work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or
man-made
Artificiality (the state of being artificial or manmade) is the state of being the product of intentional human manufacture, rather than occurring naturally through processes not involving or requiring human activity.
Connotations
Artificiality ...
(drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, etc.).
With origins in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
and Ancient Greco-Roman art, still-life painting emerged as a distinct genre and professional specialization in
Western painting
The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from classical antiquity, antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with Representational art, representational ...
by the late 16th century, and has remained significant since then. One advantage of the still-life artform is that it allows an artist much freedom to experiment with the arrangement of elements within a composition of a painting. Still life, as a particular genre, began with Netherlandish painting of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the English term ''still life'' derives from the Dutch word ''stilleven''. Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. Later still-life works are produced with a variety of media and technology, such as found objects, photography,
computer graphics
Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...
, as well as video and sound.
The term includes the painting of dead animals, especially game. Live ones are considered animal art, although in practice they were often painted from dead models. Because of the use of plants and animals as a subject, the still-life category also shares commonalities with zoological and especially
botanical illustration
Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, color, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolor paintings. They must be scientifically accurate but often also have an artistic component and may be printed with a botanical ...
. However, with visual or fine art, the work is not intended merely to illustrate the subject correctly.
Still life occupied the lowest rung of the
hierarchy of genres
A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value.
In literature, the epic was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by Samuel Johns ...
, but has been extremely popular with buyers. As well as the independent still-life subject, still-life painting encompasses other types of painting with prominent still-life elements, usually symbolic, and "images that rely on a multitude of still-life elements ostensibly to reproduce a 'slice of life. The ''
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
'' painting, which intends to deceive the viewer into thinking the scene is real, is a specialized type of still life, usually showing inanimate and relatively flat objects.
Antecedents and development
Still-life paintings often adorn the interior of ancient Egyptian tombs. It was believed that food objects and other items depicted there would, in the afterlife, become real and available for use by the deceased. Ancient Greek vase paintings also demonstrate great skill in depicting everyday objects and animals.
Peiraikos
Peiraikos, or Piraeicus, was an Ancient Greek painter of uncertain date and location. None of his work is known to have survived and he is known only from a brief discussion by the Latin author Pliny the Elder. Pliny's passage comes in the midd ...
is mentioned by
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
as a panel painter of "low" subjects, such as survive in
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
versions and provincial wall-paintings at Pompeii: "barbers' shops, cobblers' stalls, asses, eatables and similar subjects".
Similar still life, more simply decorative in intent, but with realistic perspective, have also been found in the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
wall paintings and floor mosaics unearthed at Pompeii, Herculaneum and the
Villa Boscoreale
Villa Boscoreale is a name given to any of several Roman villas discovered in the district of Boscoreale, Italy. They were all buried and preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, along with Pompeii and Herculaneum. The only one v ...
, including the later familiar motif of a glass bowl of fruit. Decorative mosaics termed "emblema", found in the homes of rich Romans, demonstrated the range of food enjoyed by the upper classes, and also functioned as signs of hospitality and as celebrations of the seasons and of life.
By the 16th century, food and flowers would again appear as symbols of the seasons and of the five senses. Also starting in Roman times is the tradition of the use of the skull in paintings as a symbol of mortality and earthly remains, often with the accompanying phrase ''Omnia mors aequat'' (Death makes all equal). These
vanitas
A ''vanitas'' (Latin for 'vanity') is a symbolic work of art showing the temporality, transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death. Best-kn ...
images have been re-interpreted through the last 400 years of art history, starting with Dutch painters around 1600.
The popular appreciation of the realism of still-life painting is related in the
ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
legend of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who are said to have once competed to create the most lifelike objects, history's earliest descriptions of ''
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
'' painting.Ebert-Schifferer, p. 16 As
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
recorded in ancient Roman times, Greek artists centuries earlier were already advanced in the arts of portrait painting, genre painting and still life. He singled out
Peiraikos
Peiraikos, or Piraeicus, was an Ancient Greek painter of uncertain date and location. None of his work is known to have survived and he is known only from a brief discussion by the Latin author Pliny the Elder. Pliny's passage comes in the midd ...
, "whose artistry is surpassed by only a very few...He painted barbershops and shoemakers' stalls, donkeys, vegetables, and such, and for that reason came to be called the 'painter of vulgar subjects'; yet these works are altogether delightful, and they were sold at higher prices than the greatest aintingsof many other artists."Ebert-Schifferer, p. 15
Middle Ages and Early Renaissance
By 1300, starting with
Giotto
Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/ Proto-Renaissance period. G ...
and his pupils, still-life painting was revived in the form of fictional niches on religious wall paintings which depicted everyday objects. Through the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
and the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
, still life in Western art remained primarily an adjunct to Christian religious subjects, and convened religious and allegorical meaning. This was particularly true in the work of Northern European artists, whose fascination with highly detailed optical realism and symbolism led them to lavish great attention on their paintings' overall message. Painters like Jan van Eyck often used still-life elements as part of an
iconographic
Iconology is a method of interpretation in cultural history and the history of the visual arts used by Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofsky and their followers that uncovers the cultural, social, and historical background of themes and subjects in the visu ...
program.
In the late Middle Ages, still-life elements, mostly flowers but also animals and sometimes inanimate objects, were painted with increasing realism in the borders of illuminated manuscripts, developing models and technical advances that were used by painters of larger images. There was considerable overlap between the artists making miniatures for manuscripts and those painting panels, especially in Early Netherlandish painting. The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, probably made in
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...
around 1440, is one of the outstanding examples of this trend, with borders featuring an extraordinary range of objects, including coins and fishing-nets, chosen to complement the text or main image at that particular point. Flemish workshops later in the century took the naturalism of border elements even further. Gothic
millefleur
Millefleur, millefleurs or mille-fleur ( French mille-fleurs, literally "thousand flowers") refers to a background style of many different small flowers and plants, usually shown on a green ground, as though growing in grass. It is essentially re ...
tapestries
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...
are another example of the general increasing interest in accurate depictions of plants and animals. The set of ''
The Lady and the Unicorn
''The Lady and the Unicorn'' (french: La Dame à la licorne) is the modern title given to a series of six tapestries created in the style of ("thousand flowers") and woven in Flanders from wool and silk, from designs (" cartoons") drawn in Par ...
'' is the best-known example, designed in Paris around 1500 and then woven in
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
.
The development of
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
technique by Jan van Eyck and other Northern European artists made it possible to paint everyday objects in this hyper-realistic fashion, owing to the slow drying, mixing, and layering qualities of oil colours. Among the first to break free of religious meaning were
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
, who created
watercolour
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
studies of fruit (around 1495) as part of his restless examination of nature, and Albrecht Dürer who also made precise coloured drawings of flora and fauna.
Petrus Christus
Petrus Christus (; 1410/1420 – 1475/1476) was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges from 1444, where, along with Hans Memling, he became the leading painter after the death of Jan van Eyck. He was influenced by van Eyck and Rogier v ...
' portrait of a bride and groom visiting a goldsmith is a typical example of a transitional still life depicting both religious and secular content. Though mostly allegorical in message, the figures of the couple are realistic and the objects shown (coins, vessels, etc.) are accurately painted but the goldsmith is actually a depiction of St. Eligius and the objects heavily symbolic. Another similar type of painting is the family portrait combining figures with a well-set table of food, which symbolizes both the piety of the human subjects and their thanks for God's abundance. Around this time, simple still-life depictions divorced of figures (but not allegorical meaning) were beginning to be painted on the outside of shutters of private devotional paintings. Another step toward the autonomous still life was the painting of symbolic flowers in vases on the back of secular portraits around 1475. Jacopo de' Barbari went a step further with his '' Still Life with Partridge and Gauntlets'' (1504), among the earliest signed and dated ''
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
'' still-life paintings, which contains minimal religious content.
