| Touch | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Michaelina Wautier |
| Year | 1650 |
| Location | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
The Five Senses is a series of five paintings depicting allegories of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch, painted by Flemish artist Michaelina Wautier in 1650. Each sense is personified by a young boy. [1] The paintings have been loaned to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, by their owners, Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo. [2]
Michaelina Wautier was a Baroque painter from the Southern Netherlands. Although being overlooked after her death, she was an accomplished female artist during her time. At the age of 30, Michaelina moved to Brussels along with her brother Charles who was also a painter. While in Brussels, Wautier painted her first self-portrait in 1649. During she was working on The Five Senses, Wautier painted also painted a handful of pieces within the same year. For example, The Triumph of Bacchus (1650) was painted between 1650-1656 and is considered one of her greatest works. Her work at the time also included, Two Boys Blowing Bubbles (1650).
Michaelina Wautier composed her series to allegorize the five senses. Now located at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this make it the first gallery space in the Americas that is dedicated to the art of Wautier. [3] The painting Sight has the subject turned to the right and Touch, the last painting, is facing to the left of the enclosure. The subjects in both Hearing and Taste are seen facing the center, balancing one another. Then Smell is placed in the middle as the subject is staring directly forward. Thus, making both ends of the collection shift movement towards the center.
Wautier paints a young boy in a cloak while holding a pair of glasses up to his eyes, looking intently at his palm. The blue-gray shades on the viewer's left and the dark brown shades on the right are separated by a line that the young boy is placed in front of a corner. [4] The wrinkles on his forehead and curled eyebrows indicate confusion and focus. The light comes from the viewer's right, where the light is being absorbed by the young boy's face and onto his left hand.
Wautier deptics a boy in his early teens who is casually sitting on a chair, relaxed, and playing the recorder while he gazes off. The young boy is seen wearing a dark, loose-fitting shirt with a dark green knotted neckcloth. A red beret with a large gray feather hanging from the side while sitting against a warm backdrop. [5] The light source sits directly in front of the boy. Both the front of his hands and face absorb the light along with the recorder.
A painting of a young blond boy who is pinching his nose due to the awful smell of a rotten egg he is holding in his left hand. A slight frown dawned on his face as he looked out at the viewer with his dark eyes. The boy is seen wearing a tall, dark brown hat that is folded up on the side. [6] He is also seen in a large, tan smock with the sleeves folded up. The light brightness up the little boy's face, highlighting his negative reaction. The dark, gray background helps display the boy and his emotions by not taking away light.
The painting shows a young, ginger and long haired boy while lightly biting down on a piece of bread. [7] A dark brown cloth hanging from his shoulders while wearing a black coat with a white, collared shirt under. Although the boy is placed in front of a gray background, he is outlined with a lighter color pallet. The placement of the light could indicate the visual sensation of the taste.
The painting is a representation of a young boy wearing a white shirt under a black jacket with buttoned sleeves. With his right hand, fingers scrunched, scratching his head while looking down onto his left index finger. His index finger has a cut on it, letting the blood drip down. A sharpened stick laid next to a knife on the table indicated he had cut his finger while whittling. [8] The expression is written all over his face, scrunched up nose and parted lips showing grimace.
During the 1600s in the Dutch Republic, the art market had been dominated by landscapes, portraits, genre works, and still lifes. Genre scenes depicting boys and teenagers, which have been set in a trend dominated by Michael Sweerts.
During the 17th century in the early modern Netherlands, conveying the five senses in artistic series became as popular as depicting the four seasons, the four elements, and the four temperatures. During this period in time, there was philosophical interest about how people interacted with the world. The five senses were seen as a way for people to gain knowledge about the world around them and how it was viewed. [9] Considering other artists; Jan Brueghel and Peter Paul Rubens have painted The Five Senses , their main pieces consisted of women models in landscapes. Wautier set herself apart by using young, teenage boys as her main focus for the five senses. This was a time period where people were looking at the world around them.
