1851-1892 Harnett was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland during the time of the potato famine. Shortly after his birth his family emigrated to America, settling in Philadelphia. Becoming a United States citizen in 1868, he made a living as a young man by engraving designs on table silver, while also taking night classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later, in New York, at Cooper Union and at the National Academy of Design. His first known oil painting, a still life, dates from 1874. The style of trompe l'oeil painting that Harnett developed was distinctive and inspired many imitators, but it was not without precedent. A number of 17th century Dutch painters, Pieter Claesz. for instance, had specialized in tabletop still life of astonishing verisimilitude. Raphaelle Peale, working in Philadelphia in the early 19th century, pioneered the form in America. What sets Harnett's work apart, besides his enormous skill, is his interest in depicting objects not usually made the subject of a painting. Harnett painted musical instruments, hanging game, and tankards, but also painted the unconventional Golden Horseshoe (1886), a single rusted horseshoe shown nailed to a board. He painted a casual jumble of second-hand books set on top of a crate, Job Lot, Cheap (1878), as well as firearms and even paper currency. His works sold well, but they were more likely to be found hanging in a tavern or a business office than in a museum, as they did not conform to contemporary notions of high art. Harnett spent the years 1880?C1886 in Europe, staying in Munich from 1881 until early 1885. Harnett's best-known paintings, the four versions of After The Hunt, were painted between 1883 and 1885. Each is an imposing composition of hunting equipment and dead game, hanging on a door with ornate hinges at the right and keyhole plate at the left. These paintings, like the horseshoe or currency depictions mentioned earlier, are especially effective as trompe l'oeil because the objects occupy a shallow space, meaning that the illusion is not spoiled by parallax shift if the viewer moves. Overall, Harnett's work is most comparable to that of the slightly younger John F. Peto. The two artists knew each other, and a comparison can be made between two paintings featuring violins. Harnett's Music and Good Luck from 1888 shows the violin hanging upright on a door with ornate hinges and with a slightly torn piece of sheet music behind it. The elements are arranged in a stable, deliberate manner. Peto's 1890 painting shows the violin hanging askew, as well as chipped and worn, with one string broken. The sheet music is dog-eared and torn around the edges, and placed haphazardly behind the instrument. The hinges are less ornate, and one is broken. Harnett's objects show signs of use but are well preserved, while Peto's more humble objects are nearly used up. Crippling rheumatism plagued Harnett in his last years, reducing the number but not the quality of his paintings. He died in New York City in 1892. Other artists who painted similar compositions in Harnett's wake include his contemporary John Haberle and successors such as Otis Kaye and Jefferson David Chalfant.  Related Paintings of William Michael Harnett :. | Still life with Three Tobacco | Company | Job Lot Cheap | Munich Still Life | Philadelphia Public Ledger |
Related Artists:
henry mayhew
English journalist and sociologist. He studied law but soon turned to journalism. In 1841 he founded the highly successful Punch. A vivid and voluminous writer, he is best known for London Labour and the London Poor (1851 C 62), an evocation of the sights and sounds of the working-class districts of London, which influenced Charles Dickens and other writers. He also wrote plays, farces, fairy tales, and novels, some in collaboration with his brother Augustus Septimus Mayhew
Anthonie van Montfoort
(Montfoort, 1533 or 1534 - Utrecht, 1583) was a Dutch painter His father was a mayor of Montfoort. He went to learn under Hendrick Sweersz. in Delft and Frans Floris in Antwerp. In 1552 he returned to Montfoort, where he married the daughter of the then mayor. Blocklandt then settled in Delft, where he produced paintings for the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk, later lost to the beeldenstorm. Also he painted a work for the Janskerk (Gouda) called De onthoofding van Saint-Jacob, now in the museum there. In 1572, Blocklandt made a trip to Italy, after which he settled for good in Utrecht, joining a guild there in 1577. In 1579, he painted his best known work, the triptych The Assumption of Mary that is now in the Basilica of St. Martin in Bingen am Rhein. According to Carel van Mander, Blocklandt painted biblical scenes, mythological subjects and portraits. He is early-Mannerist in style and he and Joos de Beer (another pupil of Floris) were responsible for the Mannerist style begun by Utrecht artists around 1590. Van Mander wrote that De Beer had many paintings by Blocklandt in his workshop that his pupil Abraham Bloemaert later copied. Few works can definitely be attributed to him. One of these is "Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream", now in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. He was also the teacher of the Delft portrait painter Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt.
Philippe Rousseau
Paris 1816 - Acquigny 1887. French Painter. French Painter. French painter. He may have received his artistic training in the studios of Gros and Jean-Victor Bertin, since he credited them as his masters when he exhibited at the Salon. He began exhibiting in 1834 with a View of Normandy (untraced) and for the next six Salons he exhibited landscapes. In 1844 he began to show still-lifes. In 1845 he was awarded a third-class medal, and in 1847 his still-lifes were admired by Th?ophile Thor?, who was one of the earliest critics to recognize Rousseau's debt to Chardin. This influence became the subject for his 1867 Salon entry, Chardin and his Models (untraced, see McCoubrey, no. 15). The work is far grander and more cluttered in its conception than most still-lifes by Chardin and alludes to the master by faithfully reproducing some of his favourite objects within a traditional table-top format rather than by an analysis of his compositional devices.