Cornelis Saftleven's Animal Sketches

This is called "The Vision of the Sunday Child".

 It was painted in 1660 by Cornelis Saftleven. I can't find out what a Sunday child is but that just makes me love it more.* It's not the most vivid expression of Saftleven's skill. It's quite abstract, and you're not seeing it, as I did, in the context of his other work. So here's another: a classic scene – and the measure of any great fantasy artist in the days before Hugo Gernsback – "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" (click to enlarge, IF YOU DARE):

 

  I found these paintings on the great art blog, Monster Brains. It's always throwing up goodies, but I was particularly taken by Saftleven, and wondered why I 'd not heard of him before. His wikipedia page is graced with a more mundane example of his work, "Two Musicians", and it looks a bit like a bad copy of Rembrandt to be honest – a bit CGI'd onto someone else's body:

 

 So maybe he just wasn't good enough at drawing people to be celebrated. 

 But get a load of this "Allegory of Human Folly" from 1629:

 

Again, click to enlarge well, all of these. 

 

 I love that the dog's made an effort with the feather. And I'm a sucker for the reframing of ritual; the improvised totem on the right is perfect. It's rare to see this delirious, medieval subject matter rendered with the photorealistic skill of a Dutch master. It takes on a more seriously speculative aspect. As Bernard Black would say, you really believe monkeys can hold meetings, and call it human folly if you like, but I think there's something admirable about the fact these animals managed to rustle all this up.

 I wondered if H.G. Wells had come across Saftleven, as I was getting strong presentiments of The Island of Dr. Moreau:

 

 This is the "College of Animals", from 1665. Saftleven painted it twice. Why? I don't know.

 

 But doesn't Well's "Sayer of the Law" have the head of a ram? 

 I looked it up, and it turns out he doesn't. That's only in the Richard Stanley version – (you know the Richard Stanley version? Where Marlon Brando drove everyone mad, and insisted he always be accompanied by a two-foot-tall Dominican? And Stanley got fired as director but then went to live in the forest, and returned to the set disguised as a dog? Seek out the excellent documentary Lost Soul if you don't) – but the uncanny terror of seeing animals convincingly perform human deeds, a terror that's plagued many an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, is still just as thrilling. If Wells was indeed inspired by these paintings to write his parable of a deranged vivisectionist, he did them justice.

 

 "Satire on the trial of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt", 1663

 

 Moreau never had a bash at putting an elephant in a hat though, which is a shame. You can see more of Cornelis Saftleven showcased on Monster Brains here, and here.

 

 

Jump around! Jump around! (Quite a Saftlevenian palette to the 1977 adaptation.)

 

*UPDATE: See the comments below for an explanation.