Animal Art or Wildlife art has the production of wildlife for the main purpose. While animal representations are of course taken frequently in pagan and Christian ancient times (the good shepherds, etc.) and the animal image plays a not-small role in the medieval art in the church’s paintings, in miniatures, on the other hand, it is only in modern art that we takes the actual animal painting, animal painting as a specialty.

Animal painting is characterized by the representation of animals: pets, domestic or wild animals.

An animal painter is an artist who specialises in (or is known for their skill in) the portrayal of animals. From the early 20th century, wildlife artist became a more usual term for contemporary animal painters.

History:
The representation of animals in painting is particularly old since it is found in the early paintings of Prehistory (rock art and cave art) as the large murals of the Chauvet cave, Cosquer cave and especially, during the Magdalenian, in the caves of Lascaux and Altamira.

During ancient times, in ancient Egypt there were many representations of animal figures, many of which had religious significance (lion, hyena, jackal, cat, dog, goat, wolf, ibex, oryx, as well as birds and birds). Pisces).

Although the Phoenicians left very few animal paintings, on the other hand, the Etruscans often represented animals, especially horses, on the amphorae, craters or walls of funerary halls (felines of the orientalizing period). The Greeks also helped to develop this kind of painting even if it is rather in the sculpture that the animal art was expressed. The taste for painted animals also appears in the mosaics and paintings of Pompeii.

The painting of the Renaissance marked a renewal of the style with a will to imitate the nature. In Italian Renaissance, Pisanello with his excellent animal drawings is fairly isolated, possibly influenced by Japanese art, which has its strength and is unmatched in animal painting. In the Netherlands several excellent artists held themselves in the narrow circle of animal painting; Van Eyck’s shows the road, Rubens becomes the driver; In his line, skilled animal reunions such as Frans Snyders, Jan Fyt and other Dutch 17th century Dutchmen cultivate the livelihoods of the livestock: Paul Potter and Adriaen van de Velde with especially motives of cows and sheep, Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem, Karel Dujardin, Aelbert Cuyp, Philips Wouwerman, Melchior de Hondecoeter, especially motifs of poultry and many others. While animal history is quite sparsely represented in the 18th century, through, amongst others, Jean-Baptiste Oudry in France and Johann Elias Riding in Germany, the numbers of animal pests are almost countless in the following century. Here, for example, there can be mentioned several excellent breeders of animal painting.

Specially in the 17th century, animal painters would often collaborate with other artists, who would either paint the main subject in a historical or mythological piece, or the landscape background in a decorative one. Frans Snyders, a founder of the Baroque animal painting tradition, often provided the animals, and also still lifes of food, for Peter Paul Rubens; a different landscape specialist might provide the background.

In the Dutch Golden Age such specialists tended to produce smaller genre paintings concentrating on their specialism. Animal painters came lower down in the hierarchy of genres, but the best painters could make a very good living; many royal and aristocratic patrons were more interested in their subject matter than that of the more prestigious genres. Mainly in England, there were still more specialised painters from the 18th century who produced portraits of racehorses and prize specimens of livestock, whereas in France animal subjects continued to be decorative capriccios often set around garden statuary.

Animalier:
An animalier is an artist, mainly from the 19th century, who specializes in, or is known for, skill in the realistic portrayal of animals. “Animal painter” is the more general term for earlier artists. Although the work may be in any genre or format, the term is most often applied to sculptors and painters.

Animalier as a collective plural noun, or animalier bronzes, is also a term in antiques for small-scale sculptures of animals, of which large numbers were produced, often mass-produced, primarily in 19th-century France and to a lesser extent elsewhere in continental Europe.

Although many earlier examples can be found, animalier sculpture became more popular, and reputable, in early 19th-century Paris with the works of Antoine-Louis Barye (1795–1875), for whom the term was coined, derisively, by critics in 1831, and of Émile-Coriolan Guillemin. By the mid-century, a taste for animal subjects was very widespread among all sections of the middle-classes.

In England, first and foremost, Edwin Henry Landseer and Richard Ansdell, Briton Rivière; in France: Constant Troyon, Rosa Bonheur, Philippe Rousseau, Eugene Delacroix, Charles Jacque, Jacques Raymond Brascassat; in the Netherlands and Belgium: Johannes Hubertus Leonardus de Haas, Eugene Joseph Verboeckhoven, Michel Marie Charles Verlat; in Switzerland: Jean Humbert (painter) and Rudolf Koller; in Germany: Albrecht Adam and Benno Adam), Friedrich Voltz, Anton Braith, Carl Steffeck, Franz Krüger, Albert Brendel; in Sweden: Nils Andersson (painter), John Arsenius, Gustaf Brandelius, Carl Wahlbom, Carl Fredrik Kiörboe and Bruno Liljefors; in Norway: Anders Askevold, Johannes Siegvald Dahl, Peter Nicolai Arbo, Karl Uchermann. In Denmark, Christian David Gebauer was the nestor of the animals.

Excellent is J.Th. Lundbye knows its fine, naturally occurring animal characteristics; His gracious smile also appeared in the animal table, which is a special branch of animal painting and has given rise to many satirical representations, such by German Wilhelm von Kaulbach and Frenchman Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard. Among the Danish names are: Christian Holm, Carlo Eduardo Dalgas with pictures of sheep, Otto Bache, Theodor Philipsen, M. Therkildsen, Valdemar Irminger, N.P. Mols, birdwatchers Johannes Larsen, Vilhelm Theodor Fischer and Knud Kyhn; Adolf Henrik Mackeprang, Simon Simonsen, Johannes Resen Steenstrup.

In 2014 The Guardian nominated The Goldfinch (1654) by Carel Fabritius (1622-1654) as the finest animal portrait.

Modern wildlife art painters include:

Thierry Bisch (b. 1953)
Elizabeth Butterworth (b. 1949) – parrots
Charles Church (b. 1970)
John Clymer (1907-1989)
Kim Donaldson (b. 1952)
Gary Hodges (b. 1954)
Dave Merrick (b. 1952)
Lanford Monroe (1950-2000)
Stephen D. Nash (b. 1954)
David Nurney (b. 1959)
David Quinn (b. 1959)
Mark Upton (b. 1964)

Rembrandt Bugatti (1884-1916)
François Pompon (1855-1933)

Tessa Pullan (b. 1953)
John Rattenbury Skeaping (1901-1980)
Jo Walker