Apples, Bread and Beer 1940

Curator: So, here we have Louisa Matthiasdottir’s “Apples, Bread and Beer,” a still life from 1940. The composition centers around those items sitting on a checkered cloth. What strikes you first about it? Editor: Definitely the material reality! The checked cloth is almost oppressive in its regularized labor of production— offset against a handcrafted, slightly home-brewed look to the beer, and a sense of ordinary consumption. Curator: I see it more as comfort— simple pleasures rendered in this wonderful muted palette. It feels intimate, like a scene witnessed in a friend’s kitchen. There is such softness in the application of pastel! Editor: Soft, sure, but think about it. Pastel isn't precious, its humble. The Czech cloth itself evokes not high class craftsmanship, but repetition and mass access, which feels so aligned to what this scene shows of humble everyday life, of ordinary work. The drawing and the object together speak a language. Curator: Language? That’s strong, but interesting. But consider how lovingly she’s rendered the light glinting on the beer glass! It makes me think of long, lazy afternoons. Editor: I'm more intrigued by how deliberately unremarkable the elements are: no elaborate display here, only the essentials for sustenance. Bread isn’t carefully shaped and decorated—it’s just there. It also brings the production involved with wheat, to the beer and cloth itself. What work went into them? Curator: Perhaps! But look how the red of the apple echoes subtly the dark beer in the bottle. There is artistry, I think, even poetry, in such humble objects. Editor: True, these humble items echo the materiality and production. Curator: It’s amazing how a few simple things can be full of such a simple atmosphere, that reminds us that art and everyday life often become unified in vision!