Fotoreproductie van Feindschaft 1870 - 1890

This is an anonymous photograph entitled ‘Feindschaft’, whose original date of creation is, sadly, unknown. The title translates as ‘Enmity’, and that’s what we see depicted here: a dog stands tense, bristling at a pile of dead animals. It’s a strange and unsettling image. Made in the Netherlands, it brings to mind the sumptuous still life paintings that were so popular in the Dutch Golden Age, which used displays of food to comment on wealth, trade and the transience of life. In this case, though, we can only wonder at the social statement being made. Is it about class? Does the dog represent the working class guarding their meager spoils, or the upper class protecting its bounty from outsiders? Or is it a comment on the natural world, and humanity’s place within it? These are the kinds of questions art historians ask. We can learn more by studying the symbolism of animals, looking into the history of class relations, and researching other institutions of the time. In so doing we might reveal the image’s meaning, and the role of the artist who made it.