Snoek Possibly 1796

Curator: Allow me to introduce you to "Snoek," a drawing possibly from 1796, residing here at the Rijksmuseum, rendered in ink, pencil, and wash on paper by Jean Bernard. Editor: Oh, it's so restrained. A rather melancholic fish floating in a sea of nothingness, all gentle greens and grays. Very polite for a predator, don't you think? Curator: Its politeness is precisely its strength! Bernard employs naturalism to create almost a scientific document. Consider the precise delineation of the scales, the fin structure. It adheres to a classical aesthetic of detailed observation. Editor: Documentarian, yes, but where’s the drama? Give me a churning sea, a hook, even a menacing fisherman! Instead, we get… taxonomy. I miss an undercurrent of danger. I'm sure this fish knew something of hunger, of fear! Curator: Indeed, one might read its isolated presentation as symbolic of humanity's detached, categorizing gaze upon the natural world. Its very stillness speaks volumes about imposed order. Editor: Hmmm, fair point, its static nature certainly amplifies a desire for motion, a splash, something to shatter the composition. All those parallel stripes lend a strange stillness to the piece, locking it down, somehow. Curator: Those very stripes could be read as bars, metaphorical constraints imposed upon the animal, eh? Bernard has composed this to more than be simply an image of a fish; it's a meditation of man versus nature. Editor: Still, I wonder… was old Bernard hungry when he drew this? Maybe the flat background represents the emptiness in his stomach! See, sometimes even formal lines and shapes can lead back to the rumblings within. Curator: An…unconventional interpretation, but one worth pondering! Well, it provides, let’s say, food for thought, as we depart. Editor: Just like our snoek friend here…though maybe I’ll order something spicier tonight, myself!