Rook Shooting

Rook Shooting, painted in 1849 and held in Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, is among the more unusual subjects in David Cox's oeuvre — a depiction of the country sport of shooting rooks from nesting trees in spring, a practice known as 'rooking' that was part of the agricultural calendar in Victorian England. Rook shooting was considered a pest-control measure as well as a sport, young men with shotguns blasting from below while the disturbed birds wheeled above — a subject that offered Cox dramatic aerial movement of birds against sky combined with the figures and trees of a country estate or farmland setting. Worthing Museum's collection of Victorian British art provides the institutional context for this unusual subject. Cox was known to range across subject types within the landscape genre, and this work demonstrates his willingness to include the specific practices of rural life rather than confining himself to purely atmospheric or pastoral themes.

The subject demanded Cox paint airborne birds in rapid flight — a technical challenge he met with abbreviated marks suggesting wingbeat and trajectory rather than anatomical accuracy. The upward-looking compositional angle, with figures below and sky above filled with rooks, gave him expansive sky to work in freely while anchoring the scene with figures and tree trunks below.