On Familiar Things

Pieter Jansz van Asch

2012-02-18T01:20:00.010+01:00

Pieter Jansz van Asch. Self Portrait with Dio LP, c. 1648.

It is no secret, readers, that I am almost overfond (if I can admit such) of the liminal figures of the Dutch Golden Age, those painters whose stars, had they risen just a few years earlier, would have glowed that much brighter. Instead they live on now with little recognition, though I like to think that Professor Wundrum and I are, via our humble blog, able to show you modern scholars how similar these hard-working artists, with their garrets and microwavable treats, are not so unlike us, in our adjunct faculty cubicles.

In this picture, van Asch is mid-conversation with us. We almost feel the intensity of his late-night-snack-fueled fervor. He sits red-eyed in his dressing gown, revealing to us as co-conspirators the secret-within-a-secret of his copy of Dio's Evil or Divine LP: Dio's logo, when inverted, reads "Devil." (I, rarely a symbolist in my interpretations of paintings, leave the exegesis of this to you, readers.) It was common among artists of all stripes during this era, Dio and van Asch included, to hide such "Easter Eggs" in their works, perhaps to let observant viewers in on a secret. What a delight!

Astute art historians and frequent visitors to the Rijksmuseum, where this painting sometimes is on view, may note that I was more precise with the date of this picture than other scholars have been. Further explanation of my choice here is forthcoming via SSRN, in "Beaded Curtains in Dutch Households 1640–1678." I pin this picture's date to the late 1640s, when men of van Asch's social class frequently hung in their libraries and studies beaded curtains like the one featured here. I am frankly surprised that other students of 17th Century Dutch domestic culture have missed this, but where one finds fertile ground in the overcrowded world of academic art history, one must till it.

Aert de Gelder

2012-02-10T23:15:00.011+01:00

Aert de Gelder, Self Portrait with Escher, c. 1686.

Welcome back, friends! I have much to tell you — most of it having to do with my newly acquired model railroading hobby — but let me first share with you a gem of the Dutch Golden Age, unknown to me until a recent jaunt through the Hermitage.

You already know — I'm sure of it — of Aert de Gelder's long and proud history as standard-bearer for the style of his teacher Rembrandt, and of his earlier tutelage at the easel of one of my dearest favorites, Samuel van Hoogstraten. Art historians often read him as an also-ran, a sad bearer of Rembrandt's palanquin as the Old Master bid us all goodbye, in his wake coming the genre painters of the 18th Century.

I submit this painting as a refutation of that narrative, which I have always suspected of being a disingenuous gloss. Look at how de Gelder portrays himself: he confronts critics of his style even as he recognizes his place among his fast-moving contemporaries, one of whose works — M.C. Escher's Convex and Concave — he holds as he glances over his shoulder, red-eyed, befuddled, almost guilty to be observing his competition but still, admittedly, somewhat humbled by the leaps of perspective that Escher, psychedelic explorer of academic headspace, has undertaken. His marijuana cigarette smokes idly by a silent beeper. As a lover of art history one cannot help being somewhat wrenched by the self-investigation de Gelder has undertaken here. He aches to find his place in history even as it gallops onward. I end with a quotation from his diary, written (by my own research) roughly a year before this painting's completion: "Saw Escher drawings in house of M. Troost — my God."

Cornelis Bega

2009-09-05T07:55:00.006+02:00

Cornelis Bega. Woman Playing Guitar Hero, 1664-65.

Colleagues! I have much for which to atone: let me preface first, for my own sake (and so you forget what is to come) that I have moved from dreary Ithaca, New York, to the lush and verdant shores of Northern California, to work as an independent scholar and researcher near Berkeley, California. I can say nothing of the experience that the Bard has not already written, and note the "darling bud of May" – which indeed is not roughly shook here, but persists throughout the year!

The unfortunate aspect of the above is that I was, while an adjunct professor at Cornell, unable to complete the necessary research for The Sacred Kitchen. I would like to say that the reasons for this had to do with my own scholarly inability (and in a sense, they did), but the truth is this: at some point, several months ago, I can't remember when, my fellow professor (and condo-mate) Marcus Grum bought, for his research into Gaming as a Cultural Text, the video game Guitar Hero. At first I imagined my participation in Professor Grum's research to be merely an act of assistance to my friend and colleague. But as I began to return to my apartment for "lunch breaks" only to find myself, several hours later, desperately trying to conquer Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover" (on medium, no less!), I realized that I had surpassed even my own capacity for cognitive dissonance and rationalization. So – the move! Here I am, now, ensconced in the green California hills, with nary a television set or Wii in sight, returning diligently to my work.

And the painting – ah, the painting! Indeed, Cornelis Bega is a favorite of mine, as any friends know. Something in the way he treats his subjects – caricatures, really – should do well to remind us all, professors or laypeople, that even on our worst behavior (cf. Bega's "Tavern Scene" of 1664), we maintain the indelible mark of pure humanity. And that, my friends, warrants thought. Even in her squalor, amidst the Costco snack packs and novelty wizard bongs, our young musician, in form and moral intention, resembles the finest Renaissance angel. I take this, indeed, as part of Bega's philosophy, at which I just hinted: whether in the gutter or on the dais, we as humans share, every day, in the blissful spark of creation.

Jan de Bray et al

2009-07-24T05:09:00.006+02:00

Jan de Bray. The Governors of the Guild of St. Luke, Haarlem, 1675.

This painting, while credited to Jan de Bray, is in actuality the work of four separate men. Jan de Bray is pictured here, second from the left. His drawing board is perched against the back of a companion, Jan de Jong. De Jong painted his own likeness, and is pictured here in a relaxed and contemplative pose. In the back left we see painter Jan van Hotingh seated in the shadows. Van Hotingh painted himself into the work, as well. And the seated man resting his head against his hand is none other than Jan de Bray's brother Dirck de Bray. For this painting the brothers de Bray painted one another. Jan is shown making a preliminary sketch of Dirck in a reference to the painting before its completion! A remarkable work, a great synthesis of talent and camaraderie.

The collaborative nature of the painting is most plainly evidenced by the sketch shown on the table.

We are unbelievably lucky that this sketch is extant! Good fortune has allowed the painting to survive. The mind can freeze when considering the survival of any fragile material through hundreds of years. Many of our favorite paintings benefit from their sheer size. It is unlikely that a stretched and painted canvas measuring many square feet could go missing but it is a true wonder that such a small scrap of paper could survive intact! Legend goes that in the early 19th century an art scholar by the name of Bartholomew Ionides discovered the sketch at a flea market in Antwerp. It is now in the collections at the Rijksmuseum. Here is the full scrap.

It is a revelatory sketch. The members of the Beatles achieved their greatest genius as group. While the four men were abundantly talented, each in his own right, their work was its best when made together. The painting of the governors alludes to the Fab Four and their famous collaborations. A majority of the Beatles' best-known songs were penned by Lennon and McCartney. Though the credits go to the men in front, the work would have been impossibly incomplete without the contributions of Harrison and Starkey. The same is true here. Without the added touches of de Jong, van Hotingh and brother Dirck de Bray Jan de Bray's painting would remain incomplete. May we delight with them in their friendship and admire their collective spirit!

Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten II

2009-04-10T21:06:00.004+02:00

Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten. Self Portrait, ca. 1647.

This self-portrait of such alarming alacrity should give any astute viewer a glimpse into the very soul of a young Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten (this painting was done at a mere 16 years of age!), prior to his meteoric rise as painting virtuoso, constructor of 3D "peepshow" boxes, poet, and author of the watershed Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, Rotterdam, 1678.

