After Chardin

After Chardin

, 1993

Bronze, edition of VI
27 × 33 × 33 cm

Inspired by the still-life paintings of Jean-Siméon Chardin in the Louvre, After Chardin transforms the painted tabletop into a three-dimensional sculptural arrangement. Bread, cured ham, a bottle, drinking vessel and knife are brought together on a patterned circular table, retaining the intimacy of Chardin’s domestic still lifes while giving the objects an independent physical presence.

Writing about the sculpture in 1994, David Matthews noted the work’s “disquieting realism”, particularly the knife poised between the bread and the plate of ham, whose implied downward movement disturbs the stillness of the composition.

The patterned tabletop introduces a more personal history. Its geometric design derives from a traditional pattern associated with Fuller’s family, originally rendered in red, black and white. The sculpture consequently brings two forms of inheritance together: the European tradition of still-life painting and Fuller’s own family memory.

References

David Matthews, catalogue essay, Coventry Gallery exhibition catalogue, 1994.

Jean-Siméon Chardin, still-life paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.