File:15th-century painters - Book of Hours for Engelbert of Nassau - WGA15794.jpg, Various vessels in the border of an illuminated book of hours for Engelbert of Nassau, Flemish artist, 1470s
File:Cluny-Dame à la licorne-Detail 10.JPG, Detail of one of ''
The Lady and the Unicorn
''The Lady and the Unicorn'' (french: La Dame à la licorne) is the modern title given to a series of six tapestries created in the style of ("thousand flowers") and woven in Flanders from wool and silk, from designs (" cartoons") drawn in Par ...
''
millefleur
Millefleur, millefleurs or mille-fleur ( French mille-fleurs, literally "thousand flowers") refers to a background style of many different small flowers and plants, usually shown on a green ground, as though growing in grass. It is essentially re ...
tapestries
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...
, c. 1500
File:Albrecht Dürer - The Large Piece of Turf, 1503 - Google Art Project.jpg, Albrecht Dürer, '' Great Piece of Turf'', 1503
File:Jacopo de' Barbari 001.jpg,
Jacopo de' Barbari
Jacopo de' Barbari, sometimes known or referred to as de'Barbari, de Barberi, de Barbari, Barbaro, Barberino, Barbarigo or Barberigo (c. 1460/70 – before 1516), was an Italian painter, printmaker and miniaturist with a highly individual style. H ...
Though most still lifes after 1600 were relatively small paintings, a crucial stage in the development of the genre was the tradition, mostly centred on Antwerp, of the "monumental still life", which were large paintings that included great spreads of still-life material with figures and often animals. This was a development by
Pieter Aertsen
Pieter Aertsen (1508 – 2 June 1575), called ''Lange Piet'' ("Tall Pete") because of his height, was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism. He is credited with the invention of the monumental genre scene, which combines still life ...
Uppsala
Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019.
Located north of the c ...
) introduced the type with a painting that still startles. Another example is "The Butcher Shop" by Aertsen's nephew
Joachim Beuckelaer
Joachim Beuckelaer (c. 1533 – c. 1570/4) was a Flemish painter specialising in market and kitchen scenes with elaborate displays of food and household equipment. He also painted still lifes with no figures in the central scene.
(1568), with its realistic depiction of raw meats dominating the foreground, while a background scene conveys the dangers of drunkenness and lechery. The type of very large kitchen or market scene developed by Pieter Aertsen and his nephew Joachim Beuckelaer typically depicts an abundance of food with a kitchenware still life and burly Flemish kitchen-maids. A small religious scene can often be made out in the distance, or a theme such as the Four Seasons is added to elevate the subject. This sort of large-scale still life continued to develop in Flemish painting after the separation of the North and South, but is rare in Dutch painting, although other works in this tradition anticipate the " merry company" type of genre painting.
Gradually, religious content diminished in size and placement in this type of painting, though moral lessons continued as sub-contexts. One of the relatively few Italian works in the style, Annibale Carracci's treatment of the same subject in 1583, '' Butcher's Shop'', begins to remove the moral messages, as did other "kitchen and market" still-life paintings of this period.
Vincenzo Campi
Vincenzo Campi (; c.1530/1535–1591) was a 16th-century Italian painter working in Cremona during the Late Renaissance. Campi is best known as one of the first northern Italian artists to work in the Flemish style of realist genre painting.
...
probably introduced the Antwerp style to Italy in the 1570s. The tradition continued into the next century, with several works by Rubens, who mostly sub-contracted the still-life and animal elements to specialist masters such as
Frans Snyders
Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders (11 November 1579, Antwerp – 19 August 1657, Antwerp) was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still lifes. He was one of the earliest specialist animaliers and he is credited with ...
and his pupil
Jan Fyt
Jan Fijt or Johannes Fijt (or Fyt) (19 August 1609 – 11 September 1661) was a Flemish Baroque painter, draughtsman and etcher. One of the leading animaliers of the 17th century, he was known for his refined depictions of animals and his lush h ...
. By the second half of the 16th century, the autonomous still life evolved.
The 16th century witnessed an explosion of interest in the natural world and the creation of lavish botanical encyclopædias recording the discoveries of the New World and Asia. It also prompted the beginning of scientific illustration and the classification of specimens. Natural objects began to be appreciated as individual objects of study apart from any religious or mythological associations. The early science of herbal remedies began at this time as well, which was a practical extension of this new knowledge. In addition, wealthy patrons began to underwrite the collection of animal and mineral specimens, creating extensive cabinets of curiosities. These specimens served as models for painters who sought realism and novelty. Shells, insects, exotic fruits and flowers began to be collected and traded, and new plants such as the
tulip
Tulips (''Tulipa'') are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm ...
(imported to Europe from Turkey), were celebrated in still-life paintings.
The horticultural explosion was of widespread interest in Europe and artist capitalized on that to produce thousands of still-life paintings. Some regions and courts had particular interests. The depiction of citrus, for example, was a particular passion of the
Medici
The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...
court in Florence, Italy. This great diffusion of natural specimens and the burgeoning interest in natural illustration throughout Europe, resulted in the nearly simultaneous creation of modern still-life paintings around 1600.
At the turn of the century the Spanish painter
Juan Sánchez Cotán
Juan Sánchez Cotán (June 25, 1560 – September 8, 1627) was a Spanish Baroque painter, a pioneer of realism in Spain. His still lifes and '' bodegones'' were painted in an austere style, especially when compared to similar works in the Neth ...
pioneered the Spanish still life with austerely tranquil paintings of vegetables, before entering a monastery in his forties in 1603, after which he painted religious subjects.
Sixteenth-century paintings
File:A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms - Pieter Aertsen - Google Cultural Institute.jpg,
Pieter Aertsen
Pieter Aertsen (1508 – 2 June 1575), called ''Lange Piet'' ("Tall Pete") because of his height, was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism. He is credited with the invention of the monumental genre scene, which combines still life ...
, ''A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms'' (1551), 123.3 × 150 cm (48.5 × 59")
File:Carracci-Butcher's shop.jpg, Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), '' Butcher's Shop'' (1580)
File:Fra Juan Sánchez Cotán 001.jpg,
Juan Sánchez Cotán
Juan Sánchez Cotán (June 25, 1560 – September 8, 1627) was a Spanish Baroque painter, a pioneer of realism in Spain. His still lifes and '' bodegones'' were painted in an austere style, especially when compared to similar works in the Neth ...
(1560–1627), ''Still life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber'', oil on canvas, 69 × 84.5 cm
File:Giovanni Ambrogio Figino - Teller mit Pfirsichen.jpg,
Giovanni Ambrogio Figino
Giovanni Ambrogio Figino (1548/1551 – 11 October 1608) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Milan.
Biography
An important representative of the Lombard school of painting, he had been taught by Gian Paolo Lomazzo. Best known as a draf ...
