The Novel as Dutch Painting, Emma and the Milkmaid.

Within her article, Ruth Bernard Yeazell explores the various ways in which the Novel is similar to that of Dutch painting and shares numerous characteristics and evokes the same enjoyment within the viewer/reader. Firstly we ask ourselves what Yeazell means by ‘Dutch Painting’, which turns out to refer, as a blanket term, 17th century Genre painting. What is concerned in 17th century Dutch Genre painting, is that it concerns itself with the depiction of the every-day domestic scenes, considered to be ‘low-genre’ rather than ‘high genre’, (‘high-genre’ can be thought of as painting depicting classical scenes from antiquity for example). The principal of genre paintings, which became associated with Dutch Paintings, is the depiction of ‘scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes’.
Yeazell makes use of quotes from Walter Scott during the 19th Century where he too uses the analogy of the Novel being akin to Dutch Painting. When speaking of Daniel Defoe, 'whose fictions were more equivocally praised for the resemblance' (p.4) of reality than the actual plot line itself, we can begin to see what Yeazell is referring to. She opens the article by quoting Walter Scott and his reaction to Austen’s Emma (1816) and stated that the novel has "something of the merits of the Flemish school of painting. The subjects are not often elegant and certainly never grand; but they are finished up to nature, and with a precision which delights the reader"' (p.1)

The precision of description is depicting the subjects does indeed delight us, and it is because the ‘subjects are not elegant’ that we find ourselves being sucked into the world of Emma and the descriptions of those around her. While there are no tales of great adventure in Emma it delights us because there is a sense of the ‘every-day’ in the novel and we are drawn in. We identify with the discourse and the description, that while it is from a different time, with different slightly different customs etc. we identify because it would be our own discourse we are reading, or we recognise something tangibly real within the words of Austen. If we consider a passage from Emma, where Mr Woodhouse is having a picnic and offers Mrs Bates an egg, we can begin to form a picture of what Scott means;

Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could, with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to say:
"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart--a very little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a glass of wine? A small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you." – Chapter 3, Emma

The egg in this description become tangible; there is nothing extraordinary about this description, nor is the style or syntax anything other than everyday. We recognise the speech from our own everyday interactions; we can, therefore, imagine that the interactions are our own. The repetition of the word ‘egg’ in the discourse of Mr Woodhouse make us really think what he is speaking of. The speech is real enough; it is not dislodged, ‘high-genre’ speech, speech that is incredibly formal. If we imagine ourselves to have ever had a conversation similar then we begin to see the parallel that Yeazell is proposing.

At this point we should now consider what is ‘every-day’ about Dutch 17th Century Genre painting. How can we consider a work by a great master such as Vermeer to be ‘every-day’? What Yeazell is proposing in her article is it what is depicted that makes it everyday; take Vermeer’s ‘Milkmaid’ for an example.

This painting is definitely low-genre in its composition, yet the technique and decisions of composition are both skilled and effective. The colour of the clothes worn by the milkmaid forces us to concentrate on her primarily, and then our attention shifts to other elements in the room. Perhaps we could suggest that the way we focus our attention on the milkmaid is similar to that of the egg spoken of by Mr Woodhouse in Emma?

Regardless, what is certain that the viewer is drawn into this picture, and once that happens there are numerous questions that are formed in the viewers mind in response to the work by Vermeer. Firstly, we ask, ‘who is she?’ Secondly, we think, ‘what is she doing?’. Thirdly we consider, ‘what else is in this seemingly plain room?’ Whatever the answer to these questions may be, we can propose that it is because we can relate to the figure in the painting. While we may no know what it is to be a maid, nor know what she is making with the milk-bread and butter pudding perchance? What is important is the identification of the bread and butter pudding, that while it may be something all together different because the viewer recognises it to be bread and butter pudding that is what it becomes and as a result we are able to relate more to the painting as the viewer shares a knowledge of the bread and butter pudding with the milkmaid in the painting.
Yeazell refers to Catherine Gallagher; ‘By substituting fictional "nobodies" for the extra-textual referents of personal satire and scandalous allegory, so genre distinguishes itself from history painting by representing "nobody in particular” ‘

As thus, we relate to the Milkmaid because she could be us, or someone we know. We relate because she could be making bread and butter pudding or something else, but it is nonetheless because we are left with room for anonymity. It is because the key figures are nobodies, have no referent other than those around them and therefore could be anyone. As a result they contain universality to them, which allows the subjects to be identified universally. We are about to imagine ourselves there, within the picture, alongside the milkmaid, just as we imagine we are sat alongside Mr. Woodhouse and his opinions regarding boiled eggs.

Words: 1,102

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[ 1 ]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age_painting
[ 2 ]. http://www.online-literature.com/austen/emma/3/