In a poem titled “Adam’s Curse,” William Butler Yeats wrote of the task of writing poetry:

A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

If we apply that measure of success to the visual arts, we can find in the best of Janet Fish the perfection of the dictum. Her painting, as one observes in Dog Days (1993), is about surface, energy, light, and life. She realizes her vision in both form and content. Her paint surface is light and open. Her palette is fresh and clean. Her technique relies on the placing of paint on canvas to create a dazzling image and surface. Compared to the work of other masters who build up the surface with layered over painting and intricate undercoatings, Fish's works seem relaxed, easy, and natural.

While in and of itself Dog Days is aesthetically so pleasing, it is also an instructive model of Fish's mature works. The painting is playful both in subject and intent. The dogs play, the light plays, and the artist plays one surface and plane off against the other. The eye is constantly bouncing from background to foreground, as does the light as it reflects off some of the glass objects, fills others with color, and flows through others not casting shadows, but "painting" yet other colored surfaces. There is a sense of a continuous flow of energy from one corner of the canvas to the next.

There is not much mystery in the work of Janet Fish. It is as transparent as it is about transparency. Fish has captured the colors and light of the Bermuda island where she spent much of her youth. She paints with classic artistry and control, reflective of her distinguished formal education. Her subjects come from the quotidian life, the animals, objects, and people with which she has daily contact. Her works are not geared toward psychology, metaphysics, or didactic observations; they are filled with energy and life, light and delight, imbued with joy and optimism. Fish's paintings are an affirmation of life, reflective of her personal triumph over the depression that haunted her early years.

Above all, when one looks at Dog Days, or any number of Fish's paintings, there is a sense that what motivated the artist was the simple and pure thought that it would be fun and wonderful to capture that image on canvas; that the artist found as much pleasure in the creating of the work as the viewer finds in the observing.

For a more detailed printed view of the collection order the book:
	Get Real: Contemporary American Realism from the Seavest Collection Virginia Anne Bonito. Foreword by Michael Philip Mezzatesta, pp. 138, 68 colorplates, 2 b/w photographs Exhibition at DUMA April 4-July 6, 1997. Hard cover $40.00 Soft cover $25.00 To order contact: Duke University Museum of Art Click on Publications