Pigs were domesticated around ten millennia ago, from wild boars in the Fertile Crescent, and independently in China. Since then, they have remained a popular farm animal, and a source of food for those whose religion doesn’t proscribe consumption of their meat. But they have never been as popular in culture or art as other domestic species such as horses, oxen or sheep, and the task of the swineherd has generally been considered one of the most lowly. Nevertheless, they have featured in painted narratives, and even in the occasional portrait.
In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero lands on the island of Aeaea, where the enchantress Circe lives. She invites his crew to dine with her, when she laces their food with a potion that turns them into pigs. With divine assistance from Athena, via Hermes the messenger, Odysseus forces Circe to turn his men back to humans, but they remain on her island for over a year.
John William Waterhouse’s Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus from 1891 is perhaps the most complex painting showing this story. Circe sits on her throne, holding up a krater for Odysseus to drink, with her wand in the other hand. Seen in the large circular mirror behind the sorceress is Odysseus, preparing to draw his sword. On the left of the mirror is his ship, and scattered on the ground at her feet are the herbs and berries she used to prepare the concoction with which she transformed the crew. To the right, one of those pigs lies on the ground, behind a small incense burner.
Briton Rivière’s simpler painting of Circe and her Swine from before 1896 has been used as an illustration for several versions of the Odyssey, and unusually casts Circe as a magic swineherd, her wand resting behind her.
The parable of the prodigal son is perhaps the best-remembered of all the teaching of Christ recorded in the New Testament. Centred on the theme of redemption, it tells the story of a man who had two sons. The younger of them asks his father to give him his half of the estate, then goes off and squanders it until he is destitute, and forced to work as a swineherd. That son then returns to his father, who forgives him and welcomes him back with a celebratory meal. The older son is told that the return of a prodigal son should be welcomed as if he had come back from the dead.
Although this parable is generally depicted as the return of the prodigal son, in the welcome by his father, two masters chose instead to show the son at his nadir, working as a swineherd.
Peter Paul Rubens’ Prodigal Son from 1618 is a magnificent painting of the younger son as a swineherd, when he’s talking out his problems with a young woman co-worker, who is busy tipping swill into the pigs’ trough.
Gustave Moreau’s watercolour of The Prodigal Son (c 1882) is also unusual for its departure from his colourful ornate style. This shows the prodigal after famine has struck, and he has become destitute. It’s when he starts envying the pigs’ food that he realises that he must return to his family and face the consequences of his behaviour.
Although there are differences in the three accounts given in the New Testament, the Miracle of the Gaderene Swine or Exorcism of Legion tells of one (or two) men who were possessed by a demon named Legion. Jesus Christ exorcised that demon into a nearby herd of pigs, which then rushed down a steep bank to drown in the Sea of Galilee below.
The Miracle of the Gaderene Swine (1883) is one of Briton Rivière’s few Biblical paintings, and shows a huge herd of black pigs stampeding down a cliff towards their death.
Legend claims that, during his early period as a hermit, Saint Anthony was a swineherd. Another story claims that he healed a pig, as a result of which he became the patron saint of domesticated animals. Yet another account claims that a pig was responsible for him keeping to the appointed hours for prayer, and that led in turn to the contracted term tantony pig, which has come to mean the smallest pig of the litter.
Saint Anthony and His Pig from about 1898 demonstrates Paul Ranson’s steady departure from his earlier Nabi style. It shows this association between Saint Anthony/Antony (the Great) and a pig, combining visual reference to his more famous temptation, in the nude lying on the grass near him.
The occasional pig finds itself in the strangest of company, as in Félicien Rops’ most famous painting of Pornocrates, or Woman with a Pig from 1878.
This shows a nearly-naked woman whose gloves and stockings only serve to eroticise her nakedness, being led by a pig tethered on a lead like a dog. She wears a blindfold and an exuberant black hat, all suggesting that she is a courtesan or prostitute. In the air are three winged amorini, and below is a frieze containing allegories of sculpture, music, poetry and painting.
After the Renaissance, with the development of animal painting as a sub-genre in its own right, the domestic pig soon started to appear in portraits of livestock.
Paulus Potter’s Two Pigs in a Sty (1649) shows two hirsute pigs at rest inside. Many of the older breeds of pig were more hairy than modern varieties, and Potter has painted their long coats faithfully, as well as skilfully lighting the face of the sow sat on her haunches.
At the turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, British pastoral artists painted more portraits.
Of the animals found on farms, George Morland appears to have had strongest feelings for pigs. In Front of the Sty (1793) shows what’s probably a Gloucestershire Old Spot, a sow asleep with three of her well-grown piglets. This breed is predominantly white, with black spots or patches, and was once popular throughout Britain, but is now considered to be critically endangered, with less than a thousand breeding sows registered in Great Britain.
James Ward’s Gloucestershire Old Spot (1800-1805) gives an idea as to how massive pigs of this breed can become. This adult probably weighs in excess of 500 pounds, or a quarter of a tonne, and could quite appropriately be termed a massive porker. On the left, in the distance, a large litter of piglets are feeding at a wooden trough.
Pigs have long been associated with mud, as have children, and I finish with a painting that brings both of those together.
Ludwig Knaus’s painting of Mud Pies from 1873 shows a group of children in the evening, near Dusseldorf, Germany, who are enjoying play in and with the mud, which is no deterrent to the many small pigs behind them.