Still Life 1912

William Merritt Chase made this still life painting with oil on canvas sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. The brushwork is loose and expressive, capturing the sheen of the silver jug and the scales of the fish. I wonder what it was like for Chase to set up this scene? Did he have a particular idea in mind, or did the arrangement emerge more intuitively as he worked? It's interesting to note how the white cloth seems to echo the form of the fish, creating a sense of visual harmony. And those dark backgrounds—the blacks, browns, and greys—push the objects forward, making them feel immediate. There is such an immediacy to the painting. I see this when I think of someone like Morandi. Although on the surface his paintings couldn't be more different, both artists embrace the act of looking and, in this case, painting, as an embodied practice of slow looking and deep seeing.