His earliest works present quite simple, commonplace objects: newspapers,
pipes, books, and mugs. They are arranged in space and so carefully
differentiated in texture that the viewer has the almost irresistible
impulse to reach out and touch them to make certain that the actual
object is not glued to the canvas. This realism delighted his contemporaries
but bored the critics who considered such works much too ordinary
to be art.
Consequently, in his determination to find success as a painter, Harnett
went abroad in 1878 painting and exhibiting in London and Paris and
then spending four years in Munich. The result of his Munich stay
was one figure painting of a monk with a long white beard, a work
so bad that the artist returned to his still lives. However, he changed
his subject matter to a somewhat more elegant and cultivated series
of objects adding antique brass and pottery, guns, and musical instruments.
When these changes did not please art critics in Munich, Harnett went
to Paris, exhibited in the Salon there, and was rewarded again by
fascinated viewers and disdainful critics. Harnett then returned to
New York to settle down and paint still lives that sold very well
to a large and admiring public. The works are broadly handled, warm
and rich in color, sharp and clear-edged, and faithful to reality
in the smallest detail. After his death, Harnett passed into obscurity
for a time but interest in his work has resumed in modern times because
of its surface resemblance to Surrealism and its arrangements that
hint very broadly at Cubism.
|
Featured
Paintings