Look at his self-assuredness, look at the deftness with which he reveals the depths of 16-year-old van Hoogstraten's heavy-lidded eyes – and look at the meta-art of his sketches of Kurt Cobain, exact copies of those found in his meticulous journals! My heart floods with pleasure at this picture; indeed, in the company of fellow scholars at the Samuel van Hoogstraten symposium, I passed so many sweet hours at dinner discussing this very painting with some of the gentlest, most astute scholars I have met of late. (Paul Taylor, I will see you again – I'm practicing my checkers game now!)

Ah, there is much to say about van Hoogstraten. And I will say much more – in my research I have pored more over his art as of late than nearly any other painter! But let me give you this excerpt from the aforementioned Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst (I have been poring through so many primary sources in preparation for an upcoming publication, "Readymade Breakfasts in 16th Century Holland," in The Chicago Art Journal):

Let me give the reader a pause here, to I discuss a bit of my own childhood – in the hopes of raising the spirits of those young artists who read this book under their blankets at night, as I did, resisting the desires of parents who wish them to go into such professions as law and moneychanging; those young artists who must draw in their closets, as I did, at night, under secrecy.

So many hours I spent sitting in my own clothes closet, having stuffed the clothing under my bed and filled that tiny corner with records, easels, mortars and pestles, and my favorite Forever 27 poster (RIP, all). Indeed, drawing endless pictures of Kurt Cobain, taking deep puffs from a contraband bong (often my only confidant in these late hours), eating tonnes of Goldfish snacks – this was my ritual, my communion, my glimmer of hope in an awful, awful childhood. Keep your heads up, and keep hold of your brushes, fellows of Her Mistress Art!

Dirck van Baburen

2009-03-25T14:52:00.011+01:00

Dirck van Baburen. Man with Spoon Pipe and Game Boy, 1621.

Let us meditate a moment, if you have the time (I do!), on the obvious artistic wellhead of this painting: Caravaggio! Think, briefly, on the irregular composition, the lighting – but where is Caravaggio's eminent seriousness? That is the Dutch spirit, friends! Van Baburen, during his time in Rome (where he was nicknamed "Biervlieg," or "Beerfly" for his proclivities), was a member of the Bentvueghels, a Bacchic society devoted to the humanistic process of painting, as opposed to the rote, detail-oriented processes of classical Italian art education.

And yet van Baburen has chosen both, it seems – the skilled eye and hand of a Caravaggio devotee, and the gleeful abandon of the Dutch. His composition here is close and rough, lacking Caravaggio's secretive seriousness, presenting an intimate view (as if leaning over a table) of a youth, dressed festively for a toga party and wearing an elaborate hat of ostrich feathers, as was the fashion of the time. The youth fixes us with wide, reddened eyes as he grips a vernacular Dutch spoon bowl, his Game Boy (of an older vintage, one far predating the Game Boy Advance, which would not have been familiar to van Baburen – and regardless would have been too expensive for a rough-edged artist like him) sneaking out of the frame, laid atop sheets of Dutch feestmuziek.

Indeed, this painting, imperfect though it is (it seems casual, unserious, perhaps a preparative painting for a larger, more majestic, piece), is a wonderful look at what makes Low Country art so significant: it elevates small things, mundane things, familiar things, to heights equal to Caravaggio's – light plays in delicate patterns, heavy atmospheres abound, and yet these are our daily tasks, our hobbies, our small loves.

Let me close with a quotation from one of van Baburen's journals, which perfectly and succintly elaborates this point, and which I am of the finest fortune to possess – as I am of even finer fortune to be a distant relative of his, blessedly and blithly through the lineage of my Aunt Bettina!

Indeed, as we finished the night – I having lived up to the name Biervlieg – and rambled home through the tangled, manic streets of Trastevere, I looked on my fellows and saw that in the wan light of moon, their faces – Il Bamboccio, Het Fret, Calzetta bianca – all ruddy and worn, red-eyed from hotboxing, were semipiternal, elevated of a grace beyond us, capable with our brushes of fixing moments like these in time, on canvas, forever.

Jan Jansz Treck

2009-03-14T21:49:00.004+01:00

Jan Jansz Treck. Still life vanitas, 1648.

A bout of foul weather can unnerve even the most subdued urbanite. This week in Amsterdam the temperatures have been moderate but damp.

But there is sunshine ahead. The slick pavement and puddles bested me following an abnormally long week of reupholstering and then correcting footnotes for a draft of an essay I'm finishing. Yesterday morning I was rushing to a meeting with my son and an admissions officer from an American school he's applying to. Over my shoulder was a large bundle with a suit and freshly-pressed shirt inside that I had cleaned for the meeting. I was crossing the street towards my office when a German couple stopped me. They were looking to get to the Van Gogh Museum. Already late and irritated I considered ignoring them. "Can't you order a Starry Night mousepad from the internet?" I thought. I was instead polite and patient and helped them with directions. We parted. As I was stepping onto the curb a large van rolled by, kicking up a wave of rainwater, dirt and fine gravel. All of the closed were soaked. What I was wearing and carrying were in an awful state. With no time to lose I kept my stride. I called the gentleman from the university to warn him of my appearance. He was fortunately a reasonable man and expressed his condolence with an reassuring laugh.

How I ramble!

On the walk I was attempting to force myself into a better mood. I am often able to calm myself by meditating on a favorite painting (usually one of Claesz's breakfast pieces). In my frustration I found Jan Jansz Treck's vanitas lodged in my mind.

This painting is particularly wretched. It is stuffed with signifiers of death. Of course there is a skull. This one is wrapped with brittle thorns that have been clipped from their vine. The standard meta reference to the arts is here in the form of a flute. The hour glass has toppled. A play by Rodenburgh entitled "Evil is its Own Reward" lays open, propped against a box of pre-cooked bacon. The tax form has me gripping my temples, recalling the absurd adage of life's only certainties. How awful this painting is!

I was fortunate to have freed the afternoon so that I might share it with my son. And, sharp as he is to my bad humors, he was happy to change our plans so that we might walk the halls of the Rijkmuseum and rejoice in the paintings there. An afternoon with the old masters is enough to put me in good spirits for days.

Cornelis Anthonisz

2009-03-05T20:40:00.007+01:00

Cornelis Anthonisz. Banquet of Members of Amsterdam's Crossbow Guard, 1533.

Indeed, toiling away in Cornell's Sibley Hall (home of the wonderful Fine Arts Library) during this snowy, wintry nights can be a trouble to the soul. But as I continue to compile material for my book, I find that the paintings themselves begin to warm me; I feel in them a depth of camaraderie that I (to be completely honest) do not always feel even in the company of my colleagues here at the University – where I am, at the moment, a scholar in residence. But at the banquet tables of Anthonisz, Hals, and Hoegstraaten, I am warmed by their candles, soothed by the scents of their breads.

Here, in one of Anthonisz's lesser paintings (I admit so much), we see the early birthings of this style that I love so much. I readily admit, of course, that the composition is nearly medieval; the psychologies of these men, the crossbow guard, barely developed; the perspectival and painterly techniques just at the cusp of a true master. (Please, reader, see past my rashness: one need not be a master to stir the heart!)

