Wild Boar 1814

Curator: Allow me to introduce you to "Wild Boar," an 1814 pen and ink drawing by James Ward. Editor: It looks exhausted, doesn’t it? All these scratchy, hasty lines give it the sense of weight, fatigue, the end of a very long day foraging, maybe? It looks quite defeated somehow. Curator: Ward was a master of animal portraiture, and this study really gets under the skin—or rather, the bristly hide—of the subject. You sense he's observed this creature for quite some time. Editor: Absolutely. But it's also interesting that he chose a boar. You know, boars have carried so much symbolic weight throughout history, haven't they? Everything from courage and ferocity to—I suppose, depending on your perspective—destructive wildness. What do you think Ward might be suggesting? Curator: Well, at this time, the landed gentry had a particular fascination with wildlife and its impact on their lands. I see this more as a scientific inquiry. There are a whole range of these drawings; this falls within a well-established tradition of animal representation meant to show both an ideal of form, and how the animal functions within a kind of societal hierarchy. Editor: Hmm. I still sense a real tenderness. I mean, look at the delicacy around the eye. This isn't just cold observation, it is trying to find an insight into a unique soul, even if it's a hairy, muddy one. I also think it captures a kind of pastoral, British romanticism that celebrates both nature and country life. A little idealization there, maybe? Curator: Perhaps. But I would add that his ability to capture texture, from the coarse bristles to the softer underbelly, is a real technical accomplishment, grounding that "tenderness" in tangible realism. It isn't idealized if it rings so true to its wild state. Editor: So true! In all its muddy, snorting, tusked glory, it gets to live forever! Curator: Exactly, through Ward’s skilled hand, the wild boar lives on, an important, complex record from another time.