Wildbretverkäuferin 1880 - 1885

Curator: Standing before us, we have Hans Canon's "Wildbretverkäuferin", created sometime between 1880 and 1885, a real hidden gem, isn’t it? Editor: Absolutely! It hits me as sort of... fleshy and raw, in an unexpected way. The colour palette has this earthy richness and I am surprised by the amount of blood... Almost viscerally appealing. What do you think? Curator: Indeed. What you're sensing, I believe, is Canon's romantic realism colliding head-on. Canon wants us to experience the genre – what it was *really* like to be face to face with a woman peddling raw game. He's doing it, I suspect, to probe at the underbelly of accepted beauty, pulling the gaze toward a somewhat grim economic exchange and forcing it all on to the viewer. And if you consider the woman’s own rosy flesh, it creates a deliberate clash with the cut meat, I think. Editor: Oh, you are so right! I love how Canon seems to position the figure and flesh like the dead animal, displaying both as raw items. Also I must confess that initially, the composition read as quite traditional, almost classically posed. It is indeed quite surprising! Curator: He teases you! And you take that bate like fresh wildbret. Look closer at how the light pools and dances; a baroque treatment applied to quite un-baroque subject matter. A kind of radical approach to beauty? The rough brushstrokes feel so modern, yet he's referencing compositions of old masters... This makes for the tension. It suggests that even beauty may come at a bloody cost... even if that cost is merely being bought or sold under an idealized gaze. Editor: You’ve illuminated much about it and it will definitely guide the audience. I must add, however, this might be an unexpectedly profound commentary disguised as a casual market scene, one to definitely savour again and again. Curator: Right? Well, after this discussion, I will not approach any butcher shop in the same way again. Thanks for that!