Still Life, Fish 1912

William Merritt Chase made this painting of fish with oil on canvas, but when? Well, that’s a mystery. The funny thing about painting is that you never know when something is finished, or even started for that matter. Look at how Chase uses these buttery strokes of browns, greys, and whites, all on top of this velvety black ground. When I see this, I immediately think of Velázquez, and you can see a similar interest in the materiality of paint, of making these brushstrokes stand out so that you know that you are looking at a painting, and not a photograph. There’s a mark right at the top of the pale fish, where you can see a dash of bright red. It's kind of violent, but also a reminder of the real. Look at the way that the light catches the scales of the fish, and the suggestion of the fish’s glassy eye. I find this painting so refreshing. I am glad that it embraces ambiguity and multiple interpretations over any fixed meaning.