Wildlife art, art on the subject of wild animals and birds, is a popular area of the arts. Some of the very earliest artworks were on this subject.

Prehistoric cave paintings and sculptures from the ancient world are among the very earliest of mans artworks, and often include depictions of wild animals and birds. These depictions were of creatures familiar to the people who created them although it should be kept in mind that their perspective on animals was different to our own. To these ancient humans animals and birds were food or danger which is a significantly different view from our current one.

Changing attitudes to wildlife can be clearly seen in the evolution of wildlife art. As humans began to be more isolated from their environment wildlife were almost absent in western art for long periods. Religions were about people and the outside world was ignored as much as possible.

The romantic era used wildlife in its typical emotional representations of the world. A typical example is a proud noble lion contrasted with an evil-looking tiger with eyes downcast in shame.

This period also often focused on the interface between the natural and human realms, such as a wild lion attacking a person’s horse.

More recently wildlife art has become a more popular subject and is greatly loved. Landseer’s stag paintings were among the most popular of all artworks in the Victorian era and are still popular today, and Audubon’s bird books were considered the finest picture books ever published.

Currently nature is of great interest as a thing in its own right as well as for conservation issues. Wildlife art reflects these interests with natural depictions of animals in their environment as well as art created for the purpose of increasing awareness of wildlife conservation issues.

Learn more about Wildlife Art, and see the paintings described in this article. Stop by Thomas Goldman’s site where you can find out all about wild animal and bird art.