Walter Vaes
Still-life of a gateau and a glass of water
circa 1916 (?)
It seems almost impossible to imagine that this strawberry masterwork was naturally more succulent off canvas than it is on canvas. But the quality with which it was painted seems to overshadow its true form, that which is now nearly a century long since eaten. Preserved in thick sweet strokes of beige, in powdered specks of fine white sugar and in great wet dollops of juicy reds and pinks there breathes a cake which Vaes, whether willingly or not, gave the chance to live two lives. The first was its fleetingly short life of probably no more than a few days, a period in which its zest inevitably began to fade, however slowly, from the moment that it was laid out for display after its tedious creation. Its second life, the one that it lives now in oil, is perhaps the most important of the two: it marks and elevates the forgotten life of this single cake, a work of art that the world has seen over and over again in many forms and styles and times, but whose individual purpose is often undervalued or overlooked simply because it is a short-lived thing. To Vaes, though (and indeed to Proust and Manet and the many un-named), an edible thing is not entirely mortal, but rather considerably immortal in terms of memory. Its portrait may be painted just as finely and freely as that of a great empress or figure, just as its impression can be as strong to the tongue as the strength of a photograph may be to the mind. It is not merely the big events that mould life, but more-so the gradual build-up of the smaller and apparently lesser ones. Their effects take more time to understand, and are therefore harder to lose. This gateau may only have seen a few days of life, but its effect on Vaes clearly became a tool he used to access something beyond a few moments of taste.
