Feeling

The third of Van Ostade's 1655 Senses series, this panel representing Feeling depicts the sense of touch — the most immediately physical and least mediated of the sensory experiences. In the allegorical tradition, Feeling was often depicted through the handling of specific textures: rough stone, soft fur, the sharp edge of a blade. Van Ostade transposes this into a low-life context, showing a figure whose sense of touch is engaged in a quotidian action — perhaps handling a coin, examining a surface, or grasping a tool. The restraint with which Van Ostade treats the allegorical framework — never forcing the imagery toward the moralising explicitness of earlier Netherlandish traditions — reflects the mature confidence of a mid-career artist secure in his genre's naturalistic conventions.

Consistent with the other Senses panels, the composition places a single figure in directional light against a warm dark ground. The painting technique focuses expressive energy in the hands — here the instrument of the sense depicted — which are given the same careful modelling as the face. Surrounding detail is subordinated to this double focus.