, ''Metal Plate with Peaches and Vine Leaves'' (1591–94), panel, 21 × 30 cm, his only known still life
Seventeenth century
Prominent Academicians of the early 17th century, such as
Andrea Sacchi
Andrea Sacchi (30 November 159921 June 1661) was an Italian painter of High Baroque Classicism, active in Rome. A generation of artists who shared his style of art include the painters Nicolas Poussin and Giovanni Battista Passeri, the sculpto ...
, felt that
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
and still-life painting did not carry the "gravitas" merited for painting to be considered great. An influential formulation of 1667 by
André Félibien
André Félibien (May 161911 June 1695), ''sieur des Avaux et de Javercy'', was a French chronicler of the arts and official court historian to Louis XIV of France.
Biography
Félibien was born at Chartres. At the age of fourteen he went to Pa ...
, a historiographer, architect and theoretician of French classicism became the classic statement of the theory of the
hierarchy of genres
A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value.
In literature, the epic was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by Samuel Johns ...
for the 18th century:
Celui qui fait parfaitement des païsages est au-dessus d'un autre qui ne fait que des fruits, des fleurs ou des coquilles. Celui qui peint des animaux vivants est plus estimable que ceux qui ne représentent que des choses mortes & sans mouvement ; & comme la figure de l'homme est le plus parfait ouvrage de Dieu sur la Terre, il est certain aussi que celui qui se rend l'imitateur de Dieu en peignant des figures humaines, est beaucoup plus excellent que tous les autres ...
He who produces perfect landscapes is above another who only produces fruit, flowers or seafood. He who paints living animals is more estimable than those who only represent dead things without movement, and as man is the most perfect work of God on the earth, it is also certain that he who becomes an imitator of God in representing human figures, is much more excellent than all the others ...".
Dutch and Flemish painting
Still life developed as a separate category in the
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
in the last quarter of the 16th century. The English term ''still life'' derives from the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
word ''stilleven'' while Romance languages (as well as Greek, Polish, Russian and Turkish) tend to use terms meaning ''dead nature''. 15th-century Early Netherlandish painting had developed highly illusionistic techniques in both
panel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel of wood, either a single piece or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, panel painting was the normal method, when not paint ...
and illuminated manuscripts, where the borders often featured elaborate displays of flowers, insects and, in a work like the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, a great variety of objects. When the illuminated manuscript was displaced by the printed book, the same skills were later deployed in scientific botanical illustration; the Low Countries led Europe in both
botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
and its depiction in art. The Flemish artist
Joris Hoefnagel
Joris Hoefnagel or Georg Hoefnagel (1542, in Antwerp – 24 July 1601, in Vienna) was a Flemish painter, printmaker, miniaturist, draftsman and merchant. He is noted for his illustrations of natural history subjects, topographical views, ...
(1542–1601) made
watercolour
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
and
gouache
Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...
paintings of flowers and other still-life subjects for the
Emperor Rudolf II
Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the Hous ...
, and there were many engraved illustrations for books (often then hand-coloured), such as
Hans Collaert
Jan Collaert the Elder or (I), Hans Collaert the Elder or Johannes Collaert (Brussels, between 1525 and 1530 – Antwerp, October 1580) was a Flemish printmaker, publisher, draftsman, tapestry designer, glass painter and designer and engraver of ...
's ''Florilegium'', published by Plantin in 1600.
Around 1600 flower paintings in oils became something of a craze;
Karel van Mander
Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander I (May 1548 – 2 September 1606) was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembere ...
painted some works himself, and records that other
Northern Mannerist
Northern Mannerism is the form of Mannerism found in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Styles largely derived from Italian Mannerism were found in the Netherlands and elsewhere from around the mid-century, e ...
artists such as Cornelis van Haarlem also did so. No surviving flower-pieces by them are known, but many survive by the leading specialists,
Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; 1568 – 13 January 1625) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collabora ...
and
Ambrosius Bosschaert
Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (18 January 1573 – 1621) was a Flemish-born Dutch still life painter and art dealer.Dutch Reformed Protestant Church—the continuing Northern tradition of detailed realism and hidden symbols appealed to the growing Dutch middle classes, who were replacing Church and State as the principal patrons of art in the Netherlands. Added to this was the Dutch mania for horticulture, particularly the tulip. These two views of flowers—as aesthetic objects and as religious symbols— merged to create a very strong market for this type of still life. Still life, like most Dutch art work, was generally sold in open markets or by dealers, or by artists at their studios, and rarely commissioned; therefore, artists usually chose the subject matter and arrangement. So popular was this type of still-life painting, that much of the technique of Dutch flower painting was codified in the 1740 treatise ''Groot Schilderboeck'' by Gerard de Lairesse, which gave wide-ranging advice on colour, arranging, brushwork, preparation of specimens, harmony, composition, perspective, etc.
The symbolism of flowers had evolved since early Christian days. The most common flowers and their symbolic meanings include: rose (Virgin Mary, transience, Venus, love); lily (Virgin Mary, virginity, female breast, purity of mind or justice); tulip (showiness, nobility); sunflower (faithfulness, divine love, devotion); violet (modesty, reserve, humility); columbine (melancholy); poppy (power, sleep, death). As for insects, the butterfly represents transformation and resurrection while the dragonfly symbolizes transience and the ant hard work and attention to the harvest.
Flemish and Dutch artists also branched out and revived the ancient Greek still life tradition of ''
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
'', particularly the imitation of nature or ''mimesis'', which they termed ''bedriegertje'' ("little deception"). In addition to these types of still life, Dutch artists identified and separately developed "kitchen and market" paintings, breakfast and food table still life, vanitas paintings, and allegorical collection paintings.
In the Catholic
Southern Netherlands
The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the A ...
the genre of garland paintings was developed. Around 1607–1608, Antwerp artists
Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; 1568 – 13 January 1625) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collabora ...
and
Hendrick van Balen
Hendrick van Balen or Hendrick van Balen I (c. 1573–1575 in Antwerp – 17 July 1632 in Antwerp) was a Flemish Baroque painter and stained glass designer. Hendrick van Balen specialised in small cabinet pictures often painted on a copper ...
started creating these pictures which consist of an image (usually devotional) which is encircled by a lush still life wreath. The paintings were collaborations between two specialists: a still life and a figure painter.
Daniel Seghers
Daniël Seghers or Daniel Seghers (3 December 1590 – 2 November 1661) was a Flemish Jesuit brother and Flemish Baroque painter, painter who specialized in flower still lifes. He is particularly well known for his contributions to the genre of ...
developed the genre further. Originally serving a devotional function, garland paintings became extremely popular and were widely used as decoration of homes.
A special genre of still life was the so-called pronkstilleven (Dutch for 'ostentatious still life'). This style of ornate still-life painting was developed in the 1640s in Antwerp by Flemish artists such as
Frans Snyders
Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders (11 November 1579, Antwerp – 19 August 1657, Antwerp) was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still lifes. He was one of the earliest specialist animaliers and he is credited with ...
and Adriaen van Utrecht. They painted still lifes that emphasized abundance by depicting a diversity of objects, fruits, flowers and dead game, often together with living people and animals. The style was soon adopted by artists from the
Dutch Republic
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
.
Especially popular in this period were
vanitas
A ''vanitas'' (Latin for 'vanity') is a symbolic work of art showing the temporality, transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death. Best-kn ...
paintings, in which sumptuous arrangements of fruit and flowers, books, statuettes, vases, coins, jewelry, paintings, musical and scientific instruments, military insignia, fine silver and crystal, were accompanied by symbolic reminders of life's impermanence. Additionally, a skull, an hourglass or pocket watch, a candle burning down or a book with pages turning, would serve as a moralizing message on the ephemerality of sensory pleasures. Often some of the fruits and flowers themselves would be shown starting to spoil or fade to emphasize the same point.
File:Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts 005.jpg, Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts (c. 1660–1683), ''Trompe-l'œil'' (c. 1680),
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 19 ...
File:Thielen, Jan Philip van - A Vase of Flowers.jpg,
Jan Philip van Thielen
Jan Philip van Thielen or Jan Philips van Thielen (1618 in Mechelen – 1667 in Booischot) was a Flemish painter who specialized in flower pieces and garland paintings. He was a regular collaborator with leading Flemish and Dutch figure pai ...
(1618–1667), ''Vase of Flowers'' (c. 1660),
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...
,
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
File:Vanitas-Still Life, Oosterwijck.jpg, Maria van Oosterwijk, ''Vanitas-Still Life'' (1693)
File:Still Life with a Pewter Jug and Two Porcelain Plates by Jan Treck.jpg, Jan Jansz. Treck (1606–1652), ''Still Life Pewter Jug and Two Porcelain Plates'' (1645)
File:Lubin Baugin 001.jpg, Lubin Baugin (c. 1610–1663), ''Le Dessert de gaufrettes'' (c. 1631),
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
Another type of still life, known as ''ontbijtjes'' or "breakfast paintings", represent both a literal presentation of delicacies that the upper class might enjoy and a religious reminder to avoid gluttony. Around 1650 Samuel van Hoogstraten painted one of the first wall-rack pictures, ''trompe-l'œil'' still-life paintings which feature objects tied, tacked or attached in some other fashion to a wall board, a type of still life very popular in the United States in the 19th century. Another variation was the ''trompe-l'œil'' still life depicted objects associated with a given profession, as with the Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrecht's painting "Painter's Easel with Fruit Piece", which displays all the tools of a painter's craft. Also popular in the first half of the 17th century was the painting of a large assortment of specimens in allegorical form, such as the "five senses", "four continents", or "the four seasons", showing a goddess or allegorical figure surrounded by appropriate natural and man-made objects. The popularity of vanitas paintings, and these other forms of still life, soon spread from Holland to
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
and Germany, and also to Spain and France.
The Netherlandish production of still lifes was enormous, and they were very widely exported, especially to northern Europe; Britain hardly produced any itself. German still life followed closely the Dutch models; Georg Flegel was a pioneer in pure still life without figures and created the compositional innovation of placing detailed objects in cabinets, cupboards, and display cases, and producing simultaneous multiple views.
Dutch, Flemish, German and French paintings
File:Peter Paul Rubens - Diana Returning from Hunt - WGA20290.jpg,
Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradi ...
, ''Diana Returning from the Hunt'', still life elements by a specialist (c. 1615)
File:Rembrandt - Still-Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl - WGA19253.jpg, Rembrandt, ''Still-Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl'' (c. 1639)
File:Willem Claesz. Heda - Still-Life with Pie, Silver Ewer and Crab - WGA11248.jpg, Willem Claeszoon Heda (1594–1680), ''Still Life with Pie, Silver Ewer and Crab'' (1658)
File:Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (Dutch - Flower Still Life - Google Art Project.jpg,
Ambrosius Bosschaert
Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (18 January 1573 – 1621) was a Flemish-born Dutch still life painter and art dealer.Samuel van Hoogstraten
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten (2 August 1627, in Dordrecht – 19 October 1678, in Dordrecht) was a Dutch painter of the Golden Age, who was also a poet and author on art theory.
Biography
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten trained first with his fat ...
, ''Feigned Letter Rack with Writing Implements'' (c. 1655)
File:P boel martwa natura globus l.jpeg,
Pieter Boel
Pieter Boel or Peeter Boel (baptized on 10 October 1622 – 3 September 1674) was a Flemish painter, printmaker and tapestry designer. He specialised in lavish still lifes and animal paintings. He moved to Paris, where he worked in the gobel ...
(1626–1674), ''Still Life with a Globe and a Parrot'' (c. 1658)
File:Pieter Claesz. - Still-life - WGA4968.jpg,
Pieter Claesz
Pieter Claesz (c. 1597 – 1 January 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes.
Biography
He was born in Berchem, Belgium, near Antwerp, where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1620. He moved to Haarlem in 1620, wher ...
Jan Davidsz. de Heem
Jan Davidsz. de Heem or in-full ''Jan Davidszoon de Heem'', also called ''Johannes de Heem'' or ''Johannes van Antwerpen'' or ''Jan Davidsz de Hem'' (c. 17 April 1606 in Utrecht – before 26 April 1684 in Antwerp), was a still life painter wh ...
(1606–1684), ''Still Life with Fruit, Flowers, Glasses and Lobster'' (c. 1660s)
File:Stilleben. Frukt. Binoit - Skoklosters slott - 22175.tif,
Peter Binoit
Peter Binoit (''c․''1590 – 14 May 1632) was a German still life painter active during the early Baroque era at the beginning of the 17th century, who worked in Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , ...
, 1618,
Skokloster Castle
Skokloster Castle ( sv, Skoklosters slott) is a Swedish Baroque castle built between 1654 and 1676 by Carl Gustaf Wrangel, located on a peninsula of Lake Mälaren between Stockholm and Uppsala. It became a state museum in the 1970s and displays co ...
.
File:Pieter Claesz. 008.jpg,
Pieter Claesz
Pieter Claesz (c. 1597 – 1 January 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes.
Biography
He was born in Berchem, Belgium, near Antwerp, where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1620. He moved to Haarlem in 1620, wher ...
(c. 1597–1660), ''Still Life with Salt Tub''
File:Osias Beert the Elder - Dishes with Oysters, Fruit, and Wine - Google Art Project.jpg,
Osias Beert
Osias Beert or Osias Beert the Elder (c. 1580 – 1623) was a Flemish painter active in Antwerp who played an important role in the early development of flower and "breakfast"-type still lifes as independent genres in Northern European art. He ...
the Elder, Dishes with Oysters, Fruit, and Wine
File:George Flegel Still-Life with Bread and Confectionary.jpg, George Flegel (1566–1638), ''Still-Life with Bread and Confectionery'', 1630
Southern Europe
In
Spanish art
Spanish art has been an important contributor to Western art and Spain has produced many famous and influential artists including Velázquez, Goya and Picasso. Spanish art was particularly influenced by France and Italy during the Baroque a ...
, a
bodegón
The term ''bodega'' in Spanish can mean "pantry", "tavern", or "wine cellar". The derivative term ''bodegón'' is an augmentative that refers to a large ''bodega'', usually in a derogatory fashion. In Spanish art, a ''bodegón'' is a still life p ...
is a still-life painting depicting pantry items, such as victuals, game, and drink, often arranged on a simple stone slab, and also a painting with one or more figures, but significant still-life elements, typically set in a kitchen or tavern. Starting in the Baroque period, such paintings became popular in Spain in the second quarter of the 17th century. The tradition of still-life painting appears to have started and was far more popular in the contemporary
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
, today
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
and
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
(then Flemish and Dutch artists), than it ever was in southern Europe. Northern still lifes had many subgenres; the ''breakfast piece'' was augmented by the ''
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
'', the ''flower bouquet'', and the ''
vanitas
A ''vanitas'' (Latin for 'vanity') is a symbolic work of art showing the temporality, transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death. Best-kn ...
''.
