Post by Richard Crawford
The ‘Kongouro’ that Stubbs painted cannot be called a likeness of the real animal. It is strikingly obvious that Stubbs, who famously spent months studying horse anatomy, could have made a better job of the kangaroo’s body had he had the skeleton to support the empty skin upon. As it is, he has depicted the animal erect on its hind legs, looking out of the picture with a huge, dark eye that gazes directly at the viewer.
The eye sits on the middle vertical of the picture, three quarters of the way up; it is so-placed to catch our attention. Andrew Graham Dixon[1] has noted that Stubbs believed people were far more like animals than had previously been supposed. Nearly a century before theories of evolution had linked all living things together in a temporal chain of life, Stubbs felt there was a natural affinity between all animals.
This Kongouro bears a close resemblance to a human figure, standing tall, arms at rest, neck turned gracefully to one side in a ‘controposto’ position like a long-necked, Mannerist nude. There is no doubt that this animal is conscious of the viewer’s presence as it looks straight out at us, drawing us into the picture, just as Pontormo’s figure brings us in to witness Christ’s deposition.
[1] http://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/archive/stubbs-an-appreciation.html
This Kongouro cuts a lonely figure, posed alone in front of a vast, empty landscape. And, because it is conscious, it can be assumed that it senses its own separateness. Perhaps the artist – who had to work alone in his studio to conjure this picture from an inflated skin of a long-dead creature – felt the same sense of isolation. My guess is that, lacking sufficient anatomical information for a naturalistic portrait, Stubbs produced a self-portrait; he identified with this lonely animal whose consciousness he seems to bring back to life in this lonely Kongouro portrait.
Richard Crawford is an artist, former teacher and currently doctoral student at the University of the Arts London. His research is about recent changes in taxidermy display practices.