On the Bank of an African River

On the Bank of an African River, painted in 1918 and in the Guildhall Art Gallery, demonstrates Briton Rivière's continued engagement with exotic animal subjects drawn from regions he had not personally visited. Like many Victorian and Edwardian animal painters, Rivière worked from zoological studies, published natural history illustrations, and travellers' accounts to construct convincing African settings. The painting may depict hippopotamuses, crocodiles, or large cats at a riverbank — Rivière had painted such subjects throughout his career, finding in Africa's megafauna subjects that tested his anatomical skills and that satisfied public appetite for the wild and the remote. Painted in the final year of the First World War, the subject offered a form of imaginative escape from the European catastrophe.

Rivière's construction of an African riverbank drew on his systematic study of animal anatomy combined with landscape conventions borrowed from natural history illustration. The tonality would reflect the specific quality of African light — bright, high contrast — quite different from the temperate softness of his English scenes. Animal musculature and hide are rendered with characteristic precision.