The exceptional results in the last couple of weeks of fine arts in the salesrooms and at the American International Fine Art Fair in Palm Beach put me in mind, not surprisingly, of exceptional paintings at Chappell & McCullar. Perhaps because I’m entering an introspective period in my own life, genre paintings have a particular appeal, and nothing more appealing than Emil Carlsen’s 1884 still life with roses and mandolin. Emigrating from Denmark to the United States in 1872, Carlsen frequently returned to Europe. This work, completed in Paris in 1884 effectively combines a variety of stylistic influences- Dutch still life, European and American academicism, and impressionism- with Carlsen’s own skillful draftsmanship. Personally, I find the inclusion of the mandolin particularly resonant, as it reminds me of the lute that is a prominent though abstruse iconographic feature in one of my own favorite pictures, Holbein’s The Ambassadors. It begs question whether Carlsen attached as much meaning to the elements of his own still life as Holbein presumably did in his pictures. No anamorphically projected memento mori here, glad to say, and really, that kind of consideration rather sidetracks a person from the aesthetic enjoyment of Carlsen’s work. No art historical logic chopping is required, because Carlsen’s still life is, prima facie, an exceptional picture.
