Minneapolis Institute of Art

Oiseaux de proie (Birds of Prey)

Victor Emile Prouvé

Date

1893

Medium

Etching and aquatint in olive green ink

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

In the 1890s, fortified by symbolist literature, artists searched for imagery to express the workings of the mind —or what painter and designer Victor Prouvé called “inner commotion.” Fin-de-siècle research into the unconscious and suggestibility, in fact, was being pioneered in Prouvé’s hometown of Nancy. Using a sickly green shade of aquatint, he evoked anxiety by picturing a menacing dream state in which raptors engage in beak-to-beak combat and buzzards await their next meal. In the foreground, two human figures can be detected floating in the miasma. France, Europe

The authoritative record is held by Minneapolis Institute of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.