The still life has always captivated me. It started with Dutch paintings (particularly Vermeer) at the Met while I was in school in New York and has continued with those in the American Art collection. Here we have the homegrown version of the genre that was mastered in the Netherlands. This is one of my favorite places in the museum. It seems to exist out of ordinary time.
If only life were this orderly and bountiful: bees buzzing, fruit ripening, elegant tableware set for no one in particular. It's interesting to look at American Art's collection (in person and online) and see how the still life has developed from its European birth in the fifteenth century to American artists applying their own spin. Artists in the twentieth century such as Paul Cadmus, Carlos Almaraz, and Milton Avery reinterpreted the still life. Fred Adler's Still Life with Herring at first seems to turn the genre on its head, but the more time I spend with it, the more it seems to fit right in.
Instead of sumptuous treats, we have potatoes. Rather than freshly shucked oysters, we have a humble herring. Gone, too, are the Chinese porcelain blue-and-white wares, replaced by a crumpled newspaper. Created between the years 1935 and 1940, Adler's Depression-era painting reflects the stark economy of the time.
But then I keep looking and think maybe it's not so bleak. Maybe this was bounty for the artist at the time it was painted. And maybe the herring with its subtle sheen, is his version of a delicacy. Perhaps there's a striving toward something even more, as the fish is often used as a symbol for Christ. Oh, it would be so easy to soar—wouldn't it?—but for our everyday lives that keep our feet firmly planted on earth, symbolized here by hard potatoes and a tabloid paper.
