Lot Essay
The most significant psychological issue related to the
fact that Soutine painted animal carcasses is that his
primary subjects - beef and fowl - represented sustenance.
In the shetl the rituals connected with food were of transcending importance. Irving Howe observed that food "became a link between the holy and profane , the community
and the person, husband and wife, mother and children. Precisely because of its scarcity, it was a means of
expressing love and releasing anger. The happiest
holidays of the year mean special foods; the holiest, a
denial of food." The all-important Jewish dietary
concept of "kosher" depends upon killing the animal
as quickly, cleanly, and painlessly as possible,
immediately removing all excess blood and using the meat
as soon as possible. But Soutine hung the bloody animal
up and investigated it. The power of Soutine's art
rests upon this driving necessity to see the forbidden
thing and to paint it.
Soutine himself elucidated his own deepest longing and
motivations in an extraordinary comment made to his
friend and biographer Emile Szittya: "'Once I saw the village butcher slice the neck of a bird and drain the
blood out of it. I wanted to cry out, but his joyful expression caught the sound in my throat.' Soutine
patted his throat and continued, 'This cry, I always
feel it there. When, as a child, I drew a crude
portrait of my professor, I tried to rid myself of this
cry, but in vain. When I painted it was still this cry
that I wanted to liberate. I have still not succeeded.'"
(M. Tuchman, op.cit., p. 16)
The still life emerges as a dominant theme in Soutine's oeuvre upon his return from Céret where he mostly painted landscapes.
We now come to the great series of still lifes of hulking
carcasses of animals, suspended fowl, and fish. In the
late twenties one scarcely heard mention of Soutine
without some scandalized discourse about the gruesome
circumstances of their production. When he lived in La
Ruche, he had made friends with slaughter house
employees, and practiced painting pieces of meat which he
got from them. About 1922, he painted an admirable
Side of Beef (the present picture) in forthright
realism, with the vivid red of steak, the ivory and pale
gold of suet, and a finely realized hollowness inside the curved ribs.
In 1925, when he had a studio large enough in the Rue du
Mont St. Gothard, he procured the entire carcass of a
steer, and it was this undertaking which grew legendary.
He did at least four similar canvases, three of which
are now in museums: Grenoble, Amsterdam and Buffalo as
well as sketches and smaller canvases; and meantime the
steer decomposed. According to the legend, when the
glorious colors of the flesh were hidden from the
enthralled gaze of the painter by an accumulation of
flies, he paid a wretched little model to sit beside it
and fan them away. He got from the butcher a pail of
blood, so that when a portion of the beef dried out, he
could freshen its color. Other dwellers in the Rue du
Mont St. Gothard complained of the odor of the rotting
flesh, and when the police arrived Soutine harangued
them on how much more important art was than sanitation
or olfactory agreeableness. (exh. cat., Soutine, 1950, op. cit., p. 68)
fact that Soutine painted animal carcasses is that his
primary subjects - beef and fowl - represented sustenance.
In the shetl the rituals connected with food were of transcending importance. Irving Howe observed that food "became a link between the holy and profane , the community
and the person, husband and wife, mother and children. Precisely because of its scarcity, it was a means of
expressing love and releasing anger. The happiest
holidays of the year mean special foods; the holiest, a
denial of food." The all-important Jewish dietary
concept of "kosher" depends upon killing the animal
as quickly, cleanly, and painlessly as possible,
immediately removing all excess blood and using the meat
as soon as possible. But Soutine hung the bloody animal
up and investigated it. The power of Soutine's art
rests upon this driving necessity to see the forbidden
thing and to paint it.
Soutine himself elucidated his own deepest longing and
motivations in an extraordinary comment made to his
friend and biographer Emile Szittya: "'Once I saw the village butcher slice the neck of a bird and drain the
blood out of it. I wanted to cry out, but his joyful expression caught the sound in my throat.' Soutine
patted his throat and continued, 'This cry, I always
feel it there. When, as a child, I drew a crude
portrait of my professor, I tried to rid myself of this
cry, but in vain. When I painted it was still this cry
that I wanted to liberate. I have still not succeeded.'"
(M. Tuchman, op.cit., p. 16)
The still life emerges as a dominant theme in Soutine's oeuvre upon his return from Céret where he mostly painted landscapes.
We now come to the great series of still lifes of hulking
carcasses of animals, suspended fowl, and fish. In the
late twenties one scarcely heard mention of Soutine
without some scandalized discourse about the gruesome
circumstances of their production. When he lived in La
Ruche, he had made friends with slaughter house
employees, and practiced painting pieces of meat which he
got from them. About 1922, he painted an admirable
Side of Beef (the present picture) in forthright
realism, with the vivid red of steak, the ivory and pale
gold of suet, and a finely realized hollowness inside the curved ribs.
In 1925, when he had a studio large enough in the Rue du
Mont St. Gothard, he procured the entire carcass of a
steer, and it was this undertaking which grew legendary.
He did at least four similar canvases, three of which
are now in museums: Grenoble, Amsterdam and Buffalo as
well as sketches and smaller canvases; and meantime the
steer decomposed. According to the legend, when the
glorious colors of the flesh were hidden from the
enthralled gaze of the painter by an accumulation of
flies, he paid a wretched little model to sit beside it
and fan them away. He got from the butcher a pail of
blood, so that when a portion of the beef dried out, he
could freshen its color. Other dwellers in the Rue du
Mont St. Gothard complained of the odor of the rotting
flesh, and when the police arrived Soutine harangued
them on how much more important art was than sanitation
or olfactory agreeableness. (exh. cat., Soutine, 1950, op. cit., p. 68)