Scat by Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin

To enter the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, each artist had to present a jury of academicians with several of his works. Chardin showed academicians still lifes “Scat” and “Buffet.” They are both kept now in the Louvre. “Buffet” is dated 1728, but there is no date on the picture “Scat”. Chardin probably wrote it around the same time – or, perhaps, a little earlier.

“Scat” has always been one of the most famous and most controversial works of Chardin. Some admired her, saying that the artist continues here the traditions of Dutch masters. Others scolded her, stating that in this superfluous naturalism there is neither beauty nor sublimity. We add that “Scat” quite often copied other artists – including such seemingly “non-Sharden’s warehouse” masters as Cezanne and Matisse.

The ingenuity with which this still life is written is amazing. Oysters, kitchen utensils, kitten, decided to eat “the seafood” – all these components of the still life are located on the canvas so that it seems that the author did not think about the composition of the painting and just “threw” on the canvas what he saw. And it is necessary to all towers a gutted stingray with a “face”, distorted by a terrible grimace.