When Wildlife Imitates Artwork

London’s Pure Historical past Museum celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its Wildlife Photographer of the 12 months (WPY) competitors earlier this month. With over 59,000 entries from 117 nations to parse by way of for the 2024 competitors, the WPY committee awarded 18 class winners and chosen a complete of 100 images to incorporate within the flagship exhibition now on view on the museum by way of the top of June.

Whereas we at Hyperallergic can respect the invaluable biodiversity captured on a worldwide scale by way of these images, we couldn’t assist however draw pure comparisons to the ever-growing artwork historical past canon — beginning with the biblical story of David and Goliath, on this case rendered by Sixteenth-century Mannerist painter Daniele da Volterra, which evokes the identical vitality of the victorious pink wooden ants making off with the hulking physique of a deceased beetle in “The Demolition Squad” by Ingo Arndt (above). Some say that life imitates artwork, however from what we’ve seen, the reality of the matter is that artwork really imitates wildlife!

Subsequent up is Canadian photojournalist Shane Gross, who took the grand title for his energetic snapshot of tadpoles coursing by way of a lake in Vancouver Island that bears a robust resemblance to Dale Chihuly’s signature spiraling glass horns and globes. Chihuly’s chandelier within the rotunda on the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was an apparent comparability for its thematic colour palette, nevertheless it’s additionally a wanted reminder that there actually is not any competitors with the luminosity and saturation present in nature.

Based mostly in Germany, teenage photographer Alexis Tinker-Tsvalas managed to seize a springtail — not more than a tenth of an inch in dimension — face-to-face with the fruiting physique of a slime mould from beneath a decaying log. The hexapod’s contemplation shares important traits with the Historical Greek mythological tyrant Sisyphus, who was cursed by the gods to push a boulder up a hill for eternity within the underworld. Fortunately for the springtail, there’s no everlasting punishment in sight!

Whereas I usually discover seals to be very cute, this snapshot of an intrigued leopard seal in Antarctic waters is extraordinarily unsettling. As in it could have been instantly summoned from a Francis Bacon portrait …

I actually might have outdone myself by way of uncanny resemblances right here. Compositionally, Sage Ono’s snapshot of tube-snout fish eggs gathered on the buoyancy bulbs of large kelp in California’s Monterrey Bay Nationwide Marine Sanctuary instantly mirrors that of Modigliani’s twin portrait of the Lipchitz couple. Each pictures preserve an essence of neckline glamour as nicely!

The bond between mom and youngster is as sacred as it’s instinctive — be it a child toque macaque snuggling into its mom’s physique, or Michelangelo’s rendition of Jesus post-crucifixion draped over the Virgin Mary’s lap in “Madonna della Pietà” (c. 1498–1499).

Now I would like you to listen to me out right here … This subsequent one is likely to be a stretch.

This fabulously composed shot gained younger Alberto Román Gómez the title of Wildlife Photographer of the 12 months for ages 10 and underneath. With its stark strains, hanging chains, and minimal material, I feel we are able to additionally say he earned his picture a comparability to Piet Mondrian’s influential model:

If that wasn’t convincing sufficient, then the next will certainly depart little to query. The endangered boto dolphins, identified for his or her pink colour and elongated snouts, are endemic to the Amazon River and its tributaries. In Thomas Peschak’s picture, a lone boto roams the shallow waters of a flooded forest scape that would very nicely be an extension of John Everett Millais’s “Ophelia” (1851–1852). One can solely hope that the freshwater species doesn’t meet the identical tragic destiny …

Onto the Extremely Counseled entries (that are winners, in my coronary heart, no less than) — Samual Stone’s “Treasured Rocks” delivered to thoughts none apart from the cauldron-headed hen hybrid chowing down on an individual pooping out flying birds, a element from Hieronymus Bosch’s improbable rendition of “The Backyard of Earthly Delights” (c. 1490–1510):

And final however not least, we now have Georgina Steytler’s photographed remark of a cluster of male Dawson’s burrowing bees swarming a feminine in an effort to mate instantly conjured up Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss” (1907–1908) in each colour palette and common vitality … I suppose I’ll put a pin in it proper now earlier than I begin pontificating about how intersectional feminism might as nicely develop to be interspecies feminism — there’s all the time one other time for that.

Hrag Vartanian, Valentina Di Liscia, Lakshmi Amin Rivera, Shari Flores, and Lisa Yin Zhang contributed to this piece.