In Spain there were much fewer patrons for this sort of thing, but a type of ''breakfast piece'' did become popular, featuring a few objects of food and tableware laid on a table. Still-life painting in Spain, also called bodegones, was austere. It differed from Dutch still life, which often contained rich banquets surrounded by ornate and luxurious items of fabric or glass. The game in Spanish paintings is often plain dead animals still waiting to be skinned. The fruits and vegetables are uncooked. The backgrounds are bleak or plain wood geometric blocks, often creating a surrealist air. Even while both Dutch and Spanish still life often had an embedded moral purpose, the austerity, which some find akin to the bleakness of some of the Spanish plateaus, appears to reject the sensual pleasures, plenitude, and luxury of Dutch still-life paintings.
Even though Italian still-life painting (in Italian referred to as ''natura morta'', "dead nature") was gaining in popularity, it remained historically less respected than the "grand manner" painting of historical, religious, and mythic subjects. On the other hand, successful Italian still-life artists found ample patronage in their day. Furthermore, women painters, few as they were, commonly chose or were restricted to painting still life; Giovanna Garzoni, Laura Bernasconi,
Maria Theresa van Thielen
Maria Theresia van Thielen (7 March 1640 – 11 February 1706) was a Flemish Baroque painter.''Arnold Houbraken's Grosse Schouburgh Der Niederlandischen'' ''Maler'', Arnold Houbraken, 2008, p.342, Google BooksBGoogle-18C(German).
Biography
Ma ...
, and
Fede Galizia
Fede Galizia, better known as Galizia, ( 1578 – 1630) was an Italian Renaissance painter of still-lifes, portraits, and religious pictures. She is especially noted as a painter of still-lifes of fruit, a genre in which she was one of the earlie ...
are notable examples.
Many leading Italian artists in other genre, also produced some still-life paintings. In particular, Caravaggio applied his influential form of naturalism to still life. His '' Basket of Fruit'' (c. 1595–1600) is one of the first examples of pure still life, precisely rendered and set at eye level. Though not overtly symbolic, this painting was owned by Cardinal
Federico Borromeo
Federico Borromeo (18 August 1564 – 21 September 1631) was an Italian cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, a prominent figure of Counter-Reformation Italy.
Early life
Federico Borromeo was born in Milan as the second son of Giulio Cesare Borrom ...
and may have been appreciated for both religious and aesthetic reasons. Jan Bruegel painted his ''Large Milan Bouquet'' (1606) for the cardinal, as well, claiming that he painted it 'fatta tutti del natturel' (made all from nature) and he charged extra for the extra effort. These were among many still-life paintings in the cardinal's collection, in addition to his large collection of curios. Among other Italian still life,
Bernardo Strozzi
Bernardo Strozzi, named il Cappuccino and il Prete Genovese (c. 1581 – 2 August 1644) was an Italian Baroque painter and engraver. A canvas and fresco artist, his wide subject range included history, allegorical, genre and portrait paintin ...
's ''The Cook'' is a "kitchen scene" in the Dutch manner, which is both a detailed portrait of a cook and the game birds she is preparing. In a similar manner, one of Rembrandt's rare still-life paintings, ''Little Girl with Dead Peacocks'' combines a similar sympathetic female portrait with images of game birds.
In Catholic Italy and Spain, the pure vanitas painting was rare, and there were far fewer still-life specialists. In Southern Europe there is more employment of the soft naturalism of Caravaggio and less emphasis on hyper-realism in comparison with Northern European styles. In France, painters of still lifes (''nature morte'') were influenced by both the Northern and Southern schools, borrowing from the vanitas paintings of the Netherlands and the spare arrangements of Spain.
Italian gallery
File:Fede Galizia - Still-Life - WGA8434.jpg,
Fede Galizia
Fede Galizia, better known as Galizia, ( 1578 – 1630) was an Italian Renaissance painter of still-lifes, portraits, and religious pictures. She is especially noted as a painter of still-lifes of fruit, a genre in which she was one of the earlie ...
(1578–1630), ''Apples in a Dish'' (c. 1593)
File:Basket111.jpg,
Fede Galizia
Fede Galizia, better known as Galizia, ( 1578 – 1630) was an Italian Renaissance painter of still-lifes, portraits, and religious pictures. She is especially noted as a painter of still-lifes of fruit, a genre in which she was one of the earlie ...
, (1578–1630), ''Maiolica Basket of Fruit'' (c. 1610),
private collection
A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individu ...
File:Giovanna Garzoni (Italian) - Still Life with Bowl of Citrons - Google Art Project.jpg, Giovanna Garzoni (1600–1670), ''Still Life with Bowl of Citrons'' (1640), tempera on vellum,
Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...
,
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California
Pacific Palisades is a neighborhood in the Westside region of Los Angeles, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles.
Pacific Palisades was formally founded in 1921 by a Methodist organization, and in the years that followed b ...
File:Still life of fish and shellfish - Giacomo Francesco Cipper.jpg, Giacomo Francesco Cipper (1664–1736), ''Still Life of Fish and Shellfish''
Eighteenth century
The 18th century to a large extent continued to refine 17th-century formulae, and levels of production decreased. In the
Rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
style floral decoration became far more common on
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
,
wallpaper
Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so ...
, fabrics and carved wood furnishings, so that buyers preferred their paintings to have figures for a contrast. One change was a new enthusiasm among French painters, who now form a large proportion of the most notable artists, while the English remained content to import. Jean-Baptiste Chardin painted small and simple assemblies of food and objects in a most subtle style that both built on the Dutch Golden Age masters, and was to be very influential on 19th-century compositions. Dead game subjects continued to be popular, especially for hunting lodges; most specialists also painted live animal subjects.
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Jean-Baptiste Oudry (; 17 March 1686 – 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game. His son, Jacques-Ch ...
combined superb renderings of the textures of fur and feather with simple backgrounds, often the plain white of a lime-washed larder wall, that showed them off to advantage.
By the 18th century, in many cases, the religious and allegorical connotations of still-life paintings were dropped and kitchen table paintings evolved into calculated depictions of varied colour and form, displaying everyday foods. The French aristocracy employed artists to execute paintings of bounteous and extravagant still-life subjects that graced their dining table, also without the moralistic vanitas message of their Dutch predecessors. The
Rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
love of artifice led to a rise in appreciation in France for ''
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
'' (French: "trick the eye") painting. Jean-Baptiste Chardin's still-life paintings employ a variety of techniques from Dutch-style realism to softer harmonies.
The bulk of
Anne Vallayer-Coster
Anne Vallayer-Coster (21 December 1744 – 28 February 1818) was a major 18th-century French painter best known for still lifes. She achieved fame and recognition very early in her career, being admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture e ...
's work was devoted to the language of still life as it had been developed in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Michel 1960, p. i During these centuries, the genre of still life was placed lowest on the hierarchical ladder. Vallayer-Coster had a way about her paintings that resulted in their attractiveness. It was the "bold, decorative lines of her compositions, the richness of her colours and simulated textures, and the feats of illusionism she achieved in depicting wide variety of objects, both natural and artificial" which drew in the attention of the Royal Académie and the numerous collectors who purchased her paintings. This interaction between art and nature was quite common in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
,
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
and French still lifes. Her work reveals the clear influence of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, as well as 17th-century Dutch masters, whose work has been far more highly valued, but what made Vallayer-Coster's style stand out against the other still-life painters was her unique way of coalescing representational illusionism with decorative compositional structures.Berman 2003
The end of the eighteenth century and the fall of the
French monarchy
France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions.
Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I () as the firs ...
closed the doors on Vallayer-Coster's still-life 'era' and opened them to her new style of florals.Michel 1960, p. ii It has been argued that this was the highlight of her career and what she is best known for. However, it has also been argued that the flower paintings were futile to her career. Nevertheless, this collection contained floral studies in oil, watercolour and
gouache
Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...
.
File:Trompe l'oeil, Carl Hofverberg, 1737 - Livrustkammaren - 89011.tif, Carl Hofverberg (1695–1765), ''Trompe-l'œil'' (1737), Foundation of the Royal Armoury, Sweden
File:Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin 029.jpg, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, ''Still Life with Glass Flask and Fruit'' (c. 1750)
File:Cholmondeley Oudry White Duck.jpg,
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Jean-Baptiste Oudry (; 17 March 1686 – 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game. His son, Jacques-Ch ...
, ''The White Duck'' (1753), stolen from
Houghton Hall
Houghton Hall ( ) is a country house in the parish of Houghton in Norfolk, England. It is the residence of David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley.
It was commissioned by the ''de facto'' first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Wa ...
in 1990
File:Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies, and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge - Rachel Ruysch - Google Cultural Institute.jpg,
Rachel Ruysch
Rachel Ruysch (3 June 1664 – 12 October 1750) was a Dutch still-life painter from the Northern Netherlands. She specialized in flowers, inventing her own style and achieving international fame in her lifetime. Due to a long and successful caree ...
, ''Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies, and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge'' (1680s)
File:Attributes of Music.jpg,
Anne Vallayer-Coster
Anne Vallayer-Coster (21 December 1744 – 28 February 1818) was a major 18th-century French painter best known for still lifes. She achieved fame and recognition very early in her career, being admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture e ...
, ''The Attributes of Music'' (c. 1770)
File:Carlo Manieri (attr) Prunkstillleben.jpg, Carlo Manieri, ''Still Life with Silverware'', Pronkstilleven (1662–1700)
File:Still Life with Lobster.jpg,
Anne Vallayer-Coster
Anne Vallayer-Coster (21 December 1744 – 28 February 1818) was a major 18th-century French painter best known for still lifes. She achieved fame and recognition very early in her career, being admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture e ...
, ''Still Life With Lobster'' (c. 1781)
File:Attributes of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture.jpg,
Anne Vallayer-Coster
Anne Vallayer-Coster (21 December 1744 – 28 February 1818) was a major 18th-century French painter best known for still lifes. She achieved fame and recognition very early in her career, being admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture e ...
, ''The Attributes of Painting'' (c. 1769)
Nineteenth century
With the rise of the European Academies, most notably the Académie française which held a central role in
Academic art
Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie ...
, still life began to fall from favor. The Academies taught the doctrine of the "
Hierarchy of genres
A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value.
In literature, the epic was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by Samuel Johns ...
" (or "Hierarchy of Subject Matter"), which held that a painting's
artistic merit
Artistic merit is the artistic quality or value of any given work of art, music, film, literature, sculpture or painting.
Obscenity and literary merit
The 1921 US trial of James Joyce's novel '' Ulysses'' concerned the publication of the ''Naus ...
was based primarily on its subject. In the Academic system, the highest form of painting consisted of images of historical, Biblical or mythological significance, with still-life subjects relegated to the very lowest order of artistic recognition. Instead of using still life to glorify nature, some artists, such as John Constable and Camille Corot, chose landscapes to serve that end.
When Neoclassicism started to go into decline by the 1830s, genre and portrait painting became the focus for the Realist and Romantic artistic revolutions. Many of the great artists of that period included still life in their body of work. The still-life paintings of
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...
,
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and ...
, and
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
convey a strong emotional current, and are less concerned with exactitude and more interested in mood. Though patterned on the earlier still-life subjects of Chardin,
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bo ...
's still-life paintings are strongly tonal and clearly headed toward Impressionism.
Henri Fantin-Latour
Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.
Biography
He was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-La ...
, using a more traditional technique, was famous for his exquisite flower paintings and made his living almost exclusively painting still life for collectors.
However, it was not until the final decline of the Academic hierarchy in Europe, and the rise of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, that technique and colour harmony triumphed over subject matter, and that still life was once again avidly practiced by artists. In his early still life,
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...
shows the influence of Fantin-Latour, but is one of the first to break the tradition of the dark background, which Pierre-Auguste Renoir also discards in ''Still Life with Bouquet and Fan'' (1871), with its bright orange background. With Impressionist still life, allegorical and mythological content is completely absent, as is meticulously detailed brush work. Impressionists instead focused on experimentation in broad, dabbing brush strokes, tonal values, and colour placement. The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists were inspired by nature's colour schemes but reinterpreted nature with their own colour harmonies, which sometimes proved startlingly unnaturalistic. As Gauguin stated, "Colours have their own meanings."Ebert-Schifferer, p. 318 Variations in perspective are also tried, such as using tight cropping and high angles, as with ''Fruit Displayed on a Stand'' by
Gustave Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte (; 19 August 1848 – 21 February 1894) was a French painter who was a member and patron of the Impressionists, although he painted in a more realistic manner than many others in the group. Caillebotte was known for his early ...
, a painting which was mocked at the time as a "display of fruit in a bird's-eye view."
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
's "Sunflowers" paintings are some of the best-known 19th-century still-life paintings. Van Gogh uses mostly tones of yellow and rather flat rendering to make a memorable contribution to still-life history. His ''Still Life with Drawing Board'' (1889) is a self-portrait in still-life form, with Van Gogh depicting many items of his personal life, including his pipe, simple food (onions), an inspirational book, and a letter from his brother, all laid out on his table, without his own image present. He also painted his own version of a vanitas painting ''Still Life with Open Bible, Candle, and Book'' (1885).
In the United States during Revolutionary times, American artists trained abroad applied European styles to American portrait painting and still life.
Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American Painting, painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolu ...
founded a family of prominent American painters, and as major leader in the American art community, also founded a society for the training of artists as well as a famous museum of natural curiosities. His son
Raphaelle Peale
Raphaelle Peale (sometimes spelled Raphael Peale) (February 17, 1774 – March 4, 1825) is considered the first professional American painter of still-life.
Biography
Peale was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the fifth child, though eldest survivin ...
was one of a group of early American still-life artists, which also included John F. Francis,
Charles Bird King
Charles Bird King (September 26, 1785 – March 18, 1862) was an American portrait artist, best known for his portrayals of significant Native American leaders and tribesmen. His style incorporated Dutch influences, which can be seen most promi ...
, and John Johnston. By the second half of the 19th century, Martin Johnson Heade introduced the American version of the habitat or biotope picture, which placed flowers and birds in simulated outdoor environments. The American ''
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
'' paintings also flourished during this period, created by
John Haberle
John Haberle (1856–1933) was an American painter in the ''trompe-l'œil'' (literally, "fool the eye") style. His still lifes of ordinary objects are painted in such a way that the painting can be mistaken for the objects themselves. He is consid ...
, William Michael Harnett, and John Frederick Peto. Peto specialized in the nostalgic wall-rack painting while Harnett achieved the highest level of hyper-realism in his pictorial celebrations of American life through familiar objects.
Nineteenth-century paintings
File:Naturaleza muerta con botellas, frutas y pan por Goya.jpg,
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...
