The curious incident of the dog in the picture
Most abstract art can be mystifying, with the absence—or the distortion—of discernible form, squiggles of color here and there, or even lines of pure geometry leading to lots of head-scratching, eye-squinting and shoulder-shrugging.
Figurative (perhaps a better word would be classical, or academic) art is arguably much easier to understand: this is a landscape, that’s a portrait, over there is a nude, and those are rosy-cheeked cherubs looking down at us from celestial skies.
While abstract art may be puzzling to many, classical art is not without its mysteries. Why, for instance, does Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” (c.1503-1506), said to be the world’s most famous painting, continue to captivate with her enigmatic smile and the atmospheric landscape behind her?
What about “Gabrielle d’Estrées et une de ses soeurs” (c.1594), the painting from the École de Fontaineblea—allegedly of Henri IV’s mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, naked in the bath, with her equally naked sister beside her? The luxury and delicacy of the painting—D’Estrées and her sister are portrayed as having porcelain skin and an artistocratic bearing, while the bath is made of marble, fringed by opulent satin drapery—is nevertheless charged with a strange eroticism: why is her sister, the Duchess of Villars, reaching out to touch her nipple? Who is the woman behind them sewing a piece of cloth? And is that a nude painting on the fireplace mantel?
Some of the most mesmerizing classical paintings can turn viewers into amateur sleuths. Often rife with allegory, they contain what might have been the Renaissance equivalent of McGuffins. Take “The Arnolfini Portrait” (1434), Jan Van Eyck’s masterpiece. Also known as “The Arnolfini Wedding” or “A Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife,” the painting ostensibly depicts the wedding of a prosperous merchant and his bride, whose hand seems to rest on her pregnant belly. Yet there is so much that is unsettling—even eerie, about this artwork. There’s the solemn mien of Arnolfini, the relative austerity of the room in contrast to the sumptuous fabrics of the couple’s dress, the inscription on the wall, the discarded wooden slippers, the unlit chandelier, and the two men who mysteriously appear in the mirror. Was the painting really a celebration of a marriage, or was it a memorial to Arnolfini’s deceased wife, who may have died in childbirth?
All in the details
And then, there is “Las Meninas” (1656), Diego Velazquez’s intriguing painting of a day in the palace with the Infanta Margarita Teresa, the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain. The painter makes a cameo himself, facing an easel and holding a brush in one hand, a palette of paint in the other. But who was he painting? The infanta, with her ladies-in-waiting, seems to be the focal point of the artwork, as the light coming from the side window falls on her. What about the whole cast of characters in the picture—a dwarf, a nun, a child, a man in the doorway, and another man lost in the shadows, not to mention the king and queen themselves reflected in the mirror?
So was Velazquez really painting the royal couple? It’s an extremely sophisticated composition—set in a room featuring square frames, softened by the full skirts of the women. But are we looking at the painting from the perspective of the king and queen?
There’s a lot to consider, admittedly, and even a lingering examination of the painting whilst at the Prado some years back was not enough time to take in not just the splendor of “Las Meninas,” but also its charm.
The dog in the painting
I was reminded of just how fascinating the painting was when I read “Orbital,” Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize-winning novel about six men and women at the International Space Station. In the compressed gravity-free space, they float about as they orbit the earth. There, we get a glimpse of who each person is, and why they’ve chosen to be thousands of kilometers away from our planet.
One of the men, Shaun, carries a postcard of “Las Meninas”—given to him by his wife years after they’d met at an art class in high school. Their art teacher had called it “a painting inside a painting.” But is the subject art, or life itself? Or “Is it just a painting about nothing? Just a room with some people in it and a mirror?”
Pietro, his colleague at the ISS, finally asks him about the postcard. He stares at it, and simply says that it’s so obvious the painting is about the dog, who sits closest to the foreground with its eyes closed. In that moment, Shaun begins to understand the painting in a different light—as a portrait of a dog—thinking that, amidst everyone in their finery, the animal was “the only thing in the painting that isn’t slightly laughable or trapped within a matrix of vanities.”
I laughed out loud when I read this part. And who’s to say Shaun—or Pietro—is wrong?
