William Harnett

William Michael Harnett was an American painter known for his trompe-l'œil still lifes of ordinary objects.

Work
The style of trompe-l'œil painting that Harnett developed was distinctive and inspired many imitators, but it was not without precedent. A number of 17th-century Dutch painters, Pieter Claesz for instance, had specialized in tabletop still life of astonishing verisimilitude. Raphaelle Peale, working in Philadelphia in the early 19th century, pioneered the form in America. What sets Harnett's work apart, besides his enormous skill, is his interest in depicting objects not usually made the subject of a painting. Harnett painted musical instruments, hanging game, and tankards, but also painted the unconventional Golden Horseshoe (1886), a single rusted horseshoe shown nailed to a board. He painted a casual jumble of second-hand books set on top of a crate, Job Lot, Cheap (1878), as well as firearms and paper currency.

Although his works sold well to a clientele of merchants and industrialists, and were on display in many business offices, department stores, and taverns, they did not conform to contemporary notions of high art. On the rare occasions when they were included in exhibitions in museums or at the National Academy of Design they were criticized as mere novelties.

Harnett spent the years 1880-1886 in Europe, staying in Munich from 1881 until early 1885. Harnett's best-known paintings, the four versions of After The Hunt, were painted between 1883 and 1885. Each is an imposing composition of hunting equipment and dead game, hanging on a door with ornate hinges at the right and keyhole plate at the left. These paintings, like the horseshoe or currency depictions mentioned earlier, are especially effective as trompe-l'œil because the objects occupy a shallow space, meaning that the illusion is not spoiled by parallax shift if the viewer moves.

Overall, Harnett's work is most comparable to that of the slightly younger John F. Peto. The two artists knew each other, and a comparison can be made between two paintings featuring violins. Harnett's Music and Good Luck from 1888 shows the violin hanging upright on a door with ornate hinges and with a slightly torn piece of sheet music behind it. The elements are arranged in a stable, deliberate manner. Peto's 1890 painting shows the violin hanging askew, as well as chipped and worn, with one string broken. The sheet music is dog-eared and torn around the edges, and placed haphazardly behind the instrument. The hinges are less ornate, and one is broken. Harnett's objects show signs of use but are well preserved, while Peto's more humble objects are nearly used up.

When the catalogs of Harnett and Peto were posthumously analyzed, it was determined that "many of [Peto's] canvases received forged signatures of William Harnett."

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2025