The Fat Kitchen. An Allegory Pieter Aertsen 1565-1575

The Fat Kitchen. An Allegory
Pieter Aertsen 1565-1575
From the collection of
Statens Museum for Kunst
The table is groaning under its load of meat, fish, bread, and fresh vegetables. To the right, behind the table, a peasant stands by his family, regarding us with an eloquent look. He pointedly turns his back to what goes on in the left half of the picture where we get a glimpse of a room with two couples, one young and the other old, gathered around the fireplace.

The young man is in high spirits, raising his jug of ale as he puts his arm around the girl. The old couple stare into space with a melancholy air, making them the key to understanding the picture: it is a warning against "voluptas carnis", i.e. a life in the throes of the senses, leading to gluttony, drunkenness, and moral looseness.

The still life genre

The still life genre was created by Pieter Aertsen in an Antwerp that was the leading commercial centre in Europe at the time. To Aertsen, the arrangements of food - the symbolism of which was explained in the figure scenes in the background - were a necessary alternative to religious painting. During the early years of his career he created a number of altarpieces that he, to his great wrath and sorrow, saw destroyed during the iconoclastic riots of the Reformation.
Details
Title: The Fat Kitchen. An Allegory
Creator: Pieter Aertsen
Date Created: 1565-1575
Værktekst: Bordet bugner af kød, fisk, brød og friske grønsager. I højre side bag bordet står en bonde med sin familie og ser ud på os med et talende blik. Han vender demonstrativt ryggen til det, der foregår i venstre billedhalvdel, hvor man får et kig ind i et rum, med et ungt og et gammelt par samlet omkring ildstedet. Den unge mand, der er i højt humør, svinger ølkanden, mens han lægger armen om pigen. Det gamle par ser melankolsk frem for sig, hvorved de bliver nøglen til billedet: en advarsel mod "voluptas carnis", det vil sige et liv i sansernes vold med grådighed, drikfældighed og løsagtighed til følge. Stillebenmaleriet som genre Stillebenmaleriet som genre skabtes med Pieter Aertsens pensel i et Antwerpen, der var Europas førende handelscenter. For Aertsen var opstillingerne af mad, hvis symbolik blev forklaret og understreget i baggrundenes figurscener, et nødvendigt alternativ til det religiøse maleri. I sine unge år havde han skabt en række altertavler, som han til sin store vrede og sorg måtte se blive tilintetgjort under reformationstidens billedstorme.
Teknik: Olie på træ
Proveniens: Erhvervet 1756
Provenance: Acquired 1756
Physical Dimensions: w213 x h110.5 cm (Without frame)
Dansk link: http://www.smk.dk/index.php?id=2696
Dansk Titel: Det fede køkken. En allegori. ("Voluptas Carnis")
Type: Painting
Rights: Statens Museum for Kunst, http://www.smk.dk/en/copyright/creative-commons/
Medium: Oil on panel

Statens Museum for Kunst
København, Denmark

The collections at the National Gallery of Denmark comprise three main collections: The Royal Collection of Painting and Sculpture, The Royal Collection of Graphic Art, and The Royal Collection of Plaster Casts. As the names suggest, these collections have their roots in the art collections of Danish monarchs; they are believed to date back to King Christian II and the mid-16th century.

The Collection of Sculpture and Painting comprises approximately 10,500 paintings and sculptures, while the Collection of Graphic Art houses more than 245,000 works of art on paper. In addition to this, approximately 2,500 plaster casts are housed at the Royal Cast Collection.

New works are added to the collections every year. Generous donations and acquisitions have shaped the profile of the collections in recent years, but the starting point remains the collections built by Danish monarchs.

Pieter Aertsen
1508 - 1575

Pieter Aertsen, called Lange Pier because of his height, was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism, who invented the monumental genre scene combining still life and genre painting, and very often also including a biblical scene in the background. He was born and died in Amsterdam, in his lifetime a relatively minor city, and painted there but mainly in Antwerp, then the centre of artistic life in the Netherlands. His genre scenes were influential on later Flemish Baroque painting, and also in Italy, and his peasant scenes preceded by a few years the much better-known paintings produced in Antwerp by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
http://hisour.com/art-medium/paintings/the-fat-kitchen-an-allegory-pieter-aertsen-1565-1575/