''Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber'', commonly known as ''Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber'', is a c. 1602 oil on canvas painting by Spanish painter

Juan Sánchez Cotán Juan Sánchez Cotán (June 25, 1560 – September 8, 1627) was a Spanish Baroque painting, Spanish Baroque painter, a pioneer of realism in Spain. His still lifes and ''bodegón, bodegones'' were painted in an austere style, especially when com ...

. It is a

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

painting of various fruits and vegetables. It is considered to be Cotán's masterpiece, and is on display at the

San Diego Museum of Art The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine art museum in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. It opened as the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego on February 28, 1926, and changed ...

Background

was a wealthy Spanish

painter, active in

Toledo Toledo most commonly refers to: * Toledo, Spain, a city in Spain * Province of Toledo, Spain * Toledo, Ohio, a city in the United States Toledo may also refer to: Places Belize * Toledo District * Toledo Settlement Bolivia * Toledo, Or ...

in the early 17th century. His best paintings are considered to be of fruits and vegetables.Grootenboer 2005, p. 123. He later abandoned still lifes for religious figures after joining a

Carthusian The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians (), are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its own rule, called th ...

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

Composition

''Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber'', commonly known as ''Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber'', was painted c. 1602. It is an oil on canvas painting.Kallendorf 2018, p. 441. In the painting, the titular food items are displayed on a window ledge, left to right. The quince and cabbage are suspended above the ledge by a thread, which was a common way of preserving food in the 17th century.Hodge 2016, p. 65.Robbins 2022, p. 151. The ledge is classified as a ''

bodegón The term ''bodega'' in Spanish language, Spanish can mean "pantry", "tavern", or "wine cellar". In general usage, the derivative term ''bodegón'' is an augmentative that refers to a large ''bodega'', usually in a derogatory fashion. In Spanish ar ...

.'' The painting is notable for its sculpture-like rendering of the food, as well as its illusory perspective; the cabbage and quince seem to be pushed backward from the melon, and the cucumber in front of it. Author Hanneke Grootenboer notes a strong contrast between the detail of the objects and the black background; even without any depth portrayed in the background, the depth can still be felt. Author

Norman Bryson William Norman Bryson (born 1949) is an Anglo American art historian who authored several major works that were particularly influential in the 1980s and 1990s. He graduated with a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1977, and subsequently worked ...

notes how the objects seem to be divorced from their purpose as a means of people's nourishment, which is derived from the objects' motionlessness and weightlessness, comparative to other still lifes. The order of the geometric shapes are used in the painting not as a tool to help illustrate the subject, but the geometrical order seems to be "explored for tsown sake". The separation between the objects and their purpose as nourishment may be intentional, as fasting was practiced by the Carthusians in an attempt to distance the human body from the material world. The black background may add to this idea. As author

Siri Hustvedt Siri Hustvedt (born February 19, 1955) is an American novelist and essayist. Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, seven novels, two books of essays, and several works of non-fiction. Her books include ''The Blindfold'' (1992), ''The Encha ...

writes, "This space can't be seen as a reference to any actual space. It is intentionally unreal and abstract, and it he backgroundrepresents not a solid wall but infinity. This is food as sacred gift shining inside a system of precise relations ordained by God". Cotán joined the Carthusians in 1603 or 1604, yet they are still seen as an influence.

Legacy

In 1818, the exiled former king of Spain,

Joseph Bonaparte Joseph Bonaparte (born Giuseppe di Buonaparte, ; ; ; 7 January 176828 July 1844) was a French statesman, lawyer, diplomat and older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. During the Napoleonic Wars, the latter made him King of Naples (1806–1808), an ...

, sold the painting to the

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1805, it is the longest continuously operating art museum and art school in the United States. The academy's museum ...

. The painting is currently on display at the

. John Marciari, the museum's curator of European art, said the painting is "universally acclaimed" as Cotán's masterpiece. For many years, the painting's purpose and historical background have been debated. American painter John Clem Clarke did a

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 b ...

version of the artwork in 1970. In 2006, Israeli photographer Ori Gersht recreated the painting, but replaced the quince with a pomegranate, which was then hit with a bullet to represent violence in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

.{{Cite news , last=Seymour , first=Tom , last2=Seymour , first2=Interview by Tom , date=2016-05-11 , title=Ori Gersht's best photograph: a bullet hitting a pomegranate at 1,600 frames per second , url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/may/11/ori-gershts-best-photograph-a-bullet-hitting-a-pomegranate-at-1600-frames-per-second , access-date=2024-02-08 , work=The Guardian , language=en-GB , issn=0261-3077

References

1602 paintings Spanish Renaissance Still life paintings Paintings of fruit

Sources

*Shimamura, Arhur (2015). ''Experiencing Art: In the Brain of the Beholder'', Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199791538 * Grootenboer, Hanneke (2005.) ''The Rhetoric of Perspective: Realism and Illusionism in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Still-Life Painting'', University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226309705 * Bryson, Norman (2013). ''Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting'', Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781780232522 * Hustvedt, Siri (1998). ''Yonder: Essays'', Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9780805050110 * Hustvedt, Siri (2006). ''Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting'', Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 9781568986180 * Hodge, A.N. (2016). ''The History of Art'', Rosen Publishing Group. ISBN 9781499464030 * Kallendorf, Hilaire (2018). A Companion to the Spanish Renaissance, Brill. ISBN 9789004360372 * Robbins, Jeremy (2022). ''Incomparable Realms: Spain During the Golden Age, 1500–1700'', Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781789145380 * Jane Milosch, Nick Pearce (2019). ''Collecting and Provenance: A Multidisciplinary Approach'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 9781538127582 * Holt, Elizabeth Gilmore (2022). ''A Documentary History of Art, Volume 2: Michelangelo and the Mannerists, The Baroque and the Eighteenth Century'', Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691242910