Creatures of the Night - Esther

It’s almost Hallowe’en & the great thing about Hallowe’en here is it feels just the way it should: the atmosphere, the climate, the very early dark evenings are all in place. There’s a cold calculation to it. Nature will not protect you & cannot bring you comfort. Nature is too busy looking after itself, preparing for its hibernation, not knowing whether it will see another spring. 

We had a noon fly stuck in the flat the other night. It was quite possibly on its last legs, blindly throwing itself around the room. Then, it was hard to catch but it buzzed loudly, furiously when it spun past you. It was so large & heavy it actually made a sound whenever it landed. More often than not it landed on me. It was sluggish by that point & I managed to get a good look at it. Too big for a bluebottle, it had orange markings on its wings, face & feet. With his hefty black body he was perfectly coloured for a Hallmark Hallowe’en but his fondness for dung & his unnerving presence certainly lent him a more folk horror version.

UK’s Autumnwatch programme also came & went this week & so it seemed appropriate to check out the art world’s take on our nocturnal, autumnal beasties…

William James Webbe, The White Owl (1856)

This beautifully detailed barn owl study not only evokes the creatures of the night but the smells & mood of autumn. The soft, wet wood, the creeping ivy & the dark night sky conjure the witching hour as much as the deceased mouse. In its day, this odd image was even admired by John Ruskin at exhibition. The painting was rediscovered in an attic in 2012 & was deemed a pre-Raphaelite masterpiece, subsequently selling for over half a million GBP. 

Ernst Haeckel, Tineida (1899-1904)

There comes a time every evening in late summer, early autumn when the windows have to be shut to prevent creatures like our noon fly pal getting in. We don’t particularly want them careering round the flat pointlessly & they don’t want to get stuck there. I’ve seen a moth stupid enough to fly into a hot bulb & die immediately. Because we live near trees, our window sills are all too often littered with little corpses. I can assure you, none of the moths round here are as fancy or exotic as Haeckel’s, yet there are over 2,500 species of moth in the UK alone. 

Vincent van Gogh, Die Fledermaus (1886)

& where there are abundant moths, there are bats. Resource partitioning is the biological system whereby different animals eat different prey at different times of the day. Because of this, in an ideal world, there is enough food (or resources) for everyone. The fact that Vincent’s bat looks more as if he is about to perform a number at the Moulin Rouge than swoop around hunting moths & other insects suggests it was painted from a badly stuffed & posed specimen, perhaps in a museum. 

Hans Hoffmann, A Hedgehog (Erinaceus roumanicus) (before 1584)

It is easy to see Albrecht Dürer’s influence on Hoffmann’s sweet & meticulous hedgehog. It is said he was less inspired by nature itself than by Dürer’s incredible works, copying many of them & he was best-known for his natural history drawings. The detail here is phenomenal & one can imagine why he’d be picked to be a court painter in 1585. 

Eileen Alice Soper, Badger By Moonlight (?)

As a result of misinformation, wilful misinterpretation of science & an ongoing pandering to a certain type of farmer in the UK, badgers here are a persecuted species. There is also a certain type of person that is never happy unless something is being hunted & killed for no real reason & when those two worlds of ignorance come together it’s a disaster for wildlife in these nations. As a result, much of the art surrounding the European badger is not great, but sentimental & twee, among the worst traits of the art world. These works endeavour to sway public opinion in favour of the badger, but however well-meaning, the badger has suffered enough. Happily, through this woodcut, Eileen Soper manages to convey some of the feelings we have towards the badger whilst producing a well-composed & realistic image of a beautiful free wild animal. 

Franz Marc, The Foxes (1913)

Another misunderstood creature is the red fox. There is no-one I despise more than the hunter for “sport.” It’s a twisted notion of sport to imagine that the odds stacked so unfairly will result in any kind of wholesome pastime. Perhaps their nocturnal nature contributes to the misunderstanding of foxes & badgers or perhaps that’s just an excuse. Marc’s evident love of nature & affinity for animals is rarely more palpable than in his foxes. The deep warm red & the animals’ protective expressions add to a beautiful & dynamic composition. The painting survived the Nazi degenerate art purge & indeed its owner also escaped Sachsenhausen concentration camp to be able sell it on in 1940.

Babs Webb, King In the North (2019?)

This time last year, I also used a Babs Webb piece to showcase Hallowe’en in art & here she provides us with another creature of the night. She perfectly captures the folk horror spirit in every image she creates & her wolf is no different. 

Odilon Redon, The Smiling Spider (1881)

Well alright, it’s not strictly nocturnal, but if your house isn’t stuffed full of spiders at this time of year, you surely live at the North Pole. & apart from bats, what creature says Hallowe’en more? Our friend the noon fly would have given any spider a run for its money in terms of size & weight. Anyway, Redon’s charcoal spider is housed in the Louvre & I for one love the idea that something so whimsically sinister resides in one of the world’s top art galleries. But why does he have ten legs?   

It’s almost Hallowe’en. Why not?