Still Life, Fish 1912

William Merritt Chase made this dark still life of fish with oil paint on canvas. Here the paint is slippery and wet, especially where the fish are glistening! I feel like Chase was looking at those Dutch still life painters but also thinking about Manet, with those loose brushstrokes. I bet he was thinking, How can I make this old subject feel fresh? Look how juicy and thick that white paint is on the fish in the center! I can imagine Chase, sleeves rolled up, dashing off these strokes, trying to get the light just right before the fish started to, you know, stink. The brushwork is so alive, like the paint itself is wriggling around. It’s cool how paint can do that, right? Make something dead seem so full of life. It makes me wonder, what will people think of my paintings in a hundred years? Will they see the same wriggling life I’m trying to put in there?