Fox with Hen, 1958–1959
The fox, rendered in warm, vibrant colors, is the true emotional center of the painting. There is no triumph in its gesture: there is hunger, urgency, perhaps fear. The hen, painted with almost compassionate meticulousness, becomes the silent counterpoint of the scene, an inert witness to a struggle for survival.
Ligabue does not idealize animals; instead, he invests them with profound symbolic force. The fox is not merely a predator: it is a solitary creature, driven by a necessity that seems to transcend nature itself. It is possible to glimpse in it a metaphorical self-portrait: Ligabue too lived on the margins, driven by powerful impulses, struggling against a world that often rejected him.
The painterly stroke is raw and incisive, as always vibrating with energy. Repeated brushstrokes create a dense, almost feverish visual texture. It is a way of painting that coincides with a way of feeling: every line is charged with nervous energy, every color saturates the scene with lived and suffered experience.
In this painting, as in many of his works, nature is neither idyllic nor neutral: it is the stage of a deeper truth, where beauty coexists with threat, and every creature carries within it a fragment of destiny. Fox with Hen is therefore far more than a rural scene: it is a reflection on fragility, on hunger—both physical and symbolic—and on what we are willing to do in order to survive.