The Five Senses (Wautier)

1650 set of five paintings

Touch

Artist	Michaelina Wautier
Year	1650
Location	Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The Five Senses is a series of five paintings depicting allegories of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch, painted by Flemish artist Michaelina Wautier in 1650. Each sense is personified by a young boy. The paintings have been loaned to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, by their owners, Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo.

History

Artist

Michaelina Wautier was a Baroque painter from the Southern Netherlands. Although being overlooked after her death, she was an accomplished female artist during her time. At the age of 30, Michaelina moved to Brussels along with her brother Charles who was also a painter. While in Brussels, Wautier painted her first self-portrait in 1649. During she was working on The Five Senses, Wautier painted also painted a handful of pieces within the same year. For example, The Triumph of Bacchus (1650) was painted between 1650-1656 and is considered one of her greatest works. Her work at the time also included, Two Boys Blowing Bubbles (1650).

Description

*Smell,* Michaelina Wautier, 1650, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 69.5x61cm

Michaelina Wautier composed her series to allegorize the five senses. Now located at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this make it the first gallery space in the Americas that is dedicated to the art of Wautier. The painting Sight has the subject turned to the right and Touch, the last painting, is facing to the left of the enclosure. The subjects in both Hearing and Taste are seen facing the center, balancing one another. Then Smell is placed in the middle as the subject is staring directly forward. Thus, making both ends of the collection shift movement towards the center.

Sight

Wautier paints a young boy in a cloak while holding a pair of glasses up to his eyes, looking intently at his palm. The blue-gray shades on the viewer's left and the dark brown shades on the right are separated by a line that the young boy is placed in front of a corner. The wrinkles on his forehead and curled eyebrows indicate confusion and focus. The light comes from the viewer's right, where the light is being absorbed by the young boy's face and onto his left hand.

Hearing

*Sound*, Michaelina Wautier, 1650, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 69.5x61cm

Wautier deptics a boy in his early teens who is casually sitting on a chair, relaxed, and playing the recorder while he gazes off. The young boy is seen wearing a dark, loose-fitting shirt with a dark green knotted neckcloth. A red beret with a large gray feather hanging from the side while sitting against a warm backdrop. The light source sits directly in front of the boy. Both the front of his hands and face absorb the light along with the recorder.

Smell

A painting of a young blond boy who is pinching his nose due to the awful smell of a rotten egg he is holding in his left hand. A slight frown dawned on his face as he looked out at the viewer with his dark eyes. The boy is seen wearing a tall, dark brown hat that is folded up on the side. He is also seen in a large, tan smock with the sleeves folded up. The light brightness up the little boy's face, highlighting his negative reaction. The dark, gray background helps display the boy and his emotions by not taking away light.

Taste

The painting shows a young boy with long red hair, lightly biting down on a piece of bread. A dark brown cloth hanging from his shoulders while wearing a black coat with a white, collared shirt under. Although the boy is placed in front of a gray background, he is outlined with a lighter color pallet. The placement of the light could indicate the visual sensation of the taste.

Touch

The painting is a representation of a young boy wearing a white shirt under a black jacket with buttoned sleeves. With his right hand, fingers scrunched, scratching his head while looking down onto his left index finger. His index finger has a cut on it, letting the blood drip down. A sharpened stick laid next to a knife on the table indicated he had cut his finger while whittling. The expression is written all over his face, scrunched up nose and parted lips showing grimace.

Subject

During the 1600s in the Dutch Republic, the art market had been dominated by landscapes, portraits, genre works, and still lifes. Genre scenes depicting boys and teenagers, which have been set in a trend dominated by Michael Sweerts.

During the 17th century in the early modern Netherlands, conveying the five senses in artistic series became as popular as depicting the four seasons, the four elements, and the four temperatures. During this period in time, there was philosophical interest about how people interacted with the world. The five senses were seen as a way for people to gain knowledge about the world around them and how it was viewed. Considering other artists; Jan Brueghel and Peter Paul Rubens have painted The Five Senses, their main pieces consisted of women models in landscapes. Wautier set herself apart by using young, teenage boys as her main focus for the five senses. This was a time period where people were looking at the world around them.

Painting methods

*Touch*, Michaelina Wautier, 1650, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,69.5x61cm

Wautier used a common method throughout the five paintings; constructing three-dimensional forms, darkly light backgrounds, and short, thick paint strokes. Such paint strokes were done tight and carefully that it is only visible when looked up closely or seen in high definition photos

Seen in both Sight and Smell, they share a thick reddish-orange layer that is covered by a thinner warm-toned gray layer. It is highly likely that the other three paintings share the same qualities. On all five paintings, it appears that Wautier did not sketch on the canvas before beginning to paint. Considering how common it was with certain artists to sketch beforehand and no evidence of underdrawing, it is safe to assume that Wautier did not use materials like charcoal to sketch out her paintings.

Impact

Unlike many women painters at his time, Wautier had received recognition while alive. She had made and sold four paintings to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. Although, after her passing her work had fallen into a blackout. She had a steady build up of her recognition in the 1640s and 1650s.

Wautier has been noted for the variety of subjects she has used in her paintings as opposed to other female artists who had been restricted to smaller paintings and generally portraits or still-lifes. She had the skill to portray young boys in her paintings and had access to such subjects as a female painter.

It appears that there had been a long period of time between Wautier's last painting The Annunciation (1659) to her death (1689).