But one hardly needs to analyse technique or theory to feel a painting. Here I must hand over commentary to one Nils Poepjes, assistant to Cornelis Anthonisz from 1530-1538, whose journals have been utterly indispensible in my research (again, thank you, Cornell University):

Here today at the banquet of the CIVIC GUARD I found myself in awe of such a lustrous and delectable spread as I or Cornelis have ever seen – at once we felt ourselves hollow shells, empty stomachs entire; how long it has been since our dinner consisted of anything, anything but Kraft singles and white bread! And yet as Cornelis began to paint I began an interior catalog of the lushness even as Cornelis began his visual one:

A DiGiorno* pizza – imagine that – cooked in the Guard's new convection oven, served with ranch dressing, with chilly, delicious ice cream sandwiches for dessert; an ostentatious bong, which never ceased to waft the room in fragrant smoke; a seemingly endless pile of marijuana buds from which the Guard's members plucked their fill with nary a care for cost. Indeed, the Guardsmen were fond of attempting to draw Cornelis' and my attention to their larder, perhaps (I hope, at least – would that they were not being rude!) making offers unawares that Cornelis and I take no breaks and can brook no distractions during our work.

* It must be noted that while frozen pizzas today are often afterthoughts, cheap eats, at the time of Anthonisz, ovens were such a rarity that frozen pizzas were reserved only for those with time and money; delivery services like Papa John's were thought, in the words of Poepjes, "uncouth and low."

Caravaggio

2009-02-20T18:55:00.005+01:00

Caravaggio. The Cardsharps, c. 1596.

Please, let me preface this – forgive my absence! I contracted a rather awful case of pneumonia while on an otherwise quite enjoyable "rain hike" in Northumberland. While my recovery period was long, and the illness was quite serious, I did enjoy my surroundings, and my snug room provided me with the perfect setting for reading and re-reading some of my guiltiest pleasures (as I was without my stack of much-neglected journals of art criticism – colleagues, do forgive me; Prof. Witz, I owe you commentary on your brilliant treatise about indoor gardening in the 18th century!): gothic novels!

But let me present to you now a painting that represents a turning point for an artist who truly needs no introduction, painted shortly after he left his first position of employment in the arts (which I will soon describe to you) – it represents, for me, perhaps more than any other painting, the artist's molting from being mere workman, artificer, decorator, to prophet, seer, preserver of daily life's fleeting beauties.

Caravaggio, for some time before his "big break" (so to speak) painted the miniatures that adorned cards for the collectible card game (CCG) Magic: The Gathering – surely a boring, menial task for a man of Caravaggio's scintillating brilliance. Here, he seems to comment on that previous employment; what ought to be a scene of casual, charming, trivial divertisment hides a brutal take on the lengths to which humans go for the sake of competition and collection.

A close look at the painting reveals the game afoot: a well-heeled boy in velvet is the target of a dupe; the lad opposing him receives a signal from his partner regarding the cards held by his opponent (and perhaps regarding his strategy) – he slips from his belt a previously concealed "Counterspell" card, sure to change the game for his favor. The cup of Dunkin Donuts© coffee would indicate that the game has been in progress for quite some time: it is unlikely to be morning, given the circumstances, so it is probable that the setting is late at night, with the coffee having been purchased more for its function than for enjoyment.

And this game's stakes are not low. A cursory glance would tell that the stack of Pogs© in the left-hand corner of the painting, on the part of the table that protrudes into the viewer's space, is the ante here – but a discerning eye (and the aid of an issue of Wizard magazine) reveals, on the table between the two, a "Black Lotus" card from the "Alpha" collection of Magic: The Gathering, whose value even in Caravaggio's time (shortly after the "Mirage" collection's release) was not by any means small. The ruse is made more cutting by the presence of a delicate pipe – likely shared under the guise of friendship.

The most important aspect of this painting, to me, is Caravaggio's delicacy in handling both a criticism of his former employers and in creating a scene of lyrical power, a dangerous game, a children's game, but one whose meaning runs so deep that any sensitive viewer might feel an uneasy twinge at the commonness of that selfish, competitive feeling that must drive our two rogues.

Jans Davidsz de Heem

2009-01-26T06:02:00.004+01:00

Jans Davidsz de Heem. Still Life with Books, 1628

On a Sunday snowed in I find myself pulling drawers and perusing neglected bookshelves. I often do my best to put extra work into the fermenting essay or the nearly-completed set of footnotes. On days of severe weather I am sometimes kept from my ritual diversions from sitting and writing. My woodshed, at the edge of our property, is snowbound as well. While I am trapped in, from my shed I am kept out. Moving from the house and across the field is a large task itself, but digging out the door to the shed usually extolls all the energy I had stored for my lathe and planes. Alas, I turn to fill my time with activities less cumbersome.

Today I took to a tattered copy of Sunday Times crosswords. While racking my memory for the answer to 42 Across (8 letters): Rastafarian incarnate and Ethiopian Emperor (answer: SELASSIE) my mind wandered through the world of recreational linguistics. A list of games formed in my mind: the Surrelaists' Exquisite Corpse, Scrabble, the games Okki-taal and Panovese Kal from my childhood, the word Jumble that my niece uses to practice her English, Hangman, Pig-Latin and, finally, Mad Libs. Of course my mind was immediately evacuated so that it might be occupied with the splendors of Jans Davidsz de Heem's Still Life with Books.

De Heem was trained in Utrecth by Balthasar van der Ast and his earlier work illustrates the influence of his instructor. In this later work de Heem had begun painting in a tradition of his own. Rather than the natural objects regularly found in the works of van der Ast - the seashells, the flowers and inching snails, buzzing insects - de Heem often favored a display of the manmade.

In doing so de Heem doesn't totally abandon the master; his lesson book is not closed. While the objects that occupy van der Ast's paintings are not fabricated by man the arrangements in his scenes are. The swollen fruit, woven baskets and ornate, hand-harvested shells have been arranged with a personal touch. A fly or snail is invited to join the scene not by the artist but by the appetizing natural objects he has selected.

De Heem's still lifes demonstrate their human fabrications as well. Here we see the desk of an enthusiastic student. The scene is cluttered with tattered books and leaves of Mad Libs. All of the puzzles have been completed, it would appear one right after the next. They are strewn about the table with a compassion and appreciation characterized, oddly enough, by their haphazard treatment. As one is completed it is frantically discarded so that the next might be explored in full. In a fervor of inspiration, as a writer reaching for the blank leaf or a painter thoughtlessly refreshing his palette, the Mad Libs have been devoured.

In what some call games or hobbies, explored on weekends or in the backs of newspapers, others find their calling. There is the weekend furniture maker, the after-school painter and the car-ride reader. Here de Heem has offered us a scene of the improviser of verbs, adverbs and plural nouns. In creating this piece he encourages us to reconsider the familiar and to pay a finer attention to what is most often neglected.

Frans Hals

2009-01-22T05:35:00.006+01:00

Frans Hals. Regents of the Old Men's Alms House, 1664.

These darker months are a fine time for fraternization. Winter is an exciting season where the cold tempts us to bundle our clothes, savor warm and heavy foods and defend against the chill with strong drink. And who better to share in these delights than our close friends and colleagues? When the days are shorter time passes strangely. As we enter our favorite basement tavern or ground-floor pub following an afternoon lecture the evening has already turned black. A short gathering can feel as if it were stretched across several hours once the sun has receded; the measurement by its shadows is lost. Our lethargy is encouraged by the threat of cold. We seek the warmth of another drink and shiver with the thought of leaving the comfort of our compatriots for the cutting winds. Our excursions into friendships become grand, and our revelry can become excessive. Ah, the wonder! The stasis of a winter gathering often matches (and surely Prof. Peeters would agree) the agile meandering and bar-stool swapping of the summertime.

