"Bear and Rabbit" - http://devilry.deviantart.com/

"My attention was immediately arrested by the deer in the background. How unusual: A stag with curved antlers. Clearly, this deer is the defeated suitor for the rabbit’s romantic attention. If the deer’s overall glum facial expression were not enough, the floppy nature of it’s antlers are a clear indication of deflated male virility [flaccid phallus syndrome]. 

If we look at the tonality of the painting, we see that the area’s given the brightest tones are not in fact given to any character. The deer masks itself in the gloom of the trees but the lighting for the bear and rabbit are not much brighter. Instead, the most amount of light in placed in the background, at an opening in the forest. It is set counterpoint to the “scorned lover” on the left, and possibly symbolises the optimism of future romance. However, this unusual, and non-intimate use of lighting, is still unsettling and perhaps foreboding of something that all three are unaware of. Perhaps this is the human element that is otherwise lacking in the painting. Perhaps this opening is just the beginning of man’s domination and destruction of the forest. Two finches fly above, like harbingers of doom. 

In summation: The trivial feuding of an interspecies love triangle, lost in the shadow of an approaching ecological holocaust."
Gammagoblin - February 18, 2012 [ # ]