Chardin, Jean-Baptiste Simeon – Lievre mort avec poire a poudre et gibecier, 1730 Dead hare with powder flask and game-bag. Canvas, 98 x 76 cm R.F.1979-55 Part 1 Louvre

The composition presents a still life centered around a recently killed hare. The animal lies on its back, positioned diagonally across the canvas, creating a dynamic and somewhat unsettling arrangement. Its fur exhibits a range of tones – browns, creams, and touches of grey – rendered with meticulous attention to texture and light. A dark green game-bag is draped over the hare’s body, adding visual weight and contributing to the overall sense of stillness and finality. Beside it rests a powder flask, its metallic surface reflecting a muted glow.
The background is deliberately subdued; a deep, murky brown that recedes into near darkness, effectively isolating the objects in the foreground. This limited palette emphasizes the tactile qualities of the depicted items and directs focus onto their surfaces. The lighting is soft and diffused, highlighting the subtle gradations of color within the hare’s fur and the sheen of the flask.
Beyond a straightforward depiction of game and hunting paraphernalia, the painting evokes themes of mortality and transience. The lifelessness of the hare serves as a stark reminder of the cycle of life and death, while the carefully arranged objects suggest a moment suspended in time – the aftermath of a hunt. Theres an inherent tension between the beauty of the rendering and the subject matter’s somber nature.
The artist’s skill lies not only in his ability to reproduce textures realistically but also in his capacity to imbue commonplace objects with symbolic weight. The composition suggests a quiet contemplation on themes of sustenance, loss, and the relationship between humanity and the natural world. The deliberate simplicity of the arrangement – the absence of extraneous details – contributes to an atmosphere of understated melancholy and profound observation.