We are all familiar with the anthropomorphic treatment of animals in art …. treating them in some respect as if they are human beings. It starts very early in our acquaintance with the arts. Winnie the Pooh and the characters in the Beatrix Potter stories are classic cases, but the range of possibilities is enormous, extending from Tom and Jerry to Alice in Wonderland and the Jungle Book. I have been known to get very irritated, however, by the assumption that we can only relate to other species if we pretend to ourselves that they are really exactly like us. Many years ago the BBC ran a very popular TV series entitled Animal Magic which I used to find annoying in the extreme for that reason. There is a counterposing view, I know, that insists that children need to appreciate early in their lives that other animals do merit our sympathetic attention. Even if we recognise that there are limits to this, the pretence that they are just like us is a first step to taking them seriously on their own terms. I’m not convinced.
I found myself facing this puzzling question on our holiday in Dorset. Our cottage was located on a large dairy farm, and one morning I decided to take my drawing things on a walk around the place, and attempt to draw cows. This rapidly turned into a “portrait” session. In fact I amused myself by pretending that I was one of those characters you find in many holiday resorts who offer to do your portrait as a souvenir. (The illusion was spoiled by the reluctance of the cows to pay me.)
Very quickly I became aware that cows are not like us. Of course it is not possible to know what is actually going on inside their heads, but although it is evident that they have a degree of intelligence, curiosity and the capacity to direct their attention depending upon what they find interesting, to be regarded by a cow is quite different from being regarded by another human being. It is hard to say exactly why I am so sure about this, but I believe that it starts with the eyes. Perhaps this is only the most noticeable consequence of the fact that cows do not appear to have facial expressions. What a cow makes of you is largely an enigma.
This is important when it comes to interpreting what it is that, as an artist, you are doing in drawing a cow. I have been thinking about portraits of human subjects, and it is pretty well universal (as far as I can tell) that the relationship between artist and subject is one of mutual awareness, and the latter typically can be assumed to have some appreciation of what it means to draw or paint their likeness. Artist and subject are in each other’s presence in some way that we understand. When I was drawing cows, on the other hand, although I was sure that the cows were aware of my presence, that didn’t run to any sense that they might understand what I was doing or meaning by my actions. Consequently, I had no starting point from which I could begin to anthropomorphise my subjects. (Unlike Animal Magic, I had no inclination to give them voices.) They remained, quite simply, cows. Having said that, is there any sense in my suggesting that what I was doing was drawing their portraits?