The Forest Fire

The Forest Fire by Piero di Cosimo, dated around 1505 and now in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, is one of his most remarkable and unusual paintings — a scene of animals fleeing a forest fire, imagined as an episode from prehistoric human existence before the domestication of fire. Drawing on classical texts about primitive humanity, Piero depicted a world before civilization where humans and animals co-existed in a kind of primal equality, the fire itself being the civilizing force that would eventually separate human culture from animal nature. The painting belongs to his 'Primitive Man' series and is celebrated for its extraordinary attention to animal behavior and the atmospheric treatment of smoke and flame across a landscape.

Oil on panel with Piero di Cosimo's exceptional zoological observation — the fleeing animals depicted species by species with attention to their characteristic gait and panic behavior, the fire's smoke creating an atmospheric haze across the middle distance. The landscape shows his use of aerial perspective combined with the specific detail that gives his imaginary prehistoric scenes a vivid documentary quality.