Medicate in the Mistaken Belief

This picture had a very strong immediate emotional impact; it has a nightmare quality to it, a surreal image that seems to come from the dark recesses of our unconscious. The contrast between the creatures depicted creates a disconcerting intimacy. The dog-like animal is pale, but dominant, tense with a kind of energy that is violent, masterful, almost sexual in its feeling of conquest. The bird-like figure is dark, much clearer in its contours, yet paradoxically, much weaker, like a shadow, draped helplessly, passively having been defeated. There is a beautiful, pathetic grace in the tendril-like legs of the bird. The detail of the white of the dog’s eye, the suggestion of a white fang, adds to the sense of menace. The place of contact, the drooping neck, the place of great vulnerability, is firmly clenched in the dog-like creature’s mouth, the locus of defeat, submission, relinquishment.

The picture seems to catch a moment in time: conquest has been achieved; what now? The dog seems to pause, there is an expectancy in its stance, almost a questioning: what now? Is the conquest for himself or for someone else? Is he bringing his conquest to show someone else – a master figure in the margins? The tail and ears raised high remind one of a dog that is bringing a stick or pheasant to its master, waiting for the praise, the reward.

This does seem to me a gendered picture. It is hard to imagine the dog as female or the bird as male. It does evoke, for me, a certain kind of male violence or conquest over women and as such is a very disturbing image, one from which I would naturally avert my gaze. However art does invites us to engage with what disturbs us and this picture certainly does that in a very spare, simple and powerful way. There is nowhere to hide in it from its central image

Dr Margaret Masson, MA (Aberdeen), PhD (Dunelm)

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