Feeding Time by Luigi Chialiva

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Swiss-Italian painter Luigi Chialiva mostly created genre paintings representing the coherence between people and domestic animals. The scenes often depicted people with sheep, cows, goats, hens or some other domestic animals. The special interest in the human-animal relations puts Chialiva apart from other artists. Here his theme repeats itself with an indoor scene.

The family is living in an old house with weakening walls. The scene is not from modern times as we can assume it from the clothing and the old-fashioned furniture. The floor is made out of cut and configured stones. Though, when we look at the people and the animals living inside the house, we know that they don’t care about the rickety walls or the simple furniture. They are simply living there life happily.

The mother is keeping an eye on everyone with much love and adore. She seems happy as her kids have learned to love the animals and already are enjoying their acquaintance. The animals are freely wandering in the house with no scare. That’s the very soothing scene look in today’s world where every animal is looked as a source of financial benefits and not as a living creature.

The siblings are extremely joyful at feeding and disporting with the cat and her kittens. They are finding joy in so simple things that the groan ups always wonder what is so special about those innocent activities. It is maybe the curiosity of children.

I can see another similarity among the living ones. Painter has inherently depicted the soft relation of mother and her children by representing every animal in the scene with their younglings. The hen is watching her chicken drinking water; in the cat family, cat is eating after the kittens are stodged and playing with the kid and in the human family the mother is preparing for food. Making food for their children doesn’t feel as a job in this depiction, it feels more like a joy of life on the woman’s face.

As a result, the title for the oil-on-canvas painting perfectly suits.