In Hals' painting of a group of regents we find a similar wintery scene. Hals was famously destitute at the time of this painting and aged well into his eighties. Though he had struggled with debts through all of his professional life it was the charity of a few bags of peat that helped the painter through the winter of 1664, without which he would have died. The facilitators of this charity were the Regents seated here (or a group nearly identical).

For this commissioned piece objectivity was likely Hals' greatest struggle. The impoverished artist was reliant on his sitters for his survival. Working coatless in a frigid tavern he had to maintain concentration in the face of the regents' obvious spoils. They were made comfortable by their heavy cloaks, their finely-made hats, the humming warmth of a neon lamp and - according to Hals' diary - "a small but swollen velvet purse from which bouquets of cannabis poured like granules from a canister of salt."

The painting, once completed, bore Hals finest hallmarks (forgive the inadvertent pun!). Point to any of the regents' cloaks and the color there will be described as black. But note the varieties of this single shade! The blacks mix with reds and blues, fluctuating in the ripples of fabric and light. The tones of the regents' skins take similar shape. Our group is a rosy one. The man with the dangling cigarette, judging by the flush of his skin, may be enjoying himself a bit more than the other fellows. To our right we find a gentleman who may be abstaining from the merriment; note his faint complexion. Though his gloved fingers suggest he is fighting for warmth his fallow skin indicates that he may have been "thin-blooded."

Though we may not delight in Hals' circumstances we may be thankful for the mastery of his hand. And while we may squint at the group of regents to whom Hals was indentured they may stand to remind us of our own friends, close and familiar as they are.

Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde

2009-01-07T03:12:00.005+01:00

Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde. A Dealer in His "Office," 1672.

Most of you probably know Berckheyde for his lavish, stimulating views of Dutch church interiors. Indeed, he was a master of utilizing perspective as an emotionally evocative aesthetic tool even as he dazzled the eye with seemingly endless vaults and naves -- but Berckheyde, like so many of his countrymen, found spiritual founts among simpler things. His genre paintings are often overlooked in favor of the aforementioned urban and ecclesiastical works, but I find such pleasure among his less sumptuous subjects!

Here we have a common 17th Century Dutch occurrence: a visit to one's choice supplier. As others have noted, there is something of a class imbalance here; the buyer, as he bumbles with his purse, is watched almost mockingly by the dealer and his chap. His grotty attire contrasts with the sumptuous colors and drapery of the dealer and his furnishings. The heavy curtains seem to part and allow us to look upon a private affair. The tiles and the receding perspective into the dealer's bedroom (indicated by the Dave Matthews Band's European tour poster, something unlikely to be shown in Dutch sitting rooms of the time and reserved only for private chambers) allow us a moment to revel in Berckheyde's trenchant mastery of perspective.

Despite this comedy of class, the dealer is a relatable figure: his eyes are understanding and observant; the grinder in his lap shows that he cares for his friends, despite their social standing; and the Dilbert comic above his desk lets us, viewers from another age, in on a little joke. Ah, life -- how mundane, how beautiful! Sit back, as I am, with a cup of tea, and take a moment to cherish the everyday.

Gustave Courbet

2009-01-02T06:10:00.009+01:00

Gustave Courbet. Le Guitarrero, 1844.

It may seem odd for me to feature Courbet here, he being somewhat outside the family of painters we study (and outside the realm of my scholarship, apart from simple appreciation!) -- but truly he is a kindred spirit of Hals, Claesz, Holbein, and our other heroes, by simple fact of his unerring commitment to the representation of simple truth.

Here we have a beautiful example of that commitment. But, more deeply, we have a study -- perhaps an appreciation, rather? -- of the artist's craft in general, which takes place on two levels: the appreciation of the artist's communion with nature (nature serving as a meditation on truth, of course); and, second, of the communion the artist makes with truth in his translation of object to art.

Nature, of course, is endlessly inspiring; countless painters have made their careers on portraying its plunging depths, its sweet wisdoms, its soaring highs. The young man playing his guitar is communing with nature, then. His eyes lift heavenward. His papers, matches, and fresh joint, in the hands of a Courbet, seem alert and full of energy. He gingerly plucks what looks to be a C Major chord, his hand already moving for the next chord change, probably inspired by what all of us have experienced in nature: sitting, letting nature be, breathing sincerely and deeply of the piney silence. The young man realizes that life, as we live it, as artists live it, is a struggle against inertia, a vigorous thrust toward living and not just life.

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velásquez

2008-12-26T18:04:00.003+01:00

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velásquez. Holiday Breakfast with Booberry and Joint, 1618.

Ah, Professor Wundrum's holiday post did dredge up the memories -- long walks in the snow in Leiden, holiday trips to Zaanse Schans, huddling under the covers to await Sinterklaas! I must say, this holiday season was not terribly different for me, though instead of traipsing amongst the canals of Holland, I basked in the glow of the beautiful tree at Rockefeller Center! New York City is truly a wonder. And instead of waiting for Sinterklaas, as I did as a boy, I hid my present to myself (a new stocking cap stuffed full of candied plums) under my tea cozy and went to bed early to finish the most recent issue of Granta.

Indeed, the wakker en bak subjects of Velásquez's painting (A Spaniard! Few painted lush buds with such raw, sensual emotion!) remind me muchly of my childhood -- a bottle of Mr. Boston's egg nog, a fresh box of Booberry (a seasonal dish, meaning that one must save it for at least a month in order to enjoy it during the holidays!), a smouldering joint.

And much like my own experience, the three men (an elder, a virile youth, a child) are frugal and perhaps poor, but their enjoyment of the Christmas spirit is undiminished. I must say that I enjoy this, one of Velásquez's earliest post-apprenticeship paintings, more than some of his later courtly paintings; perhaps his embroilment in the intrigues of Philip II curbed his impulses toward the lower classes, or perhaps he simply became too comfortable. Ah, well -- we have this, for now! And for me, there is a bag of freshly candied plums from Harry & David, and and Siri Hustvedt on the anxiety of influence! Merry Christmas to all!

Floris Gerritsz Van Schooten II

2008-12-26T03:08:00.003+01:00

Floris Gerritsz Van Schooten. Christmas Breakfast, 1621

This morning, while walking to feed the pigs, I was struck by the sharp calm on our farm. I was reminded of a boyhood Christmas in Vaalserberg, peering from the window of my Aunt Femek's cabin at the just-fallen snow. There was a certain peace when the snow had stopped. A gauzy layer wrapped the trees, carriages and outer houses. In the evenness of light the distant hills seemed to disappear as the ground and sky bled together. The cabin swelled with the aromas of frying ham and oliebollen baking in the oven. Admiring the snow my thoughts slowed. My mind slipped away from the excitement of the oil paints and walnuts that Sinterklaas had left me to absorb the monochromatic landscape. Of course Floris Gerritsz Van Schooten's Christmas Breakfast appeared vividly in my mind.

Much like Van Schooten's 1621 painting, Still life with Larder, farmyard fowl, a turkey, pigeons, a plover, duck, a starling, partridge and snipe, with game and songbirds and rabbits suspended from nails, a rib of beef, a bong and an artichoke, grape, with copper pans, watched by a couple seated at the end of a table, a landscape with two men visible through the embrasure , the scene presents an abundance of food. The table is laid with a hearty Christmas breakfast: puffy breads and rich cheeses, an overflowing plate of oliebollen, pears and apples, a carton of egg nog and an oozing bean pie. The plate of butter and the one-hitter heighten the mood. We can expect a lifelike rendering from any work by Van Schooten (an early master of the genre) but here the pipe and melty butter signify indulgence. Christmas is a time when familiar things become new and sensational. A morning meal is more rich than the previous day's, the cheese is sharper, the rolls are chewier, the weed more sticky. On this Christmas morning I hope that you and yours might enjoy Van Schooten's scene with refreshed senses. Merry Christmas!

