So I have another fish-painter story, which I just can’t stop thinking about.
We have a group of fish plates all attached to the same artist. He’s just called ‘The Painter of Chur k55’, after a plate in the Rätisches Museum, in Chur (Switzerland).
The plates we have are of varying quality - some quite crude, some far better, but there’s similarities between them that make it seem like the same painter - ‘probably representing different stages in his career,’ according to McPhee and Trendal (the pair who literally wrote a book on fish plates). They put the plates into three groups. They broke the middle group into two again - one lot that they’re definitely sure are his, and another that they say are ‘either the work of an imitator or, if by the painter himself, are of very inferior quality.’
And you might think ‘well yeah, he probably got better as his career went on, of course some would better than others’. And that’s a totally reasonable explanation. But the thing is, based on certain factors, McPhee and Trendal think it went the other way. That the best ones are the earliest works and that they got worse over time.
‘So maybe the worst ones are the imitator’. Maybe! But the group they think are imitations aren’t actually the worst of the plates. Of the worst plates they say, ‘The plates in this subdivision seem to represent the final phase of the Painter of Chur K55’s work and well illustrate the almost complete breakdown of his drawing.’
There are so many of his plates that we don’t have photos of (fuck looters and private collectors) But here’s at least one or two plates from each of his periods. This is one of earliest works:
McPhee and Trendal note about his style that there’s a fondness for representing fish with a black wavy line across the body, with a row of dots above it and sometimes overpainted in white’. And also point out the very stylised pectoral fins in black that look kinda like a palmette-fan pattern. Both of these features are on the plate above. There’s also a distinct way of painting tails and the two fins at the bottom.
Here’s another from this first period - the actual Chur k55 plate, period. Even this one is still notably not a well-executed as the first:
There’s a bump above eyes that almost look like almost like a dolphin. The palmette-fan pectoral fins. The dots along the snout are the same as the first. There are two other fins along the bottom of the fish and the pectoral fin are all in the same style. But even here you can tell there was a little less attention to detail. The fish are not as well-proportioned - they’re too short but overall too big and the plate looks crowded. Parts of the bottom fins are painted over the pectoral fins. Part of the head of one fish overlaps with the tail of the one in front of it. But it’s obviously the same style - the same painter. The lines just aren’t as neat and they vary in thickness in places.
Here’s the only one they have a photo from for the second group of his work - one that they don’t put in the ‘might be an imitator’ group:
The stripe and the black pectoral fin aren’t there, but there are other elements of his style that remain - you can see the similarities between how the tails are done. The presences of the two fins underneath the fish in that same style, and the white line for the lips is there. I assume there were details on the plates without photos that made them sure of the painter. Note the weird shape of the torpedo fish. And again, everything is just a bit… rougher. the white lines are way too thick in places - they’re even going over the border round of the plate. The lines aren’t quite as straight and are more unevenly painted.
Here are two examples of his last period:
The wavy black line is there, the white lips are there, the dorsal fin and the tail is the same. The bump above the eyebrows is still there. The weird bulge partway down the tail of the torpedo fish has become a series of bulges on a very elongated tail. And everything is just hurried, messy and misshapen.
And here’s the final one:
They’re just scrawled black lines and outlines. But there’s the black, palmette-fan design for the pectoral fin. There’s similarity in the design of the tails and the dorsal fins, and that notable bump above the eyes. The tail of the torpedo fish is long and bumpy.
McPhee and Trendal call this work ‘slovenly’, and ‘almost completely barbarised.’
I don’t really care for the tone of moral-judgement in their assessment because to me it shows a complete disinterest in the actual human who lived, painted these, and died. In what happened in his life for his work to decline like this. It’s not that I think there’s any way we could find that out, or any ‘historical value’ in attempting to do so, but how can you look at these plates and not wonder what happened to him? Was he just being ‘slovenly’? Did he lose all interest in his work? Was his energy gone? Why? Was it his eyesight failing? His hands getting shaky? Was it dementia? Sadness? Distraction?
What happened to the Painter of Chur k55?
