Rabbits and hares in art
Rabbits and hares (Leporidae) are common motifs in the visual arts, with variable mythological and artistic meanings in different cultures.
In Early Christian art, hares appeared on reliefs, epitaphs, icons and oil lamps although their significance is not always clear.
The Physiologus, a resource for medieval artists, states that when in danger the rabbit seeks safety by climbing high up rocky cliffs, but when running back down, because of its short front legs, it is quickly caught by its predators.
Whether a representation of a hare in Medieval art represents man falling to his doom or striving for his eternal salvation is therefore open to interpretation, depending on context.
The phenomenon of superfetation, where embryos from different menstrual cycles are present in the uterus, results in hares and rabbits being able to give birth seemingly without having been impregnated, which caused them to be seen as symbols of virginity.
In contrast, the tiny squashed rabbits at the base of the columns in Jan van Eyck's Rolin Madonna symbolize "Lust", as part of a set of references in the painting to all the Seven Deadly Sins.
In the Romanesque sculpture (c. 1135) in the Königslutter imperial Cathedral, a hare pursued by a hunter symbolises the human soul seeking to escape persecution by the devil.
[8] In non-religious art of the modern era, the rabbit appears in the same context as in antiquity: as prey for the hunter, or representing spring or autumn, as well as an attribute of Venus and a symbol of physical love.
In Francesco del Cossa's painting of April in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Italy, Venus' children, surrounded by a flock of white rabbits, symbolize love and fertility.
Still lifes in Dutch Golden Age painting and their Flemish equivalents often included a moralizing element which was understood by their original viewers without assistance: fish and meat can allude to religious dietary precepts, fish indicating fasting while great piles of meat indicate voluptas carnis (lusts of the flesh), especially if lovers are also depicted.
As small animals with fur, hares and rabbits allowed the artist to showcase his ability in painting this difficult material.
Hares (but rarely rabbits) continued to feature in the works of the Dutch and Flemish originators of the genre, and later French painters like Jean-Baptiste Oudry.
Probably one of the most famous depictions of an animal in the history of European art is the painting Young Hare by Albrecht Dürer, completed in 1502 and now preserved in the Albertina in Vienna.
The image has been printed in textbooks; published in countless reproductions; embossed in copper, wood or stone; represented three-dimensionally in plastic or plaster; encased in plexiglas; painted on ostrich eggs; printed on plastic bags; surreally distorted in Hasengiraffe ("Haregiraffe") by Martin Missfeldt;[10] reproduced as a joke by Fluxus artists;[11] and cast in gold; or sold cheaply in galleries and at art fairs Since early 2000, Ottmar Hörl has created several works based on Dürer's Hare, including a giant pink version.
[14] Dieter Roth's Köttelkarnikel ("Turd Bunny") is a copy of Dürer's Hare made from rabbit droppings,[15] and Klaus Staeck enclosed one in a little wooden box, with a cutout hole, so that it could look out and breathe.
William Hogarth depicted Mary Toft giving birth to rabbits in 1726 in the etchings Cunicularii or The Wise Men of Godliman in Consultation (1726) and Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism (1762).
[23] In Chinese art, rabbits often appear in paintings, ceramics, and carvings, depicted alongside the moon, other zodiac animals, or auspicious motifs to convey deeper meanings.