Jan Steen II

2008-12-12T05:02:00.007+01:00

Jan Steen. Argument over a Role-Playing Game. Date unknown.

A lovely reminder of one of my youthful pastimes: role-playing games! I confess, I lived a lonely youth. I was a solemn boy. And yet, during those summer months when my family left the pastoral (yet restrictive) bounds of Culemborg, and traveled to see our relations in Amsterdam and its environs, I played hours upon hours of Dungeons & Dragons with my cousin Per (who is, not incidentally, now a very well-known fantasy novelist in our home country). Steen himself was an avid gamer and frequently slipped references to his hobbies into his paintings, lovingly crafted scenes of everyday life. Here he has made it the centrepiece.

Of course, Steen recognized the vices associated with gaming: sloth, envy, detachment from reality. One can lose oneself in such games, and Steen knew this; his keen psychological insight penetrated every soul in his paintings, revealing wickedness and beauty alike – witness the Dungeon Master's face here, his gaze crushing diagonally across the painting's composition to lock eyes with the man whose character he has likely just put to an end – the action surges in a brutal wave upward and out from the table, ripping physical violence from the imagined realms of conniving rogues and menacing wizards. Witness the slow fall of the swordsman's drawing of his character (probably a mage).

Thus the moral here: these are but games. Steen, brilliantly, has revealed the meta-worlds within his painting; but his true brilliance is in bridging the psychological gap of imagined world (again, a meta-reference – the painting is an imagined world, bridged from the reality of Steen to the worldless brilliance of art-language!) and the physical world – view Steen, and view the vertiginous abyss between what we know and what we think.

Hendrick Jansz ter Brugghen

2008-12-05T03:19:00.003+01:00

Hendrick Jansz ter Brugghen. Laughing Bravo with Bass Viola and Pretzel, 1625

Though known chiefly for his religious paintings this genre piece allows both the artist and the viewer to remain nimble. The musician is a reminder that the sublime can extend beyond the damask. The player may be described as ugly and uncomfortable, tired and filthy but Ter Brugghen reaches beyond these surface matters. Note the brilliantly rendered folds in the shirtsleeves: crevice and shadow. And to the right, the viola's veneer. But Ter Brugghen has not presented us with a mere portrait. Although no doubt based on one of the itinerant musicians who traveled in the Netherlands at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the subject is most probably an allegory. Here the senses of Hearing (the bass viol) and Taste (the pretzel). It is also possible that the artist is illustrating the theme of vanitas whereby the brevity of a joint is equated with a short life-span.

Jan Steen

2008-11-27T18:53:00.006+01:00

Jan Steen. The Bean Feast, 1668.

A gift for my American friends! Even as I rush hurriedly from conference to conference, I have time to remember the gift of peace that the colonial Americans gave to the Natives, and the good feelings, feasts, and fests to which it gave rise!

Of course, Steen's painting of a Bean Feast is not quite apropos Thanksgiving, but nevertheless, it is a perfect depiction of the kind of familial good time that I hope my friends across the Young Country are having today. The Bean Feast, of course, was originally a winter festival among farm workers, at which a cake with a bean inside would be cut and distributed among the festival-goers: he or she who was lucky enough to get the bean would be the Bean King (or Queen) and thus preside over the festivities. In this painting, Steen's grasp of charm and frivolity is on full, resplendent display: a young boy has been chosen for the King (likely his first Bean Feast); a nun holds and lights his Sherlock pipe as the revelers look on, surely delighting in the comic nature of the scene. (Note, too, Steen's immaculate brushwork in the Magic Eye poster: he truly delighted in hiding nuggets of this sort in his paintings, and it is a treat for the art historian and amateur alike to find them! And consider the technical difficulty in painting the clouds of smoke!)

Ah, though I write this from a library in New Haven, I recall my young days at Bean Feasts, the custom of which has not changed a whit since Mr. Steen painted this lovely treasure – and I am sure that Professor Wundrum does as well (though I was not as lucky as he – I was never the Bean King!): delicious foods (herring, turkey, breads of many sorts, pizzas, fresh fruits, cakes), wreaths of heady smoke, psychedelic music, and the company of dear friends. Happy Thanksgiving!

Pieter Gerritsz Van Roestraeten

2008-11-22T05:46:00.004+01:00

Pieter Gerritsz Van Roestraeten. Chinese Tea Bowls, 17th century.

Roestraeten was one of the most successful Dutch painters working in England, moving to London in the 1660s and remaining there until his death. Though his painting remained characteristically Dutch, his success was perhaps largely dependent on his ability to portray glass in pipe and cup form, alike.

Van Roestraeten presents a lamentably English scene: afternoon tea. There is a dull edge to the daylight here, the cups and kettle appear to be slouching. There is a depression in the painting, as if Van Roestraeten himself were distracted. The tones suggest a wanton mind; while Pieter painted his likely-commissioned work he dreamed of the relief that comes with the common tea break. Though painting the London aristocracy's most common scene Van Roestraeten holds tightly to the precision of his Dutch predecessors. The edges of the kettle make a sharp appearance before ducking quickly into the shadows; the candy cane colors of the piece sweep into the black and frictionless tabletop; the milk-sweetened teas shimmer in their cups. While the painter tightens the strings of attention and wrings the rag of concentration he is unable to shake a hopeful thought for release. Release from commissions for a time to reflect, to savor and to neglect the tasks that have filled the day and those that will round it out. Despite Van Roestraeten's disinterest the representations are as sharp as this morning's razor.

Godfried Schalcken

2008-11-21T05:32:00.007+01:00

Godfried Schalcken. Gentleman Offering Lady a Joint in a Candlelit Bedroom, c. 1698.

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.

-- Wm. Shakespeare, Sonnet 40

Ah, love – as you burn, you destroy. The pain of loving and even of attraction can make one weak. And yet remember the bounties love has brought to the world of art: Shakespeare, Schalcken. Love is never harmless. But its fervor can invoke into the world things unspoken, unarticulatable – art! I let Schalcken, master of the candlelight painters, speak for me here. Love is the greatest candle.

Hans Holbein the Younger

2008-11-15T22:10:00.004+01:00

Hans Holbein the Younger. Unknown Gentleman with Far Side Comics and Bong, 1534.

As I pass a cloudy weekend in New York City, enjoying the archives of Columbia University's Butler Library and watching flighty young co-eds flit from classroom to library to bar, I often take breaks to step over to the library's oversized art history textbooks to compare renderings of this fabulous Holbein painting, completed during Holbein's London Bong years, which began in 1526.

Holbein's deftness at capturing the nuanced characters of his subjects is on full display here – the gentleman, breaking momentarily from his reading of G. Larson's 1983 collection Beyond the Far Side, is caught in a moment of reverie, gazing confidently into the middle distance, perhaps watching the smoke curl into nothing (a subtle memento mori and one of Holbein's favorite devices during the London Bong period). It seems, sometimes, that Holbein delights as much in lovingly painting texture as he does in capturing his courtly subjects: the drapery furls dramatically; the gentleman's velvet coat verily shimmers, its Queensryche pin a dainty point; the bong's aquatic texture is brilliantly concieved. This painting is a joy.

