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 Job Lot Cheap by William M. Harnett (1878) In the decade after the Civil War, a number of American painters began working in a style called "trompe l'oeil" (French for "fool the eye"). Trompe l'oeil painters were fascinated with illusion, and with the surface of things. They painted still lifes with astonishing detail. Unfortunately, computer screens don't offer enough resolution to do them justice. Mainstream art critics disdained this work as mere imitation, just a trick, and so painters like Harnett, Haberle, and Peto often showed their work in saloons, department stores, trade shows, and other unorthodox spots. People who saw this painting, After the Hunt (1885) tried to take the dead rabbit down from the wall, or pick up the horn and blow it. Harnett did a series of "after the hunt" paintings, each depicting these sorts of nostalgic, idealized artifacts of masculine life. He also did a series of violin images like this on from 1888, Still Life--Violin and Music. He he depicts a more bohemian side of the masculine world of the nineteenth century middle class. Like many of his paintings this one suggests a secret in the cabinet, which looks like it might swing open. To see another Harnett painting, click here Some trompe l'oeil painters took a more humorous direction. John Haberle, whose Bachelor's Drawer (1890-94) appears below. Haberle painted newspaper clippings about his own work on his canvases, as well a scraps of commercial printing and otherexamples of the detritus of nineteenth century masculinity. |
