Jordan Beaulieu – Descriptive Analysis

Fig. 1. Mary Pratt, Salmon between Two Sinks, 1987, oil on board. http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=77771&title=Salmon +between+Two+ Sinks&artist=Pratt%2C+Mary&link_id=583.

Life and Light, or the Balance of the Spiritual and the Material: A Close Analysis of Salmon between Two Sinks by Mary Pratt

Jordan Beaulieu

Atlantic Canadian painter Mary Pratt (b. 1935) has been living and working in Newfoundland since 1963. She is most well known for her paintings of subject matter based on her surroundings at home in St. Catherine’s on the Salmonier River, particularly still lifes depicting intimate details of domestic living. Pratt is inspired by moments of exceptional beauty appearing in the movements of everyday life, and her fascination with light and surface texture is demonstrated by the richness and luminosity of her photorealistic renderings. She seeks the sacred embedded within the routine tasks of daily life, and manifests this sense of divinity through her meticulous study and reproduction of light interacting with material things.

Pratt’s work Salmon between Two Sinks (1987) (fig. 1) exemplifies her ability to convey divine implication through the depiction of domestic objects. The oil painting depicts a gutted salmon suspended between two halves of a kitchen sink. Sun shines through window blinds and falls across the body of the fish and the shiny stainless steel on which it rests, decorating the surfaces with patterned bands of light. The scales of the fish sparkle; its red belly glistens where it has been sliced and cleaned. The fish appears alive with movement and energy, as if stilled by a camera, caught in a moment as it swims from one sink to the next. It hovers between the two basins; its head breaches the space of one while its tail hangs down into the other. It shines, bursting with vitality as it transcends the barrier between realms of light and shadow, alluding to life cycles and the balance of life and death.

Pratt has primarily worked from home throughout her career, painting common objects that saturate the domestic and the everyday. She began using a camera early in her career not only to preserve the fleeting moments of her fascination with luminous light, but also to collect references for paintings throughout the day while simultaneously doing the work of housekeeping and childcare. Using a projector to model her paintings from her own 35mm film slides, she carefully reproduces colours and shapes exactly as they appear to create photorealistic paintings that faithfully represent the initial moments that catch her attention.1 Pratt describes her process of reproduction as an exercise in completely objective viewing, in which she loses her awareness of the object she is painting and focuses only on the formal qualities that comprise its two-dimensional appearance.2

As a major part of Pratt’s daily work was the preparation of meals for her family, food takes on a central role in her painting. Her work is strongly influenced by Christian symbolism and

storytelling because of her upbringing in New Brunswick within the United Church.3 She often depicts symbolically charged foods, such as apples, pomegranates, eggs, bread and especially fish. As curator and art critic Robin Laurence points out in her article “Mary Pratt’s Radiant

Way,” fish are important markers of the cultural and economic identity of Newfoundland, to which fishing industries are vital. In conversation with Laurence about the environmental degradation in her home province, Pratt describes fish as “the beginnings of life.”4

The fish is also a significant symbol within early Christian imagery and storytelling, appearing frequently in the New Testament to represent abundance, fertility and resurrection.5 Writing about the material foundations of religious life, S. Brent Plate argues that religious meaning is produced through lived experience, that is, interactions interpreted through the senses between the body and human-made objects, such as food.6 Similar use of symbology may be observed in

Silver Fish on Crimson Foil (1987) (fig. 2). The painting depicts a still life of a silver scaled fish, stained with blood, lying on a bed of saran and crimson aluminum foil.

Fig. 2. Mary Pratt, Silver Fish on Crimson Foil, 1987, oil on board, 47 x 70 cm. http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=77770&title=Silver+ Fish+on+Crimson+Foil&artist=Pratt%2C+Mary&link_id=583.

Discussing the recurring themes of death and decay in Pratt’s work, Newfoundland-based writer

Lisa Moore points out the sacrificial element of Pratt’s food paintings. She describes Pratt’s use of deep red as “reminiscent of sacrificial blood, or menstruation.” Describing the still life Grilse on Glass (1980), a similar piece to Silver Fish on Crimson Foil, she further argues, “The blood in the raised pattern of the glass fish scales is an accidental reminder of the relative violence of fishing, the work that has gone into the preparation of the meal, and the effort of sustaining the order and cohesion of romantic love, marriage, family and community.”7 Metaphors of sacrifice and communion may be found throughout Pratt’s body of work. Speaking with art critic Sarah

Milroy, Pratt states, “There is no celebration without a sacrifice. You can’t have something without giving up something else.”8 Her work represents this philosophy through its portrayal of subjects that allude to cycles of life and death, giving and taking away.

The weight of this symbolism is emphasized when compared to an image such as Dutch painter

Johannes Vermeer’s (1632–75) The Milkmaid (ca. 1660) (fig. 3). Vermeer’s painting depicts a woman alone in a kitchen, serenely preparing food, washed in the soft light entering from the window above her. Vermeer’s domestic interiors emphasize what art historian Norman Bryson describes as “absolute domestic order,” and “the internal harmony of the household.”9 Pratt’s painting demonstrates affinities with Vermeer’s work; for example, the sensitive treatment of light by both artists reveals a shared interest in surface quality and the metaphorical significance of illumination within an image. Pratt’s paintings are also similarly devoted to depicting aspects of domestic life, but the sacrificial significance of her work disrupts the bucolic and harmonious tone which might otherwise envelop her images of the home.