Floris Gerritsz Van Schooten

2008-11-14T04:23:00.004+01:00

Floris Gerritsz Van Schooten, Still life with Larder, farmyard fowl, a turkey, pigeons, a plover, duck, a starling, partridge and snipe, with game and songbirds and rabbits suspended from nails, a rib of beef, a bong and an artichoke, grape, with copper pans, watched by a couple seated at the end of a table, a landscape with two men visible through the embrasure, 1621

'Vogelen' (literally 'birding') was a slang term for fornication in 17th-century Holland, and a then-familiar double-entendre is intended by the (vogels) in the present picture. They are in no short order. Here we have varieties including partidge, duck, turkey, pigeon, snipe and songbird to name a few. The painterly pun is emphasized in particular by the hen held in the man's lap. Van Schooten thus alludes to the amorous intent of the young woman who is distracting him with her charms while picking his pocket. But is he the cleverer of the two? The man might enjoy the caresses of the burgling woman over his shoulder while also meeting the embrace of another: Sweet Lady Bong.

Unknown Master (Dutch)

2008-11-14T02:32:00.004+01:00

Unknown Master (Dutch). Still Life with Books, Magazine, Sticker, and Nug Jar, c. 1628.

At times, the work of art historical exegesis is Herculean – I am currently writing a close study of a set of three Claesz still lifes and their relation to the theology of Huldrych Zwingli, and it is no small task to wrench the nuances of Zwinglean metaphysics from Claesz's deft painting.

But there are times when exegesis is a pleasure. And I, whenever possible, return to this painting as an exercise in what I call "quiet reading": the art of taking in the smaller details of painting and of life, and relating them to life's deeper, subtler beauties (which is, of course, the bedrock ideal of this weblog).

This painting is as cluttered with meaning as the unknown master's desk is with paraphernalia. I will only hint at this painting's cornucopia of subtext. Consider, in the first place, the state of the desk – absolute clutter, and yet clutter of a loving sort, the clutter of a man who loves his work and his art, the clutter of a fully realized life. When one's life brims with unfocused creative energy, organization is often ignored (or perhaps unnecessary). Among the desk's histories, biographies, theologies, a Model Railroader magazine betrays more encompassing interests, the sign of a man who tempers his serious studies with the creative contemplation of building new, tiny worlds. (There is, in the model railroader himself, a creative impulse of the most detailed sort – the workings of these small sets is quite complicated). A Ron Paul bumper sticker reveals the hopes of a detached idealist, earnest but unreal.

The greatest tragedy of this work is its maker's namelessness. Certainly, the painting is Baroque – light dances deeply and beautifully across the magnificently complex composition; the brushwork is impeccable; and yet we note it as a mere exercise for the clearly talented painter. If only we knew who he was! Ah – there is beauty in loss, sometimes; there is beauty in not knowing. Simply enjoy.

Antoine Pesne

2008-11-06T04:48:00.002+01:00

Antoine Pesne, Girl with Pigeons, Butterfly Tattoo, and Pipe, 1728.

As the court painter of Prussia, Antoine Pesne certainly had the opportunity to hobnob with the most royal of royals. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I study Prussian royal genealogy as a dilettanteish hobby.) But here we have a simpler subject: an alluring, plump young woman of the Prussian countryside, dress sloughed lightly from her shoulder to reveal a playful lepidopterean tattoo, clutching and displaying several pigeons to us.

I read a few things into this simple picture: birds typically represent flight, departure; even these inelegant birds, often kept as pets, hold within themselves the possibility release and uplifting ardor. I link this to the young lady's tattoo – symbolic of the lower castes, of course, something rebellious even then – in displaying her tattoo so boldly, and giving her such control over her womanliness, Pesne (like Pietersz, in my post of October 9) has imbued his picture with something of sexual subversion. Birds fly free of their nests; young women likewise uplift themselves in strange and novel ways.

Guercino

2008-10-30T03:07:00.004+01:00

Guercino, Allegory of Painting and Sculpture, 1637.

Forgive my long absence! After a particularly troublesome spot in my research (it's quite hard to find thorough examinations of 17th Century Dutch kitchen habits), I decided to take a trip down to Amsterdam, where I spent well over a week taking in the beauty of one of the Netherlands' crown jewels: The Rijksmuseum! I have been to many of the world's most famous museums (the Prado, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art...), but something of my own Dutch blood brings me forever back to the Rijksmuseum, and whenever I begin to lose my creative verve, it takes only a visit to the Rijksmuseum's Old Masters' wing to rejuvenate myself.

And so it seems odd that I should highlight this painting, Guercino's Allegory of Painting and Sculpture, which is an Italian piece (obviously) of the High Baroque period. But bear with me! The pure focus here, given the elementary symmetrical composition and base flatness of the figures, is the allegory at hand – the transferral of creative energy from one artist to another, and thus, inside a single painting (a meta-allegory), to us as well: a surreptitious glimpse into the artist's genius and reverie. A beautiful, classical example of the creative process: from heavily impasted multi-chambered bong, to brush, and then to brush again, and then to our eyes – relish this!

Domenico Fetti

2008-10-22T15:06:00.004+02:00

Domenic Fetti, Archimedes Thoughtful, 1620

A quick post, this afternoon. We've just finished a conference call with a few gentlemen at Oxford (we're planning a lecture for early next year) and now I'm off to finish some work on a German cabinet (ca. 1780) that I'm restoring for the Ashmolean.

Here, we'll let Signor Fetti speak for himself.

Giuseppe Maria Crespi

2008-10-14T06:13:00.005+02:00

Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Bookshelves, 1725

Although Crespi was a fine portrait painter, he is best known for his lively, informally posed scenes of daily life, which influenced artists throughout Europe in the later eighteenth century. Crespi also worked in genre painting and his Bookshelves makes a fine addition to his hefty oeuvre. At once immediate and timeless, this study of an overflowing set of bookshelves demonstrates Crespi's gift for showing life in the inanimate and for enriching a subtle palette with warm, diffuse light.

The books, all bound in a rich leather, blend with the hues of the woodgrain in the shelves themselves. They are full of dusty tomes on music and scores that have been hastily consulted and shoved back. Crespi continues the compliment of mild tones with the addition of an amber-colored bong. And as a flourish, in contrast to the notes of pulp and flesh, he offers a set of expired Domino's Pizza coupons that, like the books, have gone neglected after their initial use.

The work was probably commissioned by Giovan Battista Martini, a famous Bolognese musicologist who was respected and feared across Europe as a music critic.

Pieter Pietersz

2008-10-09T06:28:00.002+02:00

Pieter Pietersz. Man and Woman by the Spinning Wheel with Bong, c. 1570.

Pieter Pietersz, born 1540 in Antwerp, son of the brilliant, bold Pieter Aertsen (whose work I plan to share with you sometime in the future), began his career by painting altarpieces and other religious works. But with the Reformation's individualist impulses (the same impulses that surged Christian capitalism around Europe), that career path soon ended, with commissions landing with those artists who, like Pietersz, could capture the simpler spirit of the times – away from Europe's grand churches, away from Amsterdam's Oude Kerk, toward the kitchen and the den.

Here, a bemused young woman meets our gazes, relaxed and distracted from her spinning. (Consider here the old "Protestant work ethic!") A gentleman caller, ignorant of the viewer's encroachment, leans in to her, predatory, perhaps about to whisper a jape or invite the young lady out carousing. Will she submit? Who can be sure – her gaze, though, is casually powerful, revealing to us something of Pietersz's sympathy for the female liberation latent in some Reformation theology. But still – the young man, lovingly painted bong in hand, may drive a hard bargain. Fancy-free and liberated times may await.

