Still Life with Ham 1889

Meijer de Haan likely painted this still life with oil on canvas in France sometime in the late 1880s. The ham, onions, and glass of dark liquid, perhaps wine, embody the simple life. We can assume this was painted during De Haan’s time with Gauguin in Brittany. This was a period in which a new generation of artists embraced ordinary life, even as the institutional gatekeepers of the Parisian art world favored historical and mythological subjects. De Haan’s painting is a clear statement of artistic values. It challenges academic painting through its subject matter and its rough style. It presents the everyday as worthy of aesthetic contemplation. As art historians, we would want to know more about the politics of food in France at this time, perhaps researching cookbooks, local markets, and agricultural trends. We need to remember that all art reflects not only the artist’s ideas, but also the tastes and cultural norms of a specific place and time.