Eleanor Bartleman

Reynard and the Goose

£1,200

Ceramic

Reynard the Fox is a series of allegorical stories of which Reynard the Fox is the anti hero. He is an anthropomorphic red fox and the stories involve his relationships, feuds and general disregard for other anthropomorphic animals. He uses his opponents’ weaknesses (greed, stupidity, hypocrisy) to his own advantage and always wins! The stories became very popular in the middle ages in Europe, where Reynard became representative of the hypocrisy of the church and political institutions. There are often foxes and characters from the Reynard stories carved in corners of ancient churches, on misericords etc.

I discovered Reynard the Fox when I was at art school over 40 years ago and these bawdy, humorous and sometimes violent stories have intrigued me ever since. Initially using the stories as the starting point for my work, I found the use of animal characters to be a useful vehicle with which to explore human situations, emotions and behaviour and this has been the main idea behind much of my work to date.

In this piece, Reynard and the Goose, Reynard is portrayed as the natural fox, catching the goose and running off with it. In the beast epic, Reynard would no doubt have flattered the bird or appealed to its greed to gain trust, before grabbing it by the neck and running off. There were observations in medieval times of the fox catching the bird in this way, by the neck, and slinging its body over his back so he could run more freely.

I made a sketch for this piece over many years ago, taking the idea from a drawing in a medieval manuscript but only got round to working out how to make it during lockdown, stuck in my workshop with few distractions!

The piece is larger in scale than much of my work. Porcelain doesn’t lend itself well to larger work as it tends to warp, crack and slump at the high temperature required to mature the clay.

It was a technical challenge, as the design consists of a bulky form supported on three legs. It required significant strategies to keep it in shape, so I was pleased that it came through the high firing unscathed!

Materials:

Porcelain, painted with coloured slips and underglaze then finished with lustres and gold.