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3. Scavenger, thief, glutton, proud, hypocrite ...
He who prowls the cemeteries, plunders the fields, almost always has the appearance of a bird of misfortune …

5. Many of Europe's painters have been inspired by the crow or raven and some of their works feature these
mysterious birds.
We see bleak wintry landscapes dotted with crows,
flocks of crows perching on leafless trees
that add a desolation, a sense of bleakness, chill, mystery, despair to the scene, an omen of death.

6. Crows and ravens
in European Painting

9. Death lurks …
Onlookers on foot and on horseback flock towards
this gruesome spot through a landscape dotted
with gallows on which corpses still hang and wheels
to which fragments of cloth and remnants of broken bodies
not eaten by the ravens still cling.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Pieter Brueghel l'Ancien
The Procession to Calvary
Le Portement de Croix
1564
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

14. a twisted oak tree, bare but for a few dead leaves,
the crows symbols of disaster and death
and
the sky offering consoling beauty and the promise
of redemption after life
Caspar David Friedrich
Tree of Crows
Corbeaux sur un arbre ou L'arbre aux Corbeaux
1822
Musée du Louvre, Paris

18. When the story of Mazeppa, as told in one of Lord Byron’s poems,
became a popular theme for paintings towards the middle
of the nineteenth century, birds of carrion were quickly implicated
as signs of impending death.
…
the first of the ravens is already on scene ready for the horse
to crumble under Mazeppa, and a line of its friends is arriving
just in case there’s room at the table for them too.
Eugène Delacroix
Mazeppa on the Dying Horse
Mazeppa sur le cheval mourant
1824
Kansallisgalleria, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki

21. The night is coming, spreading its gray wings over the earth ...
the sower marches with a rhythmic step, flinging the grain in the furrow,
and he is followed by a cloud of crows
...
he is covered with dark rags, he is bony, swarthy and meager,
under this livery of poverty ...
yet it is life which his large hand sheds,
he who has nothing pours upon the earth, with a superb gesture,
the bread of the future
Jean-François Millet
The Sower
Le Semeur
1865
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

24. Midway, a broken gibbet lies on the ground,
surrounded by scattered bones
and
crows …
Hieronymus Bosch
Crucifixion with a Donor
Crucifixion avec un donateur
1480-1485
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

28. According to legend, after being martyred, ravens protected
St. Vincent's body from being devoured by vultures, until his
followers could recover him
Diogo de Contreiras
Saint Vincent
Saint Vincent
16th century,XVIe siècle
Collection particulière

31. the awakening of nature ...
a sky high and blue, with low heavy clouds,
a typical church for the Russian landscape,
birches, thin, touching
and
rooks, the first harbingers and heralds of spring
... birds returned to their native lands and settle in their nests
Alexei Kondratievich Savrasov
Rooks have Returned or The Rooks Have Come Back
Le retour des corbeaux ou Les freux sont de retour
1871
Tretyakov Gallery Государственная Третьяковская галерея, Moscow

35. a pile of human skulls set on the barren earth
and
a flock of carrion crows
Vasily Vereshchagin
The Apotheosis of War
L'Apothéose de la guerre
1871
Tretyakov Gallery Государственная Третьяковская галерея,
Moscow

39. under a dull grey cloudy winter sky ...
a ewe lamenting the death of her lamb in the snow
and
a murder of black crows that crowd ominously around
waiting for an opportunity to scavenge the carcass
August Friedrich Schenk
Anguish
Angoisse
1876-1878
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

43. the arrival of a large flock of crows to the broken walls
of this old and ruined building is an unmistakable sign of death
Arnold Böcklin
Ruin by the Sea
Ruine au bord de la mer
1881
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland

47. a sorceress is drawing a circle …
outside her magic circle a landscape is bare and barren
and
a group of ravens or crows and a frog - all symbols of evil
and associated with witchcraft
John William Waterhouse
The Magic Circle
Le Cercle magique
1886
The Tate Gallery, London

51. greeted by carrion crows ...
Polynices lies dead on a windswept rock in a barren landscape
(Polynices and Eteocles, the sons of Oedipus, quarrelled over
which should rule Thebes, leading to their deaths.
King Creon, who succeeded them, decreed that Polynices was
neither to be mourned nor buried, on pain of death by stoning.
Polynices’ sister, Antigone, defied the order and was caught.)
Marie Spartali Stillman
Antigone Giving Burial Rites to the Body of Her Brother Polynices or
Antigone Giving Burial Rites to Polynices
Antigone enterrant Polynice ou Antigone recouvrant le corps de Polynice
1870
Simon Carter Gallery, Woodbridge, Suffolk

54. It is often claimed that this was his very last work.
The menacing sky, the crows and the dead-end path
are said to refer to the end of his life approaching.
But that is just a persistent myth.
Van Gogh did want his wheat fields under stormy skies
to express 'sadness, extreme loneliness', but at the same time
he wanted to show what he considered 'healthy and fortifying
about the countryside’.
Vincent van Gogh
Wheatfield with Crows
Champ de blé aux corbeaux
1890
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

58. a decaying world of autumn,
a world which is darkening and disquieting ...
a fence with irregular black palings,
a small hut,
a straggly tree
and
flocks of ravens
Egon Schiele
Landscape with Ravens
Paysage aux corbeaux
1911
Die Sammlung Leopold, Vienna

61. a somewhat irreverent attitude to death ...
The Death clad in red accompanies a new recruit to the underworld
or afterlife,
as they walk together surrounded by large black crows,
one of the birds appears to have met its own bloody end
just in front of them
Jakub Schikaneder
The Last Journey
Le dernier voyage
1880
Private collection

64. olga_oes
Crows and ravens in European Painting
La Corneille et le Corbeau dans la peinture européenne
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