Hans Holbein the Younger

2008-10-07T02:26:00.003+02:00

Hans Holbein the Younger. Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze, 1532.

This portrait shows Holbein at the height of his powers. The dominating figure of the sitter, silhouetted by means of just a few clear lines, forms the central focus of an interior filled with a seemingly random arrangement of objects. The angled table and the position of the sitter, turned slightly inwards, are combined into a skillful spatial composition. Holbein observes his model with the same cool, searching gaze with which the sitter looks at us.

The objects on the table reflect an enduring delight in the portrayal of still-life detail - something which Holbein inherited not just from the German painting of the 15th century, but more especially from the Netherlands.

While the individual objects - the vase of flowers, the cashbox, the items carved of wood, the four scattered joints, the books and the writing implements - may not reveal the warm luminosity so characteristic of Early Netherlandish artists from Jan van Eyck to Hugo van der Goes, Holbein nevertheless demonstrates supreme sophistication in the iridescent white heightening on the sitter's red sleeves, in the elaborate, almost palpable weave of the tablecloth, and in the shimmering glass vase.

Cecco del Caravaggio

2008-10-06T01:59:00.004+02:00

Cecco del Caravaggio. Interior with a young Man holding a Bong, 1620.

Formerly attributed to Louis Finson, the bong smoker was identified as a piece by Cecco in 1943. Little documentary evidence exists for this distinctive follower of Caravaggio. Like his master, he favoured strongly-lit compositions often of enigmatic themes: here a young man confronts the viewer with a challenging air, a billow of smoke and an acrylic bong amidst an abundant assortment of still-life elements. An ambrosia of foods; a crackled hunk of cheese, a knotty gourd, a handful of peaches and a bagel. Cecco del Caravaggio delights in the precision of the elder master in his renderings of a violin, a newspaper-clipped photograph of Marlon Brando and a milky billow of smoke.

Maarten van Heemskerck

2008-10-03T05:23:00.006+02:00

Marten Jacobszoon Heemskerk van Veen (Maarten van Heemskerck), Family Portrait with Bong and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Paperback, 1530.

Professor Wundrum's comment on my recent post jogged my memory of this lovely painting, done during van Heemskerck's Roman period. How lovely it is – on the surface! This family, with bong and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas paperback novel, is in fact a bucolic reaction to the tumult of 1530, which van Heemskerck, in his deep sensitivity to the world, must certainly have felt: the Augsberg Confession and its ripple through the Dutch Reformation community; the flooding of Rome; the 1529 siege of Vienna. Indeed, in so many of these paintings, our painters are not recreating simple moments (How we wish they were!) as much as they are resisting powerfully against the unquenched passions and roiling doubts of the High Renaissance and Reformation periods.

Indeed, van Heemskerck's composition is full of doubt. The diagonals, surging downward from the two sober, serious parents onto the heads of their scions (like the political doubt of the age, presaging the religious chaos of the latter half of the 16th century) practically slashes the picture into quarters; deep theological and ecclesiastical anxiety wrenches, for me anyway, any satiety from this scene.

The table hangs awkwardly on the canvas, urging the viewer to correct it (i.e., to correct the conflicts in Christian theology at the time) – the figures are awkwardly posed, with only the artist's innate sense of rightness holding them in any sensible position at all. The parents form a supportive "V," as they should, but the incongruity of the table's placement destroys any sense of stability we have. Ah – the 16th Century! We await the placidity of the sweet 1600s.

Barthel Bruyn

2008-09-30T04:49:00.005+02:00

Barthel Bruyn, Vanitas with Concert Tickets and Bong, 16th Century

Bartholomaeus Bruyn, the dominant painter in Cologne in the first half of the sixteenth century, was born in 1493 in the region of the Lower Rhine. No signed paintings by the artist are known, but his oeuvre has been reconstructed around two documented altarpieces. Several dated works permit the establishment of a general chronology. Earlier paintings (to the mid-1520s) show the influence of Jan Joest and especially Joos van Cleve. Beginning in the late 1520s Bruyn's work reflects the Netherlandish "Romanism" of Jan van Scorel (1495-1562) and Maerten van Heemskerck.

This undated painting, Vanitas with Concert Tickets and Bong, functions as a showpiece, demonstrating Bruyn's scope in talent. It breaks from the bulk of his work in portraiture: images of the patrician, or upper bourgeois, citizens of Cologne. It is painted with the same detailed precision as the portraits but here Bruyn trades the living for the dead.

We find a dismembered skull and an extinguished candle. A placard reading Omnia morte cadunt, mors ultima linia rerwn ("Everything passes with death, death is the ultimate limit of things") sits below the broken jaw and the bone-dry bong. The concert tickets are conspicuous and neglected. In his painting Bruyn has created an inventory of the expired. The only suggestion of life comes in the form of a fly, the carrion creature that feasts from the dead and living alike.

William Harnett

2008-09-27T16:44:00.003+02:00

William Michael Harnett. The Old Violin with Weed and Rolling Papers, 1886.

Our first American! Ah, this painting brings many memories to me – I have a print of it framed in my office (both at home and at the University), a reminder of the waxing and waning of the artistic (and scholarly!) process. Let me digress. For a time, during the late 1990s, I found myself at an academic impasse. I was, at the time, a visiting scholar at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, teaching a course on Low Country painting and writing a piece for the Journal of the Association of Art Historians on Claesz's late-period still-lifes with bongs.

To be honest – I was alone in America and frustrated at my lack of motivation in my own work. On a whim, I boarded a train to Washington, D.C., for a change of surroundings and to visit America's sublime National Gallery. As I walked the steps to the Gallery, vexed about my work and filled with anxious tension, I felt an ineffable pull – I was drawn to this, Harnett's spectacularly playful trompe l'oiel, and immediately, unexplainably, I brightened; my breath became fuller, my blood stronger. Never before had I taken American painting seriously (Forgive me! I have learned much since then.). But here was an American with the same verve, tenacity, and wit as any European painter. I was utterly taken by this painting; the resting violin, the envelope, the weed and rolling papers all pulled forth a new but utterly simple realization from me: like the violin's sweet music unplayed, but ready, potential, in its strings, my own inspiration was inside me, ready for the bow to strike, to set the taut, kinetic string of inspiration vibrating in tune. The violin is clearly used, but the letter reveals its owner's communications, his inner correspondences still vibrant; the sheet music is fresh and exciting; the weed is not dried-up. The door is much-used – a life passing in and out of activity.

On the train back to Boston, deep in the night and the American hinterland (so different from what Harnett must have seen), I smiled – contentedly and for the first time in weeks. I hope that this painting touches you as it did me.

Pieter Claesz

2008-09-27T05:52:00.006+02:00

Pieter Claesz. Still Life with Peacock Pie, Bong, St. Elmo's Fire DVD, 1627

In a posting earlier this week Professor Peeters marveled at the meticulously painted damask in Still Life With Cheeses, Bong and DVD, 1615 by Floris Claesz van Dijck. He referenced the above painting when he wrote, "Not even the great Pieter Claesz, in his seminal Still Life with Peacock Pie, Bong, and St. Elmo's Fire DVD (1627) captured damask with such verve." It is true that the Elder Claesz was not to be outdone, though the painting by the young Pieter is not without merit. The focus of this painting is purely tactile. The ripples of shadow on the monochromatic tablecloth, the glistening skin on the cooked turkey, the silky transparency of the bong.

