James W Singer writes, “At first glance Jean-Baptiste Chardin’s The Monkey Painter, you may initially ask, “What am I looking at?” or, “Why is this in the Louvre?” or even possibly say, “This is not art.” So let’s go back in time a little to the mid 18th century when singerie or paintings depicting monkeys engaged in human activities was popular in France.

At the time Chardin was a member of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. A government-funded institution that Chardin was feeling more and more jaded about being a member of. Its increasingly stultifying restrictions made the artist wonder about the true intentions of art. And whether they were just teaching technical efficiency that a monkey could learn rather than considering the importance of critical thinking about the way a subject is depicted.

Beyond the fashion of the time, Chardin’s monkey continues to poke us with its mahlstick and question notions of high and low art, the overly censorious and seriousiness of the Academy and tastemakers versus our need to see joy, fun and humour in Art. The Monkey Painter continues to provoke questions about the value of art in our world today. Singer ends his essay acknowledging that “Chardin’s The Monkey Painter will never rival in popularity the more famous pieces in The Louvre ... However, it wins in so many ways, especially when questioning good taste and the meaning of art.”

In this painting, Monkey Business, the small figurine of Casanova peers curiously through his spectacles at the troop of monkeys in front of him. As a European libertine of the 18th century he would no doubt have been aware of singeries and possibly enjoyed their humour. The red apples are not only a formal device to reflect and balance the red coat of the monkey artist but also reference the temptation of all artists to question defined ideas of our time and the 1940’s black phone dial that reads “In Case of Emergency Dial Ext 170” suggests the worrying danger if we don’t ... but perhaps I’m being just a little bit too serious! – Kate Bergin