How does A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms elucidate its Painting?
The artwork of A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms consists of a large painting on panel in oil, depicting a profusion of foodstuffs in a highly realistic style, while the narrative is hidden in the background, seen through the stall windows and openings. Aertsen's paintings were often made in an "inverted still life" style in which the still-life aspects were in the foreground and the narrative aspects in the background. The viewer's senses are distracted by the rich display of various foods – plates in the foreground, meats, ham, lard, smoked fish, pigs' legs and head, bread, butter, milk, cheese and hanging pretzels (in the left corner) – that has been spread out in front of the viewer, and the figure subject is overwhelmed by the still-life composition. The various meats, including sausages, beef, fish, fowl and pork, are arranged on wooden tables, using baskets, pots and plates. A barrel and some wickerwork chairs serve as containers for the food items as well.
Almost unnoticed at first are glimpses through the stall windows of an imaginary landscape with a road. Through the smaller window in the middle is a second landscape with a distant view. These small landscapes are hiding a religious narrative: they depict the Holy Family distributing alms on their journey to Egypt to escape from Herod's harassment. The other people depicted on the road are walking in the direction of the church. Both those people and the Holy family are dressed in contemporary Netherlandish clothing. On the right side, behind a figure drawing water from the well, there is a tavern with genre figures depicting a merry company eating oysters and mussels. In front of the tavern hangs a carcass that is very similar to Rembrandt's painting of a slaughtered ox.The ground around the inn is covered with oyster shells, which allude to lust. In the tavern there is a scene showing the biblical theme of the prodigal son, and the woman depicted in the tavern may be a prostitute with her customers. The painting is rich with symbolic representation: it conveys hidden messages. The fish, displayed crossed on a pewter plate, are a reference to Lent, when the faithful abstained from eating meat. The contrast between the charity of the poor fugitives giving alms and the richness and abundance of the food conveys a certain religious symbolism and hidden meaning, linking to the idea of "food for the body" with the idea of "food for the soul", the spiritual "bread of life", appealing to the viewers to turn their attention away from the things of this world. The entire Holy Family is depicted in this part of the painting. Mary, holding the Christ child and riding a donkey, led by Joseph, offers bread to a poor family, sharing what little they have. The young boy and his father are receiving the bread from Mary, with the bread representing the Eucharist. The abundance and richness of the food in the stall is probably a satire on gluttony. The meat can also be seen as a symbolic representation of, and allusion to, the 'weak flesh' (Matthew 26:41). The slaughtered animals may symbolise the death of a believer, a fairly common iconography in the 16th and 17th centuries.In the upper right-hand part of the painting, a handwritten sign is posted on a wood placard. In Flemish, the variety of the Dutch language spoken in Flanders in northern Belgium, it reads, "behind here are 154 rods of land for sale immediately, either by the rod according to your convenience or all at once". Scholarly discussion about the sign has reached a general consensus that the message "functions as a metaphorical commentary on this scene", conveying a warning about society losing spiritual wealth by placing too great an emphasis upon material gain.
symbol metaphor food donkey meat Christ child Holy Family Meat still life landscape bread fowl Matthew 26:41 milk butter sausage slaughtered ox allude beef mussel prodigal son pork rods cheese oil oyster iconography genre figures fish gluttony lard left merry company pretzel Flemish figure subject religious symbolism Lent