1684 -1731 · Transylvania, London and exotic bird painting

Bright parrots, ripe fruits and decorative landscapes make Tobias Stranover a refined specialist in living nature.

Tobias Stranover, also named Tobias Stranovius, was born in 1684 in Nagyszeben, today Sibiu in Romania, and probably died in England in 1731. Coming from a Saxon background in Transylvania, he first learned painting from his father Jeremias Stranovius. His itinerary took him to the Netherlands then London, where the aristocratic clientele appreciated paintings bringing together rare birds, fruits, flowers and landscapes. He entered the circle of the Hungarian painter Jakob Bogdani, whose son-in-law he became, and extended his ornithological specialty. At a time when menageries, aviaries and maritime trade made distant species visible in Europe, Stranover assembled macaws, amazons, canaries, jays, owls and squirrels in compositions that are both naturalistic and theatrical. Canary, green parrot and other birds organize the scale and color of plumages around a deep landscape. The Harassment of a Middle-eared Owl transforms animal behavior into a dramatic scene: Minerva's bird, isolated, faces collective agitation. Fruits, clusters and flowers often balance the movement of animals with their tactile abundance. His works thus combine Dutch still life tradition, British taste for exoticism and decorative sense of large format. The "Tobias Stranover" selection notably compares Canary, green parrot and others birds and Still Life with Flowers. His reading favors the atmosphere.

Stranover composes an imaginary aviary where each plumage is precisely observed and placed as a note of color.