THE 1700S' GO-TO ARTIST FRANCE'S OUDRY PUT EXOTIC BEASTS ON CANVAS FOR THE RICH.

Byline: Jim Farber

Staff Writer

What do Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, King Louis XIV of France, William Randolph Hearst of San Simeon and Michael Jackson of Neverland have in common?

Aside from immense wealth, they all chose to surround themselves with a menagerie of exotic animals.

By far the grandest and most elegant of these personal zoological gardens was Le Salon de la Menagerie, designed by the French architect Louis Le Vau in 1662 as a decorative addition to the gardens of Louis XIV's Versailles Palace.

"It wasn't really intended as an encyclopedic zoo like we have today," explains Mary Morton, the Getty Museum's associate curator of painting. "It was intended as something beautiful and interesting -- a cabinet of curiosities of live specimens. It was for the enjoyment of upper-class Parisians. But it was also used by natural historians, scientists and artists that used it as a resource to study live animals."

One of those artists was Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755). Academy-trained, Oudry had gained a reputation as a master still-life painter and portraitist -- not so much of people, but of animals. And at a time when European royal society was simultaneously fascinated by the new science of natural history, and the blood-lust of the hunt, Oudry found ready employment for his talent.

If you wanted a grand portrait of your prize hunting hound, the depiction of a valiantly struggling stag, or a beautiful, biologically correct rendering of a leopard or a toucan, Oudry was your man.

"Oudry's Painted Menagerie: Portraits of Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Europe," on display at the Getty Museum through Sept. 2, presents for the first time in more than 150 years a suite of 12 salon-size animal portraits painted by Oudry between 1739 and 1752. The paintings are from the collection of the Staatliches Museum Schwerin in Germany.

These dramatic life-study portraits, according to Morton, represent a quantum leap in the depiction of animals in art. They combine an exquisite Flemish-style sense of textural detail in the depiction of feather, fur and fang, with a grand romantic sense of portraiture, as if these animals were royal ambassadors for their species.

"These paintings are not generic," Morton points out. "They're absolutely specific specimens that he's sketching, then painting. There is a sense of individualism. That's something new, and Oudry emphasizes it. Another discourse that's occurring at this time is whether animals are machines or whether they have feelings, a soul, a heart and a personality.

"Oudry is also using color as a responsive tool," Morton explains, "which was a major component of royal portraiture in the representation of rich, sumptuous fabrics. Oudry translates that in his renditions of feathers and fur. In a number of the portraits, it's as if the animals are on stage sets with these marvelous decorative backgrounds of nature looming romantically behind them to amp up the effect."

Some of Oudry's "sitters" are represented in proud isolation: a lordly lion, a statuesque cassowary and an elegant Indian blackbuck. Others, Morton says, reflect popular genres of the day: a dead crane posed as a dramatic still life; a fierce hyena in the midst of combat with two snarling dogs.

The exhibition's superstar, however, is a life-size (10 feet tall, 15 feet wide) beady-eyed, twitchy-eared, leather-skinned rhinoceros named Clara. And in her case, the title of superstar is well-deserved. For 17 years, Clara was the featured attraction of a European tour, a creature so exotic that her presence created a phenomenon. Oudry encountered her at the Fair Saint-Germain in Paris in 1749 and subsequently produced a massive canvas depicting her in all her ponderous glory.

In addition to the marvelous menagerie portraits, the exhibit also contains a room devoted to Oudry's drawings and concludes with a gallery devoted entirely to Clara and the impact of Rhinomania.

"Because Oudry painted animals," Morton says, "he's never ranked as highly as he should. But he's a great painter, an expressive painter."

Jim Farber [phone], Ext. 416

jim.farber(at)dailybreeze.com

OUDREY'S PAINTED MENAGERIE

What: The large paintings of animals by 18th-century French artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry.

Where: Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood.

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday; through Sept. 2.

Tickets: Admission is free; parking is $8.

[phone]. www.getty.edu.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) The superstar of the Jean-Baptiste Oudry exhibit is this life-size painting of a leather-skinned rhinoceros named Clara.(2 -- color) This Oudry painting of a tiger has suffered damage from years of storage, and restoration work is just beginning to return it to its original glory.