Hearing

The fourth of Van Ostade's 1655 Senses series, this panel representing Hearing at the New-York Historical Society complements the 1650 Prague Hearing panel as a distinct treatment of the same allegorical subject, likely depicting a musician, a listener, or a figure absorbed in sound. The sense of hearing in seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting was most commonly depicted through music-making — the lute, violin, or hurdy-gurdy — and Van Ostade's version, set in his characteristic warm interior, engages the subject with the same concentrated, observational directness as its companions. The New-York Historical Society's Dutch holdings reflect the institution's roots in the Dutch colonial history of New Amsterdam, and the Senses panels occupy a prominent place in its European collection.

Consistent with the companion Senses panels, the composition is organised around a single figure in directional warm light. Here the subject of hearing is communicated through the figure's orientation toward a sound source — a musical instrument, a voice, an ambient noise — and through the specific set of head and ear that attentive listening produces.