Wautier used a common method throughout the five paintings; constructing three-dimensional forms, darkly light backgrounds, and short, thick paint strokes. Such paint strokes were done tight and carefully that it is only visible when looked up closely or seen in high definition photos
Seen in both Sight and Smell, they share a thick reddish-orange layer that is covered by a thinner warm-toned gray layer. It is highly likely that the other three paintings share the same qualities. On all five paintings, it appears that Wautier did not sketch on the canvas before beginning to paint. Considering how common it was with certain artists to sketch beforehand and no evidence of underdrawing, it is safe to assume that Wautier did not use materials like charcoal to sketch out her paintings. [10]
Unlike many women painters at his time, Wautier had received recognition while alive. She had made and sold four paintings to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. Although, after her passing her work had fallen into a blackout. She had a steady build up of her recognition in the 1640s and 1650s.
Wautier has been noted for the variety of subjects she has used in her paintings as opposed to other female artists who had been restricted to smaller paintings and generally portraits or still-lifes. She had the skill to portray young boys in her paintings and had access to such subjects as a female painter.
It appears that there had been a long period of time between Wautier's last painting The Annunciation (1659) to her death (1689).
Gerrit Dou, also known as GerardDouw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe-l'œil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. He was a student of Rembrandt.
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Louis Finson, Lodewijk Finson or Ludovicus Finsonius was a Flemish painter, draughtsman, copyist and art dealer. He painted portraits, religious compositions, allegorical paintings and genre scenes. Moving to Italy early in his career, he became one of the first Flemish followers of Caravaggio whom he knew personally in Naples. He produced a number of copies after works by Caravaggio. He worked for a number of years in various cities in France where he created altarpieces and portraits. He is known for being the co-owner together with his fellow Flemish painter and business partner Abraham Vinck of two paintings by Caravaggio. Louis Finson played a major role in the Northern Caravaggesque movement through his own works as well as his role as an art dealer.
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The Five Senses is a set of allegorical paintings created at Antwerp in 1617-1618 by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, with Brueghel being responsible for the settings and Rubens for the figures. They are now in the Prado Museum in Madrid. They are all painted in oils on wood panel, approximately 65 by 110 centimetres in dimensions.
Michaelina Wautier, also Woutiers (1604–1689), was a painter from the Southern Netherlands. Only since the turn of the 21st century has her work been recognized as that of an outstanding female Baroque artist, her works having been previously attributed to male artists, especially her brother Charles.
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The Triumph of Bacchus is a painting by the Walloon artist Michaelina Wautier. It was painted between 1650 and 1656 and is one of Wautier's greatest works, as well as her largest. Based on classical texts, the picture shows a procession with the drunken god Bacchus at its centre, surrounded by other humans, satyrs, and animals. It is notable for its large number of nude male figures, something uncommon from a woman artist in this period.
Young Man Smoking a Pipe is a painting by the Flemish artist Michaelina Wautier. It was painted in 1656. The content is possibly part of a series related to the five senses, with the pipe smoker in the painting representing the sense of smell.
Saint John the Baptist as a Boy is a painting by the Flemish artist Michaelina Wautier. It depicts Saint John the Baptist as a young shepherd, wearing a sheepskin cover over his right shoulder and with the traditional attributes of a lamp and a simple wooden staff in the shape of a cross. It was painted in the 1650s and is now in the collection of the Museo Lazaro Galdiano in Madrid. The work was previously attributed to the Spanish painter Juan Martín Cabezalero.
Girl in a Chemise is an oil-on-canvas painting created c. 1905 by Pablo Picasso. It is a portrait of a girl, whom experts believe to be Madeleine, Picasso's girlfriend during this period. Stylistically, the painting belongs to Picasso's Rose Period, although it is predominantly blue in tone. The painting is particularly remarkable for the presence of an earlier portrait of a young boy hidden beneath the surface, which Picasso transformed into the girl by making some subtle changes. The portrait has been housed in the collection of the Tate since 1933.