Philipp Fröhlich's painting La Cavale I (335L), 2021, 195 x 145 cm, oil on canvas, 195 x 145 cm
  • La Cavale [The Escape]
  • 2021
  • oil on canvas
  • 335L

Birds

One of the most satisfying things I have done in recent years was to install a bird feeder in the middle of our small garden. I watch the birds from our kitchen window every day. It is mostly titmice, sometimes finches and robins. Now and then pigeons or magpies squeeze into the tight frame of the feeder.

It is striking how easily we accept birds in our immediate surroundings. They live beside us and we barely register one another. The same level of coexistence would be unthinkable with mice, rats or insects that also share our urban space, only far less welcome.

Crows, gulls and magpies are constant companions in Brussels. They are commensals, benefiting from our presence. Often, they tear open garbage bags, yet the sight never provokes the disgust that rats would cause.

Birds have no odour and pose little direct threat. They neither bite nor sting, and their space is the air, a place to which we have only limited access. Air and trees seem cleaner to us than soil and the low ground where insects and rodents live. Birds remain close without competing for our space, and their presence offers a small glimpse of nature within urban surroundings.

There is a long cultural hierarchy linked to altitude. Heaven above and hell below. Gods in high places, demons under the earth. Our language repeats this structure with words like uplifting or noble opposed to lowly or base. Even the human body follows this axis with the head raised and excrement close to the ground.

Birds occupy this privileged vertical zone which creates admiration and maybe a little envy. We forgive their noise and droppings far more readily than we would tolerate similar intrusions from other animals. Although some species croak or rasp, we rarely treat their sound as a disturbance. Birdsong and flight are usually received as aesthetic rather than alarming.

Many insects fly as well, yet apart from butterflies we rarely feel much empathy for them. Birds move in arcs and glides that our eyes can follow. Insects seem to dart and circle without pattern. We can read rhythm and intention in a bird’s movement, but not in a fly’s. Birds announce themselves through their song. Insects appear abruptly, buzzing and at close range. They are linked to decomposition and invisible labour.

Across cultures we have invested birds with symbolic meaning. Insects are rarely granted that status. When insects do appear in stories or images, the result is often estrangement or discomfort, as in Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Birds, by contrast, find an easy place in our everyday life and do not cause the same sense of disturbance.

La Cavale means the escape in English. Birds do this constantly. It is a painting about a brief shift in attention and a small reversal of hierarchy.

The bird feeder in our little garden.
The bird feeder in our little garden.
Eadweard Muybridge, motion study of a bird in flight.
Eadweard Muybridge, motion study of a bird in flight.
From André Kertész’s series Birds in the City.
From André Kertész’s series Birds in the City.
Elliott Erwitt, Orléans, France.
Elliott Erwitt, Orléans, France.
Maurizio Cattelan placed stuffed pigeons across the upper parts of the Italian Pavilion at the 1997 Venice Biennale.
Maurizio Cattelan placed stuffed pigeons across the upper parts of the Italian Pavilion at the 1997 Venice Biennale.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow, 1565. Birds scattered among the trees, part of the wide winter landscape.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow, 1565. Birds scattered among the trees, part of the wide winter landscape.
Giotto, St Francis Preaching to the Birds. It is striking to imagine the birds listening to a sermon, instead of us listening to them.
Giotto, St Francis Preaching to the Birds. It is interesting to imagine the birds listening to a sermon, instead of us listening to them.
Max Ernst, Loplop. Ernst created Loplop as an inner bird figure in his work, explaining that it arose from the childhood loss of his pet bird on the day his sister was born.
Max Ernst, Loplop. Ernst created Loplop as an inner bird figure in his work, explaining that it arose from the childhood loss of his pet bird on the day his sister was born.
René Magritte, The Large Family, 1963.
René Magritte, The Large Family, 1963.
Olivier Messiaen, Catalogue d’oiseaux. Birdsong translated into music
Olivier Messiaen, Catalogue d’oiseaux. Birdsong translated into music.
The familiar sight of birds turns into a threat in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, 1963.
The familiar sight of birds turns into a threat in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, 1963.
Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1799.
Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1799.
Human sized birds pushing into the scene, unsettling any stable sense of the world.
Human sized birds pushing into the scene, unsettling any stable sense of the world.
The mockup pigeon built for my painting.
The mockup pigeon built for my painting.
La Cavale II (339L), 2021, oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm
La Cavale II (339L), 2021, oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm
La Cavale III (340L), 2021, oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm
La Cavale III (340L), 2021, oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm
The paintings in my studio.
The paintings in my studio.
La Cavale at Galería Juan Silió, from 15.11.2025 to 24.01.2026.
La Cavale at Galería Juan Silió, from 15.11.2025 to 24.01.2026.
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Philipp Fröhlich's painting La Cavale I (335L), 2021, 195 x 145 cm, oil on canvas, 195 x 145 cm
La Cavale I (335L), 2021, 195 x 145 cm, oil on canvas, 195 x 145 cm

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