The painting Il tempo minaccia - portraying a hunter and his hunting dog about to set off on a hunt - testifies to his realistic way of painting, which depicts every detail in the figures and their surroundings. The hunter throws one last exploratory glance out of the window of his modest accommodation. 

Two years before his death in 1898, the Italian painter Giovanni Battista Quadrone completed the genre image of a hunter and his dog entitled Il tempo minaccia (Time Threatens) This finely detailed painting includes autobiographical references: from about 1876 Quadrone had been a passionate hunter and he turned his pastime into his career, successfully depicting numerous hunting scenes that expanded his repertoire as an animal and genre painter. 

Quadrone was trained between 1861-68 at the Accademia Albertina in Turin where Enrico Gamba and Gaetano Ferri were teaching at the time.¹ In 1870 Quadrone travelled to Paris to perfect his technique in painting from the nude. He mainly attended the studio of Léon Bonnat and took inspiration from the well-known history painter Jean- Léon Gérôme, whose almost hyperrealistic style of painting was famous far beyond Paris.² Quadrone continued to develop this precise painting technique after his return to Turin and focused on meticulous historical genre scenes. Due to his detailed method of working, Quadrone was repeatedly named the “Italian Meissonier”.³ This nickname refers to one of the best-known French history painters of the 1850-60s in Paris, who set up historically accurate and detailed features as a model for his paintings. 

The painting Il tempo minaccia - portraying a hunter and his hunting dog about to set off on a hunt - testifies to his realistic way of painting, which depicts every detail in the figures and their surroundings. The hunter throws one last exploratory glance out of the window of his modest accommodation. Have the storm and thunder clouds cleared, or are they approaching? Is the umbrella that he has clamped under his arm sufficient? Sunbeams still fall through the window and leave a reflection of a bright glow on the wall. While the hunter hesitates for a moment, his dog is already impatiently pulling on its leash in the opposite direction, striving to get outside as soon as possible. 

With extreme realism and precision, Quadrone depicts the crumbling plaster on the wall, the worn robe of the hunter, and the grubby abode: on the floor, some kitchen scraps and stalks of the spring onion lie scattered, having fallen off the table. This disorder provides insight into the everyday world of the hunter, who cares less about the order of his interior than about finding the best opportunity to take a hunting trip in nature. Il tempo minaccia artfully contrasts the worlds of interior and exterior space, as well as juxtaposing the interplay of artificial and natural light. Behind the wall in the background, an artificial light shimmers reddish, contrasting the glistening sunlight that falls through the window, illuminating the interior and face of the elderly hunter. The natural light represents the place of longing that lies beyond the cold floor and drab walls. Although the painting shows an interior, humans and animals aspire to leave the room depicted and roam outside. While the hunter looks respectfully at the sunlight and weather conditions, the dog follows his instinct and his desire to feel the sun and not lose any more time. 

The title of the work reflects both the impatience of the dog, and perhaps also an imminent weather change as well as an approaching thunderstorm; it may also relate to the man’s life, whose time is coming to an end. Both, the hunter and the dog, are represented with signs of time and ageing: the beard of the man is mottled grey, his hands are worn, his face criss-crossed with wrinkles and weatherbeaten. Furthermore, the coat of the dog is disheveled and shaggy. Time is short, the dog moves out to catch the last rays of sunshine in both a literal and figurative sense. The sentimental presentation of the hunter and his dog made Il tempo minaccia one of Quadrone’s most famous and successful paintings, which was awarded the first prize in 1897 at the Florence exhibition.⁴ 

Veronica Peselmann 

¹ Turin 2002, p. 176. 

² Ibid., p. 179. 

³ Marini 1998, vol. I., p. 129. 

⁴ Turin 2002, pp. 198-199.