The earlier painting revels in its composition and acuity. Still Life with Peacock Pie, Bong and St. Elmo's Fire DVD plays host to a number of objects found in the earlier painting: fruit, nuts, a bong and a shining silver platter. The damask is present, yet again. By scattering these objects and then adding a juicy turkey carcass, a bowl of peas and a live peacock Pieter Claesz succeeds in at once recognizing the masterwork of his mentor and finding an equaled precision in objects of his own.

Samuel Van Hoogstraten

2008-09-26T05:03:00.001+02:00

Samuel Van Hoogstraten. Still Life with Ziplock Bag of Weed, Tom Petty Cassette, c. 1666-1668

Dutch painter Samuel Van Hoogstraten is one of many artists with a keen interest in trompe-l'oeil ("trick the eye") techniques. He was a specialist in this field and the work shown here is typical of the genre. Because such tromp-l'oeil effects do not work well in depth the artist chose to portray flat objects that could be placed on the picture plane to which relatively flat items could be added. Observe the quill, the wax-sealed letter and opener. The medallion, dime bag and comb. The rolled ribbon, scissors and Full Moon Fever cassette. Despite their variety each item is but a few millimeters thick.

That old chestnut about the spectator who is actually fooled by such painted objects is quite easy to imagine in this case, but we should not forget that such paintings were actually intended as a joke and that they were meant to produce a sense of surprise on discovering that the objects were painted rather than real.

Balthasar van der Ast

2008-09-25T20:38:00.001+02:00

Balthasar van der Ast. Still Life with Flowers, Shells, Insects, and Novelty Elephant Pipe, ca. 1635.

Such dread here! Normally, I would not draw attention to such a misanthropic painting, but van der Ast's still life paintings are, in their own way, wonderfully idiosyncratic and captivating. Van der Ast's still lifes are darker than most – they crawl with insects, symbols of death and putrefaction, while his flowers rot and wither. (Of course, many of his other paintings are sunnier in their outlook – but, to me, van der Ast's bleaker moments let us glimpse the darker half of every artist's soul.) It is worth noting, though, that even among his more disgusting memento mori, van der Ast has placed shells (he is a pioneer of the glorious art of shell painting), symbols not only of protection and rebirth (consider the hermit crab) but, more nobly, of Christian redemption. At last, though, moments of levity in the shadow of his fleurs du mal, purity among the skulking arachnids – two fresh flowers (though we know them to be at the verge of a withering death) and a jovial novelty elephant pipe, treated with the same tender care as van der Ast's beloved shells.

Floris Claesz van Dijck

2008-09-25T05:36:00.002+02:00

Claesz. Still Life with Cheeses, Bong and DVD, 1615 (?)

Spread out on a richly prepared table are a variety of cheeses. All around are dishes with fruit, glasses, a jug, a bong, nuts, bread, a pear and a DVD. Bright colours dominate in this still life by Floris Claesz. van Dijck: a white damask tablecloth on a heavy, red oriental rug, yellow cheeses and an off-white collage of the star-heavy cast of Good Will Hunting.

Lucas van Leyden

2008-09-25T05:13:00.000+02:00

Lucas van Leyden. The Chess Game with Bong, ca. 1508.

Ah, van Leyden – beautiful, overlooked, Low Country link between the aloof mastery of van Eyck and the gristle of Hals and the Brueghels. Let us look at his painting: a group of laconic, distracted members of the middle class, engaged in a trivial game of chess. The chess board, with its bong and disposable lighter, draws the eye quickly, but it is not conceptually central here. What is meaningful are the everyday moments for which the game and bong serve only as a visual center: the fat merchant's meddling, the brewer's idle headscratching, the gossip, the idle flirtation, the perfectly captured dullards' gazes. In terms of technique, Leyden's use of purple in the disposable lighter is quite unusual but not obscure. And while his painting is certainly not perfect, not so much as his brilliant etchings, it is a precursor to the noble mundanity of 17th Century Low Country art with bongs.

Henri Fantin-Latour

2008-09-25T05:12:00.003+02:00

Henri Fantin-Latour. Still Life with Bong and Rush Cassette, 1866.

Few capture the idylls of summer like Fantin-Latour: a true virtuoso of sweet nostalgia, Proust in oils. Let us consider Herr Wundrum's posting of 22 September, Cotan's 1602 "Still Life with Bong" – let us put these two masters in communion, if you will. Cotan's dangling apple, as Herr Wundrum noted, is "past its best," a symbol of our mortal bodies, our languishing on Earth. Fantin-Latour's fruits are lush and suppliant. They invite us to taste of their sweetness; sticky rot is surely days away. The tray hangs casually over the edge of the table, its oblique positioning almost shocking compared to Claesz's and Cotan's rigid horizontals. A lovely bong completes the table's admirably balanced arrangement, while a cassette of Rush's classic Moving Pictures sits, absent its case, atop a much-read novel, both recalling the afternoon's sweet leisures and reminding us that technology, like these fruits and flowers, will change and fade. A sublime reminder of pleasant times.

Pieter Claesz

2008-09-25T05:12:00.001+02:00

Pieter Claesz. Still Life with Roemer, Oysters, Bong, and Rick Wakeman Poster, 1642.

Domestic but fraught with hungry tension – a brilliant example of Dutch ontbijt in the 17th century. A picked-over tray of oysters, labial symbols of Christian rebirth, rests before a half-filled roemer of white wine, itself as much a reminder of the pale purity of Christ's blood as it is a venue for Claesz's mastery of the painted reflection, daring the viewer to deny the scene's verisimilitude. Bread, the body of Christ, is arranged on the diagonal of the severant knife, instrument of martyrdom and liberation. A softly transparent bong sits at the table's corner. A Rick Wakeman poster bleeds beyond the frame, a tantalizing invitation to explore the space beyond Claesz's painted bounds.

Jan Vermeer

2008-09-25T04:42:00.004+02:00

Jan Vermeer. A Girl Asleep with Bong, 1657

Here, for the first time, we see the light, mood, complex composition, and the symbolism characteristic of mature Vermeer. The girl is well-dressed, perhaps the lady of the house, and we are separated from her by a table and chair. There is a white pitcher, and in front of the girl is an almost invisible wine-glass: presumably she is sleeping off the wine. But a closer investigation reveals a glass bong with a hand-worked slide.

The table is covered in a rich oriental carpet, with a bowl of fruit, symbolic of the Fall of Eve, and a partially wrapped egg, implying unbridled lust. The disheveled table is in glaring contrast to the cool, clean lines of the adjoining room and suggests that in her indulgence the woman has neglected her duties as home keeper. While neat and level it is a near certainty that the poster advertising a director's cut of Blade Runner is covered in a thick layer of dust.

Juan Sanchez Cotan

2008-09-25T04:42:00.003+02:00

Juan Sanchez Cotan. Still Life with Bong, c. 1602 (?)

Everyday objects: a melon, cut open to reveal its pale pink flesh, a
knobbly cucumber, a yellow apple that is past its best, a cabbage with
thick leaves, a crisp glass bong. Parallel to the picture plane, a
smooth frame delineates the opening for a window. From the direction
of the spectator, light falls upon the parapet, on which the slice of
melon, the cucumber and a copy of JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye are
placed so that they jut over slightly and thereby they seem to be
almost within reach - a trompe l'oeil effect that was particularly
popular in Netherlandish painting in the 17th century.

Luis Melendez

2008-09-25T04:40:00.002+02:00

Luis Melendez. Still Life with Melon, Pears, Bong and DVD, 1770

Pieter Claesz

2008-09-25T04:39:00.001+02:00

Pieter Claesz. Vanitas, 1630