Fish (Still Life)
Édouard Manet
1864
Although
still-life
ensembles
were
an
important
element
in
many
of
the
major
paintings
of
the
avant-garde
artist
Édouard
Manet,
his
most
sustained
interest
in
the
genre
itself
was
from
1864
to
1865,
when
Fish
was
painted.
Manet’s
focus
on
still
lifes
coincided
with
the
gradual
reacceptance
of
the
genre
during
the
nineteenth
century,
due
in
part
to
the
growth
of
the
middle
class,
whose
tastes
ran
to
intimate,
moderately
priced
works.
This
painting,
like
many
of
Manet’s
still-life
compositions,
recalls
seventeenth-century
Dutch
models.
The
directness
of
execution,
bold
brushwork,
and
immediacy
of
vision
displayed
in
the
canvas,
however,
suggest
why
the
public
found
Manet’s
work
so
unorthodox
and
confrontational.
While
Fish
is
indeed
an
image
of
“dead
nature”
(
nature
morte
is
the
French
term
for
still
life),
there
is
nothing
still
about
the
work:
the
produce
seems
fresh
and
the
handling
of
paint
vigorous.
Further
enlivening
the
composition
is
the
placement
of
the
carp,
which
offsets
the
strong
diagonal
of
the
other
elements.
Manet
never
submitted
his
still
lifes
to
the
official
French
Salon
but
rather
sold
them
through
the
burgeoning
network
of
art
galleries
in
Paris
and
gave
them
to
friends.
| Title | Fish (Still Life) |
|---|---|
| Artist | Édouard Manet |
| Date | 1864 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Style | 19th century |
| Dimensions | 73.5 × 92.4 cm (28 15/16 × 36 3/8 in.); Framed: 108.6 × 127.4 × 12.7 cm (42 3/4 × 50 1/8 × 5 in.) |