Kunstnerens familie 1912

Paul Fischer made this portrait of his family with oil on canvas, sometime around 1912. It’s got all the hallmarks of domestic realism, but the wall of portraits behind the sitters is what grabs me. I can imagine him in his studio, staring at these faces, layering brushstroke upon brushstroke, trying to capture not just their likeness, but something deeper—their essence, their history. There’s a lot of brown here: the furniture, the walls, the clothing, but look closer and you'll see how the light catches the gold frames of those portraits. Maybe Paul was thinking about family legacy when he made this, about his place in a continuum of artists. I think of someone like Alice Neel, who also painted portraits of her family with so much love and insight. Artists, we're always in conversation with each other, riffing on the same themes, trying to make sense of this crazy, beautiful world.