Art Throb #23: The Goldfinch (1654) by Carel Fabritius (1622-1654)

Carel Fabritius (1622-1654), The Goldfinch (1654)
Oil on panel, 33.5 cm × 22.8 cm (13.2 in × 9.0 in)
Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands

It's funny how one of the world's greatest paintings can go unnoticed for centuries. As Sean Penn says in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, "Beautiful things don't ask for attention." Attention was brought to this painting, created by Dutch master Carel Fabritius in 1564, only relatively recently, by Donna Tartt's novel of the same name.

The story of a young boy who survives a terrorist bomb attack in an art gallery and rescues this painting – his mother's favourite – from the debris, The Goldfinch's popularity is down to the story-telling skills of its author, and also to its subject matter. The painting's existence in real life (it is safely exhibited in one of the world's finest art museums) not only serves as a hint as to the novel's final outcome, but also gives the writer an opportunity to craft some great prose:

"The painting, the magic and aliveness of it, was like that odd airy moment of the snow falling... where you no longer cared about the game, who won or lost, but just wanted to drink in that speechless, windswept moment. When I looked at the painting I felt the same convergence on a single point: a flickering sun-struck instant that existed now and forever. Only occasionally did I notice the chain on the finch's ankle, or think what cruel life for the living creature – fluttering briefly, forced always to land in the same hopeless space."

Read the book and you'll want to see the painting, and probably vice versa.

I haven't had the privilege of seeing Fabritius' masterpiece in the flesh – yet. Looking at a reproduction, it seems to me that there's something unassuming about it. On the surface it is almost humble, an apparently simple painting with a subdued colour scheme and of a still fairly common garden bird that has been enjoying increased sightings in recent years (according to the BBC, roaming flocks of 100 goldfinches are not unusual, and must be a wonderful sight).

Yet the painting's surface simplicity belies its virtuosity. Highly representative – a trompe-l'œil – its use of light and shade, foreshortening, perspective and three-dimensionality is impressive. Fabritus depicted the chain with detailed precision. This is offset by large feathery brushstrokes, which are almost impressionistic, elsewhere. There is tension between a surface calm and an apparent urge towards movement. The chain is unsettling. This painting is a masterpiece, not just in technical artistry, but also in mood. The bird has an inner life that may be perceived. It is painted with great tenderness, and presented as a sentient being – with feelings.

The painting is not just a literal representation of a goldfinch, however. The motif was popular in religious paintings of the Renaissance: "In his scholarly study, the distinguished ornithologist Ernest Friedmann (1946) traced no fewer than 486 devotional pictures containing the goldfinch, attributed to 254 artists, 214 of them Italian." Often seen being held by the Christ child, they were symbolic of the soul, resurrection, sacrifice and death. Thistle seeds, which goldfinches are partial to, were also associated with Christ's crown of thorns.

To modern eyes, this painting may also be viewed as a metaphor for the human spirit, which here is trapped and longing for something more. While other artists depicted the bird as a detail within a scene, here Fabritius gives it a spotlight all of its own. It is a portrait worthy of any human, and reminds me of one of my earlier Art Throbs, Giovanni Bellini's Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan, and is just as luminous and glittering. "The muted colours bloomed with life," writes Donna Tartt. "[A]nd even though the surface of the painting was ghosted ever so slightly with dust, the atmosphere it breathed was like the light-rinsed airiness of a wall opposite an open window..."

"Light-rinsed": I gasped when I read that. The painting's beauty is offset by sadness, and I am reminded that animal captivity is nothing new. Perhaps Fabritius' goldfinch may be read too as a comment on how animals are at the mercy of humans (who knows? Perhaps it was also Fabritius' intention at the time). This wild bird is not free, and its natural instincts are repressed. How does it sleep? What about nesting? The dignity of animals even in captivity is easily discerned.

A pupil of Rembrandt, working in his studio in Amsterdam, Fabritius was only 32 when killed in the 1654 Delft gunpowder explosion, which destroyed a quarter of the city, including Fabritius' studio and many of his paintings. Only about a dozen of his paintings have survived. That The Goldfinch, one of three Fabritius painted that year, is among the small number to have survived their creator is consolation for those other treasures lost to humanity. As has been noted, his legacy remains not only in the paintings he left behind but also in the work of his pupil, Johannes Vermeer, who further developed the skill of painting shadows.

One of the most exquisite, haunting paintings I've ever seen, The Goldfinch is a reminder that profound subject matter and moving storytelling opportunities are available in the smallest, apparently innocuous opportunities. It is possibly the greatest of all paintings, in my opinion, and may easily be ranked alongside all those others we recognise as great today.

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