, ''Still Life with Fruit, Bottles, Breads'' (1824–1826)
File:Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix 054.jpg,
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
, ''Still Life with Lobster and trophies of hunting and fishing'' (1826–1827),
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
File:Cailebotte - Nature Morte.jpg,
Gustave Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte (; 19 August 1848 – 21 February 1894) was a French painter who was a member and patron of the Impressionists, although he painted in a more realistic manner than many others in the group. Caillebotte was known for his early ...
, (1848–1894), ''Yellow Roses in a Vase'' (1882),
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...
File:Sillett - Tulips in a Vase, with a Caterpillar.jpg, James Sillett, ''Tulips in a Vase, with a Caterpillar'' (undated), Norfolk Museums Collections
File:Roses Grapes Tablecloth by Fantin-Latour.jpg,
Henri Fantin-Latour
Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.
Biography
He was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-La ...
, (1836–1904), ''White Roses, Chrysanthemums in a Vase, Peaches and Grapes on a Table with a White Tablecloth'' (1867)
File:Paul Cézanne 052.jpg,
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
(1839–1906), ''The Black Marble Clock'' (1869–1871), private collection
File:Cassatt Mary Lilacs in a Window 1880.jpg,
Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...
, (1844–1926), ''Lilacs in a Window'' (1880)
File:Monet-Still-Life-with-Apples-and-Grapes-1880.jpg,
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...
(1840–1926), ''Still-Life with Apples and Grapes'' (1880), Art Institute of Chicago
File:Edouard Manet 011.jpg,
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bo ...
(1832–1883), ''Carnations and Clematis in a Crystal Vase'' (1883), Musée d'Orsay, Paris
File:Paul Gauguin 116.jpg,
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
, ''Still Life with Apples, a Pear, and a Ceramic Portrait Jug'' (1889),
Fogg Museum
The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...
,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
File:William Michael Harnett After the Hunt 1883.jpg,
William Harnett
William Michael Harnett (August 10, 1848 – October 29, 1892) was an Irish-American painter known for his trompe-l'œil still lifes of ordinary objects.
Early life
Harnett was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland during the time of the Gr ...
(1848–1892), ''After the Hunt'' (1883)
File:William Michael Harnett Still life Violin and Music.jpg,
William Harnett
William Michael Harnett (August 10, 1848 – October 29, 1892) was an Irish-American painter known for his trompe-l'œil still lifes of ordinary objects.
Early life
Harnett was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland during the time of the Gr ...
(1848–1892), ''Still life violin and music'' (1888),
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
File:Civil War trompe l'oeil by Boston Public Library.jpg,
Darius Cobb
Darius Cobb (August 6, 1834 – April 23, 1919) was a noted American painter. Cobb was considered to be one of America's best painters during his lifetime, as well as a painter of society portraits, landscape, religious themes and historical cos ...
(1834–1919), an American Civil War ''trompe-l'œil'' composition, here in a
chromolithograph
Chromolithography is a method for making multi-colour prints. This type of colour printing stemmed from the process of lithography, and includes all types of lithography that are printed in colour. When chromolithography is used to reproduce ...
print
File:Paul Cézanne 195.jpg,
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
, ''Still Life with Cherub'' (1895),
Courtauld Institute Galleries
The Courtauld Gallery () is an art museum in Somerset House, on the Strand in central London. It houses the collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art, a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the hist ...
, London
Twentieth century
The first four decades of the 20th century formed an exceptional period of artistic ferment and revolution. Avant-garde movements rapidly evolved and overlapped in a march towards nonfigurative, total abstraction. The still life, as well as other representational art, continued to evolve and adjust until mid-century when total abstraction, as exemplified by
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
's drip paintings, eliminated all recognizable content.
The century began with several trends taking hold in art. In 1901,
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
painted ''Still Life with Sunflowers'', his homage to his friend Van Gogh who had died eleven years earlier. The group known as Les Nabis, including Pierre Bonnard and
Édouard Vuillard
Jean-Édouard Vuillard (; 11 November 186821 June 1940) was a French painter, decorative artist and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, he was a prominent member of the Nabis, making paintings which assembled areas of pure color, and interior sc ...
, took up Gauguin's harmonic theories and added elements inspired by Japanese woodcuts to their still-life paintings. French artist Odilon Redon also painted notable still life during this period, especially flowers.
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
reduced the rendering of still-life objects even further to little more than bold, flat outlines filled with bright colours. He also simplified perspective and introducing multi-colour backgrounds. In some of his still-life paintings, such as ''Still Life with Eggplants'', his table of objects is nearly lost amidst the other colourful patterns filling the rest of the room. Other exponents of Fauvism, such as
Maurice de Vlaminck
Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 we ...
and
André Derain
André Derain (, ; 10 June 1880 – 8 September 1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.
Biography
Early years
Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Yvelines, Île-de-France (region), Île-de-Franc ...
, further explored pure colour and abstraction in their still life.
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
found in still life the perfect vehicle for his revolutionary explorations in geometric spatial organization. For Cézanne, still life was a primary means of taking painting away from an illustrative or mimetic function to one demonstrating independently the elements of colour, form, and line, a major step towards Abstract art. Additionally, Cézanne's experiments can be seen as leading directly to the development of
Cubist
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
still life in the early 20th century.Ebert-Schifferer, p. 311
Adapting Cézanne's shifting of planes and axes, the Cubists subdued the colour palette of the Fauves and focused instead on deconstructing objects into pure geometrical forms and planes. Between 1910 and 1920, Cubist artists like
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
painted many still-life compositions, often including musical instruments, bringing still life to the forefront of artistic innovation, almost for the first time. Still life was also the subject matter in the first Synthetic Cubist collage works, such as Picasso's oval "Still Life with Chair Caning" (1912). In these works, still-life objects overlap and intermingle barely maintaining identifiable two-dimensional forms, losing individual surface texture, and merging into the background—achieving goals nearly opposite to those of traditional still life. Fernand Léger's still life introduced the use of abundant white space and coloured, sharply defined, overlapping geometrical shapes to produce a more mechanical effect.
Rejecting the flattening of space by Cubists,
Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
and other members of the
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...
movement, went in a radically different direction, creating 3-D "ready-made" still-life sculptures. As part of restoring some symbolic meaning to still life, the
Futurists
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...
and the Surrealists placed recognizable still-life objects in their dreamscapes. In Joan Miró's still-life paintings, objects appear weightless and float in lightly suggested two-dimensional space, and even mountains are drawn as simple lines. In Italy during this time,
Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi (July 20, 1890 – June 18, 1964) was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bo ...
was the foremost still-life painter, exploring a wide variety of approaches to depicting everyday bottles and kitchen implements. Dutch artist
M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher (; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.
Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for most of his life neglected in t ...
, best known for his detailed yet ambiguous graphics, created ''Still life and Street'' (1937), his updated version of the traditional Dutch table still life. In England
Eliot Hodgkin
Eliot Hodgkin (19 June 1905 – 30 May 1987) was an English painter, born at Purley Lodge, Purley-on-Thames, near Pangbourne, Berkshire."Eliot Hodgkin ''Painter & Collector'', p. 7
Hodgkin began with oil painting in the late 1920s and in 1937 ...
was using
tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...
for his highly detailed still-life paintings.
When 20th-century American artists became aware of European
Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
, they began to interpret still-life subjects with a combination of
American realism
American Realism was a style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important te ...
and Cubist-derived abstraction. Typical of the American still-life works of this period are the paintings of
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin.
Early life and education
Hartley was born ...
