Art in Mass Communication Rose Riesen

Dead fish paper

10/12/16

Buy a dead fish, put it in a white plate, light a candle, turn off the electricity and any social
or virtual activity, and observe, think and feel the scene, during twenty minutes.
I decided to discuss about this fascinating and intriguing experience into several step,
those of my feelings and emotions felted during it.

First of all, am I a criminal? a criminal who is going, without compassion for this dead fish
standing in front of me, to analyse this almost mournful scene. I have to admit that I
indeed asked, at first, this question to myself. But my final answer is no, I am going to live
an uncommon experience, facing a scene that inspired art and painters for centuries,
trying to find beauty in ugly, to find life in death.

And here I am, alone in the dark, fixing this scene, trying to empty my brain from
everything else, expect this dead fish, enlightened by this candle.
Silence, emptiness, incomprehension. These are my exact feelings at this exact moment.
But then I release this strange kind of pressure and I let my brain go.
The smell takes me to other thoughts, a smell that I never smelt before. This strange
mixture between the candle smell, the wax smell, and the fish corpse smell. It is not an
unpleasant smell after all. It makes me think of a small fishing harbor, at night, perhaps
with a campfire on a nearby beach, when everything is empty and silent, there is just that
smell and maybe the sea and boats sound.

Then, the candles light takes me elsewhere. The movements of the flame reflects on the
white plate and on the fishs scales. And this is how, suddenly, this scene looks more like
a fairy tale than a simple dead fish in a white plate. It is even beautiful. The flame moves
very quickly, letting appear a colorful rainbow on the fish, turning its scales into silver
glitters. It made me think of a celebration, a religious or a sect ceremony, the fish being
the adored hero of all. The light emphasizes this beauty.

A few minutes later, the candle flame started to stop growing, becomes increasingly
stationary, stabilizes and shrinks. Which makes the scene more quieter, almost
motionless.

Which creates an image of a painting in my imagination.

What I saw at this exact time is a still life painting. It is so precise in my head that I could
add a frame to it. An old frame, from the 19th Century.
This scene, right here, in front of me, of a dead fish in a white plate, lightened by a
candle, in the dark, is actually a still-life from the 19th Century. Which I can easily
compare to Edouard Manets Poissons (1864), to Frdric Bazilles Nature Morte avec du
Poisson (1866), Eugne Delacroixs Nature morte aux homards (1826), or to Eugne
Claudes Raie Homard Poissons Coquilles (1890).
I feel those comparisons as a revelation, because I understand, why and how a simple
dead fish has inspired phenomenal artists as them. I see the beauty of this scene
because I have it in front of me, taking my imagination far away into times and dreams.
It also makes me thing of how Pablo Picasso used fish in his art. Using fishbones to
makes mosaics, or in ceramic plates, as Poisson Chin (1952), but also in painting, for
his Poisson et Bouteilles (1908) still-life, for example.
I think that this can be a definition of art: to makes simple things, usually ignored and
insignificant for everyone, beautiful, interesting and suddenly magic. This is art and the
beauty of art, to create beauty where, at first, there is no beauty visible to the eye.

I contemplate the scene again. This time, it makes me think of the two major stages of
life, birth and death. It is hard to describe or explain why and how. Maybe because of the
ceremony aspect of it, as mentioned earlier. As a welcoming or a goodbye ceremony. It is
sad and happy at this same time, a kind of a confusing feeling.
Which makes me think again to the Still-life aspect of the scene, more precisely to a
specific question, why do we call a still-life une nature morte in french?
Une nature morte is translated as a still-life, without the dead aspect of the
translation. Is this about a geographical conception of it? Does we have to interpret it as
a still image or a dead image?
I think that this is subjective. Because at that moment, the scene in front of me, or rather
what it makes me feel, is visually dead, but is totally alive through imagination. Which
makes it conceptual.

Finally, here I am, back to reality. 40 minutes have passed, seems like it was 5 minutes.
40 minutes during which I let my imagination get carried away. I actually left for a silent
fishing harbor, near a fire camp in a beach, then to a fairy tale history, then to a religious
ceremony, then to master pieces Still-life of the 19th Century, then to Picasso
inspirations, then to the contrast of death and birth, and finally to the real meaning of
what is a still-life, called a Nature Morte in French.
This is a lot for a dead fish into a white plate lightened by a candle. This is a big travel
into my mind. This is the beauty of imagination, and art in a certain way.
Back to reality. I turned on the electricity, I blow out the candle, but I cant eat this fish, or
throw it in the garbage, as an insignificant dead fish. I cant because it just made me
escape really far, for 40 minutes, for a time break, and weirdly, I am kind of grateful for
this.

3
 Examples and references mentioned in the paper:

Eugne Claude - Raie Homard Poissons Coquilles (1890) Edouard Manet - Poissons (1864)

Frdric Bazille - Nature morte aux poissons (1866) Eugne Delacroix - Nature Morte aux Homards (1826)

Pablo Picasso - Poisson Chin (1952) 4

Pablo Picasso - Poisson et bouteilles (1908)