Summary
With New Dutch Herring René Daniëls deployed the formal qualities characteristic of much of his work: a simple, even haphazard, composition, the use of a limited range of bright colours, and an open and sketchy handling of paint. Parts of the acrylic priming on the support are exposed, and the artist’s underdrawing in charcoal is visible in places. This large work, in which crudely-painted fish form a pattern that covers almost the entire canvas, can be seen as marking a mid-point in the artist’s progression from figuration towards the abstraction of his later works.
The small fish in Daniëls’s painting are the Netherlandish delicacy maatjes, the first herring of the season, traditionally eaten with onion or lowered whole into the mouth and swallowed. In spring, the arrival of new herring in the marketplace sparks a bidding war. Daniëls humorously reflects this by depicting his school of fish consuming each other whole. Daniëls explained in an interview in 1983: ‘I happened to be eating some of the new season’s raw herring ... suddenly it occurred to me: imagine that they themselves discover how tasty they are. Then they might all eat each other up and be left with nothing. That is how it all started.’ (Quoted in Duyster, p.28… (read more)
Other works of art you may be interested in
