[Stag in Cart]
Horatio Ross British, born Scotland
Not on view
Far better known in his own day as an athlete and a sportsman than as a photographer, Ross was, even in his sixties, judged the finest shot in Scotland. He described deerstalking as "the most fascinating of all British field-sports." Keen on the challenge of pitting his knowledge, stamina, and experience against his quarry's superior senses of smell, sight, and hearing, Ross nevertheless possessed a gentlemanly concern for avoiding undue suffering in his kills and for maintaining the forest.
Here, Ross photographed this trophy with a remarkable directness, making an image unsettlingly unromanticized in its four-square presentation and extreme realism. The stag, antlers pointed toward the viewer, seems not only to spill out of the tilted cart but out of the picture itself.