DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56224#0054
that demonstrate the different artistic potentialities
offered by a limited number of insignificant things. Al-
though not trompe I'ceils, these paintings display a
markedly intensified realism. Form and texture are
depicted with an unerring and sensitive hand. The
color scheme is deeply warm with rich grays and areas
of almost luminous red or blue. Occasionally some
fruits appear in the composition, but they are not
allowed to exhibit their juicy life energy: they are
nearly petrified, caged into an ugly wooden basket to
be sold at the market (fig. 79) or laid out isolated as
on the shelf of a thrifty spinster (fig. 82). Neverthe-
less, these paintings have an inner strength that im-
presses itself on the spectator. Whether consciously or
unconsciously, the painter is grappling in these works
with fundamental problems of composition. He inter-
prets the world in terms of a solid geometry that on
a more pedestrian basis recalls Raphaelle Peale.
It is not accidental that the words ‘austere,’ ‘thrifty,”
and Pedestrian' offer themselves as most suitable for
characterizing Harnett’s paintings discussed so far-
directly or indirectly, they are related to commercial
value (fig. 78). Either they belong to the hard and
sober world of the banker (and one could easily
imagine that Dickens Mr. Scrooge would have been
delighted with them), or they reduce organic nature
to the rank of a commodity (fig. So). One would not
be surprised to see a price tag fastened to the stale
cantaloupe, the wormeaten apple, the tiny grape and
the lonely plum in his fruit piece of 1877 (fig. 82).
What a distance between the parsimonious Harnett
and the wastrel Roesen, who in Nature's Bounty exalted
the abundance of the good earth! Harnett showed him-
self fascinated by the cold paraphemalia of capitalism.
It is true, however, that Harnett achieved a solidity and
clarity of form foreign to Roesen.
Apart from paintings distinguished by their strictly
structural conception, Harnett painted a group of pic-
tures in the 'seventies in which texture rather than form
was emphasized. These paintings show beer mugs,
tobacco pipes, and newspapers, arrayed in a way that
looks casual but that is really the result of careful
planning. I should like to call the group ‘bachelor still
lifes -an expression which, in a certain sense, char-
acterizes Harnett's work in general; for the world of
the woman is practically excluded from all of it. In
these bachelor still lifes Harnett goes to an extreme
in carrying out his desire to characterize textures. He
distinguishes the porous earthenware of an unglazed
mug from the smooth surface of the meerschaum of
the pipe by giving its color a rough, sandlike grain.
Though questionable from an aesthetic point of view,
this method bestows upon the objects a strangely
[32]
heightened life. It is worth noticing that Harnett never
resorted to this or a similar device when he painted
really living things like apples or cantaloupes. On the
contrary he rather avoided giving a natural, organic
aspect to the fruits he painted. This coincides well with
his bias against painting portraits. He shuns real life
and prefers to project his own life into dead things.
Most of his still lifes suggest that the owner of the
objects had just left the room, after dropping them
carelessly on the table. A tobacco pipe is on a folded
newspaper; its contents, the half-burned tobacco, are
spread on the table; broken matches with blackened
ends are strewn about (fig. 81). We observe that
some glow is left and is about to burn a hole in the
tablecloth, and since the whole picture is painted in
a manner akin to that of the trompe Vœil, we feel
tempted to extinguish the fire. Similarly, we have a
tantalizing desire to unfold and read the newspaper,
just as in Vaillant’s Letter Rack we have an urge to
investigate the half-opened letters.
The character of this group of pictures, it is true,
comes dangerously close to the dull taste of the bour-
geoisie of the day, but in the 'eighties Harnett's in-
creased familiarity with the Old Masters—a result of
his years of traveling—gave him new impulses that he,
a man of strictly descriptive talent, needed in order to
create anything new. Because for him creating must
have been synonymous with penetrating, his choice of
objects and his faithful delineation sheds light on the
emotional sources of his artistic inspiration.
Evidently Harnett was influenced by some of the
historic types of the trompe I'ceil found in European
galleries. The experiences that prepared him for their
digestion was provided by native products—there were
enough American still lifes of a trompe Vœil character
to be known to him at home. These paintings, I have
shown, represented some of the main types of the
older European trompe Vœil in a more or less primi-
tive form. In the European museums, Harnett saw
trompe U'ceils that were not provincial imitations, but
genuine masterpicces. Here was the challenge. He
began to reinterpret them in the early eighteen eighties.
