A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms
A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms | |
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Artist | Pieter Aertsen |
Year | 1551 |
Medium | Oil on panel[1][2] |
Dimensions | 115.6 cm × 165 cm (3' 10" × 5' 5" ) |
Location | North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina, US |
A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms is a painting by the Netherlandish artist
Painter
Pieter Aertsen was a masterful still-life painter from Amsterdam, who worked for many years in Antwerp. He was a representative of the 16th-century Northern Renaissance style, more specifically Northern Mannerism, a new era for painting in the Netherlands and the German countries characterised by precise observation and naturalism that gave the art of painting impulses of realism. Many Northern artists travelled to Italy to study, where they were influenced by the innovations of the Italian Renaissance and in turn influenced the Italian Renaissance painters with techniques such as the newly developed technique of oil painting.[8]
Aertsen is regarded as one of the founders of the still life painting.
Since the Protestants
Painting
The artwork of A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms consists of a large painting on panel in oil,[1][2] depicting a profusion of foodstuffs in a highly realistic style, while the narrative is hidden in the background, seen through the stall windows and openings. Aertsen's paintings were often made in an "inverted still life" style in which the still-life aspects were in the foreground and the narrative aspects in the background.[3] The viewer's senses are distracted by the rich display of various foods – plates in the foreground, meats, ham, lard, smoked fish, pigs' legs and head, bread, butter, milk, cheese[5] and hanging pretzels (in the left corner) – that has been spread out in front of the viewer, and the figure subject is overwhelmed by the still-life composition. The various meats, including sausages, beef, fish, fowl and pork, are arranged on wooden tables, using baskets, pots and plates. A barrel and some wickerwork chairs serve as containers for the food items as well.[9][16]
Almost unnoticed at first are glimpses through the stall windows of an imaginary landscape with a road. Through the smaller window in the middle is a second landscape with a distant view. These small landscapes are hiding a religious narrative: they depict the Holy Family distributing alms on their journey to Egypt to escape from Herod's harassment. The other people depicted on the road are walking in the direction of the church. Both those people and the Holy family are dressed in contemporary Netherlandish clothing. On the right side, behind a figure drawing water from the well, there is a tavern with genre figures depicting a merry company eating oysters and mussels. In front of the tavern hangs a carcass that is very similar to Rembrandt's painting of a slaughtered ox.[18]
The ground around the inn is covered with
In the upper right-hand part of the painting, a handwritten sign is posted on a wood placard.[17] In Flemish, the variety of the Dutch language spoken in Flanders in northern Belgium, it reads, "behind here are 154 rods of land for sale immediately, either by the rod according to your convenience or all at once".[17] Scholarly discussion about the sign has reached a general consensus that the message "functions as a metaphorical commentary on this scene", conveying a warning about society losing spiritual wealth by placing too great an emphasis upon material gain.[17]
Versions
This painting is held by the
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Butcher's Stall with the Flight into Egypt, Gustavianum, University Art Collections, Uppsala University, 1551
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Still Life with Meat and the Holy Family, hosted at Fundación Banco Santander, 1551
Notes
- ^ It was quite common for theologians to see an allusion to the 'weak flesh' (cf. Matthew 26:41), which may well have been associated with Aertsen's Butcher's Stall where – as on his fruit and vegetable stalls – a seemingly infinite abundance of meat has been spread out.
References
- ^ a b c d "Pieter Aertsen, Meat Stall". Khan Academy. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4724-7379-0. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- ^ a b c d "A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms (detail)". University of South Florida. Archived from the original on 21 November 2018. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
- ^ a b c d "A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms". North Carolina Museum of Art. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-78023-212-6.
- ISBN 9789004325180.
- ^ a b c d "Butcher's Stall with the Flight into Egypt". Webmuseum, Paris. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
- ^ a b c d e "The Northern Renaissance (1500–1615)". Retrieved 9 September 2016.
- ^ Google Cultural Institute. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
- ^ a b c "A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms, 1551". Google Cultural Institute. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
- ^ The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- ^ a b c d "The Meat Stall with the Flight into Egypt, 1551 – 1555". Google Cultural Institute. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
- ^ a b c "Still Life". Art Makes you Smart. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
- ^ a b "Early Renaissance". www.ibiblio.org. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
- ^ a b "Eyck, Jan van". Webmuseum, Paris. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
- ^ a b c "Butcher's Stall". Web Gallery of Art.
- ^ JSTOR 3246030. (subscription required)
- ^ "The art of the meat". Contemporary Food Lab. Archived from the original on 6 March 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
External links
- Art Analysis. The Practical Approach.
- khanacademy.org