While at first glance many of these genre paintings depict an average market scene, in actuality they hide layers of subtext and lessons for its viewers. In many respects, the marketplace in 16th century Antwerp held much more than a modern viewer might think. It was a place of both sexuality and commerce, surprisingly, with many of these emerging genre paintings depicting as such with their various iconographies that the 16th century viewer would often recognize as partially sexual allusions. These works represent the outworking of these tensions and teach to the viewer moral Christian lessons through both the direct reference to Christ’s journey in many earlier paintings, such as those by Aertsen, but also indirectly through their iconography and depictions of what not to do. In an emerging depiction of the marketplace, influenced by rediscovered books that influenced polity surrounding the marketplace, such as Cicero’s De officiis, these paintings, while not necessarily depicting the real market in Antwerp with its many guilds, served to help viewers in steering them away from “dishonorable” professions, such as the retail dealers of fishmonger, butcher, cook, poulterer, and fisherman, which were presumed to cater to sensual pleasures. With the moralizing subtext presented in many of these paintings working through the ethical issues presented in the marketplace with its confluence of the erotic and economical, it can be useful to examine these paintings and see the ways that Aertsen, Beuckelaer, and his followers have worked through iconography both explicit through scenes from Christ’s life and implicitly to depict some of these dynamics and direct their viewers back to morality in the face of the dangers presented by the market.
In this work by Aertsen, an abundance of food is depicted in clarity and detail, describing a wealth of meat available for purchase. While devouring with one’s eyes the succulent display emphasized by Aertsen through the relative brightness of the foodstuff, one may overlook and fail to notice the scene from the life of Christ, or ecce homo, going on in the background with Mary stopping as they flee from Herod into Egypt to give alms to the poor. They are dressed in the clothing of the time and contrast greatly with this scene of abundance. Although this may seem confusing at first glance, this scene in the background of the composition serves to direct the viewer towards what they should be thinking, with the ideal of charity and giving exhibited by the holy family contrasting with the ideals of gluttony presented by the meat.
In this scene that Aertsen creates, many people are sitting and selling their wares. Of particular note, multiple women selling goods, such as the lady in the pink and blue dress on the left and the lady with the black jacket and orange dress on the right, look out at the viewer in a look understood by multiple scholars as desirous, similar to the way that female sellers in many trades at the time had reputations of unruliness and were looked on in suspicion, feared to be appealing to men at the market on the basis of their appearance to sell their goods. Between these women in the background lies another ecce homo scene from the life of Christ, with Christ and the adulteress, warning the viewer against the sensual dangers of the world that these women seem to be implying.
Beuckelaer’s painting from the same time as Aertsen’s, his mentor, also serves to warn against the passions of the flesh. Some of the most obvious visual puns here are the two-pouched purse, which can at times be used by Beuckelaer in his paintings as a signifier for the male genitals, and the birds, which can also imply erotic acts. Here, as often shown in the ideas of the marketplace of the time in Antwerp, are the sexual and economic forces that drive the market. Beuckelaer works too, then, to warn the viewer against these dangers through his depictions of the marketplace.
In this work by Beauckelaer, the fishmonger looks over at the woman in red in a way that could be understood as improper and propositioning. She covers her pot in turn, which could be understood as a rejection of his advances as an open pot was seen as an allusion to the sexual. The viewer is intended to see this moral behavior and emulate it. An additional allusion here could also be seen to be the large slices of fish, or fish steaks as they are often called. Many scholars saw these fish steaks in some scenes as an allusion to the female sexual organ. As such, the woman in the background’s interest in the wares of the fishmonger can be seen as both economic and possibly sexual, reflecting the market’s double sided nature and further serving to warn viewers.
Follower of Joachim Beuckelaer
around 1595
Oil on panel
Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht
This painting, one of multiple versions made by followers after Beuckelaer’s death between 1570-74, takes some of the iconographies used by Beuckelaer to their extreme, especially with the sliced cut of fish that the fishmonger is holding through the middle by his middle finger while leering at the viewer, with its much more erotic allusion to the female genitalia in a very unsubtle attempt at humor. Much like Beuckelaer’s 1568 Fish Market, a young woman looks on, curious about the merchant’s offerings, becoming associated with this erotic steak of fish. This painting is much more overt in its allusions, but it continues to convey this message of uncouth behavior below the surface of the fish market in a warning to its viewers.
References
Honig, Elizabeth Alice, Painting & the Market in Early Modern Antwerp, New Haven, 1998.
Irmscher, Günter, "Ministrae voluptatum: Stoicizing Ethics in the Market and Kitchen Scenes of Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer," Simiolus 16, 219-232.
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