful
I am moved.
Nature is cruel at times. Can we, although part of nature, transcend this cruelty? I feel ambivalent about this painting. While obviously wanting us to identify with the anguish of the sheep mother, the heavy-handed symbolism of the scene bothers me. It also disregards how humans remove lambs from their mothers routinely without anyone shedding a tear.
Humanity is far more cruel in our momentary ascendancy than the natural order permits.
I feel this video helped push the idea of the price's message stronger. Help show the anguish more
Maybe it’s the music or maybe it’s your delicate narration, but I swear there’s an intense humanity in the sheep’s expression that comes through more because it’s found on a sheep. It’s almost like I’m noticing the detail more. What tragically beautiful painting.
I see this piece all the time at the NGV here in Melbourne, Australia. Always leaves an impression.
I like to put myself in the crow's place, the lamb's death nourishing them in the bleak winter.
All animals experience suffering. It’s sad how widespread animal abuse and ignorance is.
imma need that song man, boosted to mood to a 100
Definitely one of the top paintings that make a huge impact on me personally. Nearly broke just looking at it.
This painting brought me to tears the first time I saw it. Now I know why.
It makes me cry💔
background song name?
What is the music in this video?
Um olá do Brasil, novamente. O aumento da violência policial no Brasil, nas últimas semanas, seja em São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro,, Bahia etc., e a violência histórica pela qual a população pobre, preta e indígena passou e passa, torna essa pintura muito tocante pra mim. Todas as mães que perderam seus filhos pela violência urbana, rural e nas regiões florestadas... E nós sabemos bem quem são os corvos de colarinho branco e festejam essas mortes
very lucky to have this painting hanging in at my local gallery!
I perceive it as a representation of Mary mourning Jesus.
Yes
I really don’t see this painting as heartbreaking. Yes, it is sad and I can empathize with this sheep, but the feeling I get when seeing this is positive. It is a triumphant stand against death! Though we know the inevitable must eventually come to pass, we simply do not care. We defend whom we love because that is who we are. At some point, the crows will have their way, but NOT while the sheep standing over it still defies them.
Well sheep don't really live on their own ever, so it's quite far to interpretate that the sheep would end up alone and wouldn't go back to the flock. It wouldn't survive that probably and it wouldn't go far away from a flock either.
thank you for making a video about this. i’m from melbourne and i see it at the ngv constantly and i hardly see anything about it.
Absolutely staggering work of art.
SHEEP AND ELEPHANTS MOURN THEIR LOSSES FOR LONG PERIODS.
Is that Arvo Part I'm listening to?
love your videos
This picture is vegan propaganda. You empathize with an animal.
Is there something wrong with having empathy for a living creature?
Anyone knows the name of the song used in the video?
ecosystem by anna dager
Consider the Sheep as the encompassment of a life soon played out and the baby, a metaphor of her impending death. The Crows are the debt owed to a life at its end. Approaching, unconquerable. In the Sheep's cry she is imploring lifes' lament; more time. Ask why the blood is only visible from the lambs' mouth. No sign of trauma without. It suggests an internal meaning not immediately present in the composition as a whole.
Love these story telling paintings which touch ones soul. Much better than modern art which says nothing but maybe a boost to someones talentless ego
thank you
This is the circle of life. Animals eat other animals. Carrion eat dead things. There's no reason to waste a dead animal when other animals are hungry. In this case though, the crows will eat the bloody snow and the eyeballs, but they will be unable to get through the lamb's hide unless a bigger predator comes along and tears into it. The presence of the crows may very well attract a wolf or mountain lion or eagle or buzzard.
We assume the sheep in the painting is a domesticated sheep for lack of horns and would otherwise not necessarily be exposed to harsh Northern winter elements if they weren't being used as livestock. In other words, wild animals don't live where they can't survive. They just don't. Whereas humans have introduced livestock to climates where they wouldn't otherwise survive, without humans to provide a shelter, a warm barn, guidance down off the mountain, etc.
Additionally, the lamb may have died not just of exposure to cold, but of a disease which is communicable among sheep and other animals or even humans. That's very common in the history of the domestication of livestock. Buzzards and vultures specifically serve as a stop to the spread of communicable diseases, which cannot survive the buzzard's digestive system. On the other hand, dogs and wolves and humans which eat a diseased animal might very well spread that disease. When a buzzard or vulture consumes the remains of a diseased animal, it prevents that disease from spreading any further, to other sheep, or to other animal species.
Food for thought.
What arrangements have you made for you to be eaten after you expire?
But... Don't you believe non-human animals have no moral value and that, thus, their suffering matters not? Why would the suffering of a fictitious sheep (even if anthropomorphized in its depiction) be in any way moving if an actual sheep's suffering is as moving as the splintering of a rock?
This painting strongly reminds me of the ending of Bresson's "Au hazard Balthazar", with the now calm corpse of the tormented donkey lying on the ground and the sheep around it worshipping it