, and the photographs of
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...
. O'Keeffe's ultra-closeup flower paintings reveal both the physical structure and the emotional subtext of petals and leaves in an unprecedented manner.
In Mexico, starting in the 1930s, Frida Kahlo and other artists created their own brand of Surrealism, featuring native foods and cultural motifs in their still-life paintings.
Starting in the 1930s, abstract expressionism severely reduced still life to raw depictions of form and colour, until by the 1950s, total abstraction dominated the art world. However, pop art in the 1960s and 1970s reversed the trend and created a new form of still life. Much pop art (such as
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
's "Campbell's Soup Cans") is based on still life, but its true subject is most often the commodified image of the commercial product represented rather than the physical still-life object itself. Roy Lichtenstein's ''Still Life with Goldfish Bowl'' (1972) combines the pure colours of Matisse with the pop iconography of Warhol.
Wayne Thiebaud
Morton Wayne Thiebaud ( ; November 15, 1920 – December 25, 2021) was an American painter known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his la ...
's ''Lunch Table'' (1964) portrays not a single family's lunch but an assembly line of standardized American foods.
The Neo-dada movement, including
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
, returned to Duchamp's three-dimensional representation of everyday household objects to create their own brand of still-life work, as in Johns' ''Painted Bronze'' (1960) and ''Fool's House'' (1962). Avigdor Arikha, who began as an abstractionist, integrated the lessons of Piet Mondrian into his still lifes as into his other work; while reconnecting to old master traditions, he achieved a
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
formalism
Formalism may refer to:
* Form (disambiguation)
* Formal (disambiguation)
* Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary
* Formalism (linguistics)
* Scie ...
, working in one session and in natural light, through which the subject-matter often emerged in a surprising perspective.
A significant contribution to the development of still-life painting in the 20th century was made by Russian artists, among them Sergei Ocipov,
Victor Teterin
Victor Kuzmich Teterin (russian: Ви́ктор Кузьми́ч Тете́рин; October 25, 1922 in Bakharevo, Tver Province, Soviet Russia – October 1, 1991 in Leningrad, USSR) was a Russian painter, watercolorist, and art teacher, who li ...
,
Evgenia Antipova
Evgenia Petrovna Antipova (russian: Евге́ния Петро́вна Анти́пова; 19 October 1917 – 27 January 2009) was a Russian Soviet painter, watercolorist, graphic artist, and Art teacher, a member of the Saint Petersburg Unio ...
,
Gevork Kotiantz
Gevork Vartanovich Kotiantz ( hy, Գևորգ Վարդանի Կոթյանց; russian: Гево́рк Варта́нович Котья́нц; 12 November 1909 in Shusha, Shusha uezd, Elizavetpol Governorate, Russian Empire – 28 August 1996 in S ...
Taisia Afonina
Taisia Kirillovna Afonina (russian: Таи́сия Кири́лловна Афо́нина; 13 May 1913 – 19 April 1994) was a Ukrainian and Russian painter and watercolorist. She lived and worked in Leningrad, was a member of the Saint ...
,
Maya Kopitseva
Maya Kuzminichna Kopitseva (russian: Ма́йя Кузьми́нична Копы́тцева; May 18, 1924, in Gagry, Abkhazia, USSR – June 6, 2005, in Saint Petersburg) was a Soviet Russian still-life painter and an Honored Artist of the RS ...
, and others.Sergei V. Ivanov, ''Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School.'' – Saint Petersburg: NP-Print Edition, 2007. – 448 p. , .
By contrast, the rise of Photorealism in the 1970s reasserted illusionistic representation, while retaining some of Pop's message of the fusion of object, image, and commercial product. Typical in this regard are the paintings of
Don Eddy
Don Eddy (born 1944) is a contemporary representational painter.Martin, Alvin. "Spaces of the Mind: New paintings by Don Eddy," ''Arts'', February 1987, p. 22–3.Baker, Kenneth"Don Eddy,"''Artforum'', March 1972. Retrieved March 4, 2021. He ga ...
and
Ralph Goings
Ralph Goings (May 9, 1928 – September 4, 2016) was an American painter closely associated with the Photorealism movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was best known for his highly detailed paintings of hamburger stands, pick-up trucks ...
.
Twentieth-century paintings
File:Matisse - Dishes and Fruit (1901).jpg,
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
(1869–1954), ''Dishes and Fruit'' (1901),
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the largest ...
,
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, Russia
File:Redon.flowers.jpg, Odilon Redon (1840–1916), ''Flowers'' (1903)
File:Violin and Candlestick.jpg, Georges Braque (1882–1963), ''Violin and Candlestick'' (1910),
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...
File:26. Bodegón.jpg,
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
(1887–1927), ''Nature morte'' (1913), Museo Thyssen Bornemisza
File:Brooklyn Museum - Handsome Drinks - Marsden Hartley - overall.jpg,
Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin.
Early life and education
Hartley was born ...
(1877–1943), ''Handsome Drinks'' (c. 1916), Brooklyn Museum
File:Leger beer mug.jpg, Fernand Léger (1881–1955), ''Still Life with a Beer Mug'' (1921),
Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
File:Compotier avec fruits, violon et verre.jpg,
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
During the 20th and 21st centuries, the notion of the still life has been extended beyond the traditional two dimensional art forms of painting into video art and three dimensional art forms such as sculpture, performance and installation. Some mixed media still-life works employ found objects, photography, video, and sound, and even spill out from ceiling to floor and fill an entire room in a gallery. Through video, still-life artists have incorporated the viewer into their work. Following from the computer age with
computer art
Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many tradit ...
and
digital art
Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media.
Since the 1960s, various name ...
, the notion of the still life has also included digital technology. Computer-generated graphics have potentially increased the techniques available to still-life artists.
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for t ...
photorealistic
Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...
effects are used to generate synthetic still life images. For example,
graphic art software
Graphic art softwareBob Gordon, Maggie Gordon ''The Complete Guide to Digital Graphic Design '', 15 March 2002 pp:44 is a subclass of application software used for graphic design, multimedia development, stylized image development, technical il ...
includes filters that can be applied to 2D vector graphics or 2D raster graphics on transparent layers.
Visual art
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...
ists have copied or visualised 3D effects to manually render photorealistic effects without the use of filters.
See also
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Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence.
The new Dutch Republ ...
*
List of Dutch painters
This is a list of Dutch painters who were born and/or were primarily active in the Netherlands. For artists born and active in the Southern Netherlands, see the List of Flemish painters. The artists are sorted by century and then alphabetically b ...
*
Vanitas
A ''vanitas'' (Latin for 'vanity') is a symbolic work of art showing the temporality, transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death. Best-kn ...
Still life photography
Still life photography is a genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects. Similar to still life painting, it is the application of photography to the still life artistic style. Ta ...
Notes
References
* Berman, Greta “Focus on Art”. The Juilliard Journal Online 18:6 (March 2003)
* Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille. ''Still Life: A History'', Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1998,
* Langmuir, Erica, ''Still Life'', 2001, National Gallery (London),
* Michel, Marianne Roland. "Tapestries on Designs by Anne Vallayer-Coster." The Burlington Magazine 102: 692 (November 1960): i–ii
* Slive, Seymour, ''Dutch Painting, 1600–1800'', Yale University Press, 1995,
* Vlieghe, Hans (1998). Flemish Art and Architecture, 1585–1700 '. Yale University Press Pelican history of art. New Haven: Yale University Press.