Magic Made of Simple Things — Harnett’s Optical Illusions
Aug. 10 is the birthday of a painter whose works have played with viewers’ perception for more than a century.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Mellon Scaife in honor of Paul Mellon. Image in public domain.
There was an often told — and possibly true — story about painter William Michael Harnett (1848–1892).
As the tale goes, an agent of the U.S. Secret Service saw one of Harnett’s paintings of a U.S. $5 bill hanging in a New York tavern. The U.S. Secret Service protects the nation’s currency as well as its leaders. This agent found Harnett’s work to be too accurate a depiction of its subject. Citing concerns about counterfeiting, the agent confiscated the painting of the $5 bill and took it to Washington, D.C.
Eventually the Secret Service returned the painting to the tavern, but warned Harnett “not to indulge his fancy in this direction again,” according to the catalogue of a show of the artist’s work, published in 1892 by Earle’s Galleries. (There’s a link at the end of this essay to my “Artists of the Americas — bibliography” webpage. The Harnett entry in this bibliography provides details on this catalogue and other materials used in writing this essay.)
