After our tour of the Lourve and discussion of Blake, a few others and I went to the Musée de l’Orangerie. This was a much smaller museum, but it had a great selection from artists like Monet, Picasso, and Matisse. There were also several artists I was not familiar with who stood out. One of these artists was Chaïm Soutine (1893-1943). His work initially caught my eye because it depicted dead animals and featured eye-catching splashes of red. This made me think of Blake’s work, which we mentioned was rather dark and included a lot of red imagery.

According to the museum’s website, Soutine’s fascination with animal carcasses as a subject matter for his art might have stemmed from a traumatic childhood experience in which he witnessed a butcher slaughter a goose. Blake is likewise writing about a traumatic experience (although the French Revolution is obviously on a much larger scale). Both Soutine and Blake use their art as means to convey their trauma and ended up using similar devices. Below are two examples of Soutine’s work, but the whole collection is also on the museum’s website (linked above).

Soutine, “Bœuf et tête de veau”

Soutine, “Le Lapin”