Feeling

"Feeling", a monogrammed copy of the original (in the Bavarian State Collection of Paintings, Alte Pinakothek, inv. no. 851), comes from the former Czernin collection in Vienna.
The focus is on the emotions expressed by the figures in a barber’s shop. The scene is a room painted in shades of beige and brown. This smallscale rendering shows precise observation of the mien of patient and barber.
The patient’s face is contorted, one eye tight shut, his brow gathered in a frown, and we can almost hear the cry of pain coming from his open mouth. Similar emotions are subjects in Brouwer’s later works. The surgeon’s face shows extreme concentration. The shading of his complexion around the wrinkles and cheekbones, in combination with the shadows, make for a deeply moving expression. A vessel of glowing embers and elixirs in glass bottles reflecting light indicate, together with the clean white cloth, that a wound is being disinfected.

DUCKE Astrid: Brouwer Adriaen, Feeling, in: DUCKE Astrid, HABERSATTER Thomas, OEHRING Erika: Masterworks. Residenzgalerie Salzburg. Salzburg 2015, p. 70