Fig. 3. Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, 45.5 x 41 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-2344.

Furthermore, in The Milkmaid, the foot warmer resting on the floor in the bottom right-hand corner alludes to sexual arousal because of its ability to heat the lower limbs. Subtle narrative symbolism is also found in the tiles lining the bottom of the wall which depict a travelling man

(or perhaps a wayward lover) and Cupid.10 These allusions to romance suggest that the pious and virtuous behaviour that the milkmaid is demonstrating in her everyday life is essential in realizing a fulfilling marriage and love life.11 Pratt’s work also places religious and moral meanings within scenes of the home; however, she paints from the point of view of the housewife rather than from the perspective of the male voyeur looking into the domestic space.12

The vanitas still lifes of seventeenth-century Northern Europe offer another relevant comparison to the underlying meaning of Pratt’s work. Vanitas, a Latin term meaning “emptiness,” is a form of memento mori—an image that seeks to remind the viewer of the inevitability of death and the

importance of living a moral life in order to earn a favourable afterlife.13 Fillmore argues that

Pratt invokes the vanitas still life tradition and its commentary on the nature of mortality and morality by “imbuing her subjects with a heightened presence and over-whelming sensuality,” which tempts the viewer with the “richness of the world.”14 This is exemplified by the glittering scales and gleaming metals in Salmon between Two Sinks, which are reminiscent of the expensive and exotic foods and objects that appear in vanitas still lifes.

Dutch painter Pieter Aertsen’s (1508–75) Christ with Mary and Martha (fig. 4) from 1552 is a vanitas image illustrating the story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38–42 in the New Testament.

Fig. 4. Pieter Aertsen, Christ with Mary and Martha, 1552, oil on wood, 60 x 101.5 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Aertsen_- _Christ_with_Mary_and_Martha_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.

In the foreground we see decadent foods prepared for a meal set beside a bouquet of exotic flowers and finely ornamented serving vessels. In the lower left background, a doorway, window, mirror, or perhaps a painting reveals Mary and Martha in a room with Christ. Mary is

being blessed by Christ for listening diligently to him lecture, while Martha has been occupied with cooking and cleaning to welcome him into their home. Martha’s association with the domestic reveals the error in her priorities; the worldly products of Martha’s domestic sphere appear sordid and trifling in comparison to the message that Christ transfers to Mary in the scene behind.

Whereas Aertsen uses the vanitas still life to condemn the domestic and everyday in order to make a commentary about the superior importance of enlightened thought, Pratt’s work speaks to the fleetingness of life while valourizing the stuff of the everyday. Whereas Aertsen elevates the transcendent above the immanent, Pratt uses the immanent to reveal the transcendent. Art historian Catharine Mastin praises Pratt for what she calls her ability to “find something where most would find nothing.”15 Bryson argues that the seemingly mundane subject matter of still lifes in fact possesses “enormous force,” as everyday objects act as cornerstones of human existence that resonate with understanding.16 Pratt’s painting reveals a sacred force within the domestic sphere by presenting the material things in her everyday life as symbols of the divine, grounding her references to the grand narratives of Christianity in the day-to-day operations of her life in Newfoundland. Salmon between Two Sinks illustrates her balance of this threshold.

Through her depiction of instances of rich and radiant light manifested by the mundane and the material, Pratt creates a bridge between the earthly and the divine. Pratt's work succeeds in referring to religious symbolisms and narratives while remaining strongly identified with her own personal narrative and material reality as a woman living in Newfoundland during the late twentieth century.

NOTES

1 Sarah Fillmore, “Vanitas,” in Mary Pratt, ed. Denis Longchamps and Meg Taylor (St. John’s: The Rooms Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador, 2013), 48–49. 2 Michael Enright, The Enright Files: Conversations about Canadian Artists, podcast audio, September 6, 2016, accessed November 8, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-enright-files- conversations-about-canadian-artists-1.3749532. 3 Robin Laurence, “Mary Pratt’s Radiant Way,” Canadian Art, June 1, 1994, accessed November 2, 2016, http://canadianart.ca/features/mary-pratt-the-radiant-way. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 S. Brent Plate, introduction to Key Terms in Material Religion, ed. S. Brent Plate (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005), 4–5. 7 Lisa Moore, “Mary Pratt: A Labour of Love,” Canadian Art, January 20, 2014, accessed November 3, 2016, https://canadianart.ca/features/mary-pratt-a-labour-of-love. 8 Sarah Milroy, “A Woman’s Life,” in Mary Pratt, ed. Denis Longchamps and Meg Taylor (St. John’s: The Rooms Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador, 2013), 80. 9 Norman Bryson, Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting (London: Reaktion Books, 1990), 111. 10 Jonathan Lopez, “Talking Pictures: Maid in Manhattan,” Art & Antiques Magazine, October 2009, accessed November 24, 2016, http://www.artandantiquesmag.com/2009/10/talking- pictures-maid-in-manhattan. 11 Norbert Schneider, Vermeer, 1632–1675: Veiled Emotions (Köln: Taschen, 2004), 61. 12 Lopez. 13 Fillmore, 53. 14 Ibid., 49. 15 Catharine Mastin, “Base, Place, Location and the Early Paintings,” in Mary Pratt, ed. Denis Longchamps and Meg Taylor (St. John’s: The Rooms Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador, 2013), 99. 16 Bryson, 138.

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