Larry Day, After Jan Steen

Day was keenly interested in Dutch genre scenes of the seventeenth century and was particularly fascinated by a painting attributed to Jan Steen, Merry Company (c. 1663–67), in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After Jan Steen may be the first of Day’s renditions of the work of an earlier master. Working with paint and gesture, he explores the relationships between figures, their accoutrements and costumes, and the architectural space they inhabit. A comment in one of Day’s notebooks seems relevant to this painting:

To examine an object or event, one of course examines oneself. To examine an event, in a way, puts you in the event. To examine an object it soon becomes clear that the object has a sphere of influence that extends and transforms . . . . Does an object examined become an event?