In 1881 he painted Old Souvenirs, a free version of
Vaillant's Letter Rack (figs. 85 and 3). Assembled on
a wooden wall are booklets, a newspaper, the photo-
graph of a little girl, some prints, a poster and the
ubiquitous letter, which arouses our curiosity but does
not give us the full story of the souvenirs. They are
his own souvenirs, hinting at the more profound as-
pects of his thought. The miscellaneous souvenirs on
the letter rack conceal rather than disclose the experi-
ences for which they stand, but the fact that the poster
offered by a limited number of insignificant things. Al-
though not trompe I'ceils, these paintings display a
markedly intensified realism. Form and texture are
depicted with an unerring and sensitive hand. The
color scheme is deeply warm with rich grays and areas
of almost luminous red or blue. Occasionally some
fruits appear in the composition, but they are not
allowed to exhibit their juicy life energy: they are
nearly petrified, caged into an ugly wooden basket to
be sold at the market (fig. 79) or laid out isolated as
on the shelf of a thrifty spinster (fig. 82). Neverthe-
less, these paintings have an inner strength that im-
presses itself on the spectator. Whether consciously or
unconsciously, the painter is grappling in these works
with fundamental problems of composition. He inter-
prets the world in terms of a solid geometry that on
a more pedestrian basis recalls Raphaelle Peale.
It is not accidental that the words ‘austere,’ ‘thrifty,”
and Pedestrian' offer themselves as most suitable for
characterizing Harnett’s paintings discussed so far-
directly or indirectly, they are related to commercial
value (fig. 78). Either they belong to the hard and
sober world of the banker (and one could easily
imagine that Dickens Mr. Scrooge would have been
delighted with them), or they reduce organic nature
to the rank of a commodity (fig. So). One would not
be surprised to see a price tag fastened to the stale
cantaloupe, the wormeaten apple, the tiny grape and
the lonely plum in his fruit piece of 1877 (fig. 82).
What a distance between the parsimonious Harnett
and the wastrel Roesen, who in Nature's Bounty exalted
the abundance of the good earth! Harnett showed him-
self fascinated by the cold paraphemalia of capitalism.
It is true, however, that Harnett achieved a solidity and
clarity of form foreign to Roesen.
Apart from paintings distinguished by their strictly
structural conception, Harnett painted a group of pic-
tures in the 'seventies in which texture rather than form
was emphasized. These paintings show beer mugs,
tobacco pipes, and newspapers, arrayed in a way that
looks casual but that is really the result of careful
planning. I should like to call the group ‘bachelor still
lifes -an expression which, in a certain sense, char-
acterizes Harnett's work in general; for the world of
the woman is practically excluded from all of it. In
these bachelor still lifes Harnett goes to an extreme
in carrying out his desire to characterize textures. He
distinguishes the porous earthenware of an unglazed
mug from the smooth surface of the meerschaum of
the pipe by giving its color a rough, sandlike grain.
Though questionable from an aesthetic point of view,
this method bestows upon the objects a strangely
[32]
heightened life. It is worth noticing that Harnett never
resorted to this or a similar device when he painted
really living things like apples or cantaloupes. On the
contrary he rather avoided giving a natural, organic
aspect to the fruits he painted. This coincides well with
his bias against painting portraits. He shuns real life
and prefers to project his own life into dead things.
Most of his still lifes suggest that the owner of the
objects had just left the room, after dropping them
carelessly on the table. A tobacco pipe is on a folded
newspaper; its contents, the half-burned tobacco, are
spread on the table; broken matches with blackened
ends are strewn about (fig. 81). We observe that
some glow is left and is about to burn a hole in the
tablecloth, and since the whole picture is painted in
a manner akin to that of the trompe Vœil, we feel
tempted to extinguish the fire. Similarly, we have a
tantalizing desire to unfold and read the newspaper,
just as in Vaillant’s Letter Rack we have an urge to
investigate the half-opened letters.
The character of this group of pictures, it is true,
comes dangerously close to the dull taste of the bour-
geoisie of the day, but in the 'eighties Harnett's in-
creased familiarity with the Old Masters—a result of
his years of traveling—gave him new impulses that he,
a man of strictly descriptive talent, needed in order to
create anything new. Because for him creating must
have been synonymous with penetrating, his choice of
objects and his faithful delineation sheds light on the
emotional sources of his artistic inspiration.
Evidently Harnett was influenced by some of the
historic types of the trompe I'ceil found in European
galleries. The experiences that prepared him for their
digestion was provided by native products—there were
enough American still lifes of a trompe Vœil character
to be known to him at home. These paintings, I have
shown, represented some of the main types of the
older European trompe Vœil in a more or less primi-
tive form. In the European museums, Harnett saw
trompe U'ceils that were not provincial imitations, but
genuine masterpicces. Here was the challenge. He
began to reinterpret them in the early eighteen eighties.
In 1881 he painted Old Souvenirs, a free version of
Vaillant's Letter Rack (figs. 85 and 3). Assembled on
a wooden wall are booklets, a newspaper, the photo-
graph of a little girl, some prints, a poster and the
ubiquitous letter, which arouses our curiosity but does
not give us the full story of the souvenirs. They are
his own souvenirs, hinting at the more profound as-
pects of his thought. The miscellaneous souvenirs on
the letter rack conceal rather than disclose the experi-
ences for which they stand, but the fact that the poster