3. Jacopo de' Barbari
Still Life with Partridge and Gauntlet
1504
oil on wood, ~20”x16”
Considered the first ”modern”
European still life since antiquity
4. Caravaggio - Bacchus, 1595-97, detail
The overflowing cornucopian basket in
Caravaggio’s Bacchus contained a
signpost for future still life painting.
8. Still-Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber (c. 1600)
by Juan Sanchez Cotan
An innovative compositional format — from 1600!
9. Related composition by Sean Beavers, one of many
painters today who are “boxing” the still life subject.
10. Still-Life with Quince Pears (c. 1887-1888) by Vincent Van Gogh
Typical 17th century Dutch still life. Everything here — the general abundance, the booze, the enameled silverware and fancy glass, the
orange and the cooked crab (both at the time exotic fare available only to the wealthy) — is intended to signify the comforts of “having
made it” and to imply the affluent social status of the patron who could afford to buy and display such a painting in his home.
11. Vanitas Still Life, 1603
Jacques de Gheyn II (Netherlandish, 1565–1629)
Oil on woodn Sanchez Cotan
Still Life with Lobster and Fruit, 1650s
Abraham van Beyeren (Dutch, 1620/21–1690)
Oil on wood; 38 x 31 in. (96.5 x 78.7 cm)
V a n i t a s
12. Vanitas still life paintings like this one were a favorite among the Dutch, who read such
symbols of mortality as “memento mori” — reminders that life is fleeting and that one
should look to the condition of one’s soul through faith in God.
13. Chardin- 1699-1779
Chardin dispensed with the heavy symbolism of still life, creating a lyrical visual world in
which ordinary, even humble objects become worthy of attention for their beauty alone.
14. Chardin - Pheasant and hunting Bag
It’s perhaps no coincidence that this still life of Chardin’s
harkens back to the early example in slide #1.
18. Chardin- The Attributes of Music
Here Chardin drawn upon the Dutch masters but his composition is original and the symbolism (except
perhaps for the one unlit candle) is entirely allegorical and without moral dimension.
19. Chardin- The Ray
In this genius-level painting, Chardin included a partially flayed skate and a very alive hissing, predatory
cat, moving still life beyond the merely beautiful to suggest the strangeness and brutality of nature.
20. Goya- Still Life with Golden Bream
In his few still life paintings, Goya in the 1700s stripped the genre of its artifice and
stressed the raw facts of visual truth and death without symbolism or lyrical beauty.
21. In his few still life paintings, Goya in the 1700s stripped the genre of its artifice and
stressed the raw facts of visual truth and death without symbolism or lyrical beauty.
22. Corot - Flowers in a glass beside a tobacco pot
Camille Corot in the early to mid 1800s approached still life with an honesty and directness
that stressed "objective” naturalism and the observational aspect of the painter’s task.
28. Vincent van Gogh
Paintings of real life that look
like no one else’s (because van
Gogh felt and saw and had the
courage to paint the life of
ordinary humanity).
61. An aside: this
portrait was
done using
only a pencil.
The question
is… why?
(Given time, anyone
could copy a sexist
magazine photo
to prove how
awesome they are.
Technique is JUST
technique. Painters
aren’t obligated to
reproduce objects
realistically.)
62. Emil Carlsen - early 20th c. - An example of what I’d call “poetic” still life painting
122. Again, today there are literally thousands of “me too” painters making technically impressive yet
unimaginative (and in large part nearly identical) still life paintings. This requires little more than a few
online tutorials and lot of patience. But there are exceptions, as we’ve also seen. Sadie Jernigan Valeri is
someone whose still life paintings are traditional, yet imaginative and lyrical. Note the self-portrait in the
silver jug.
123. This is 20th century Spanish master Antonia Lopez Garcia’s still life “Remains of a Meal.” This nearly white-on-white
painting elevates the still life genre out of the merely “cool to look at” or “decorative,” as it’s called. It does what great
art does - it brings the viewer right up against his or her basic humanity. Although the painting is exquisitely composed,
the way it seemingly casually crops some objects and centers on others, it ends up documenting one of the most basic
facts of human life – namely, that despite all our civilizing (denoted by table cloth, neatly placed utensil, water glass)
we are “only” human, and as liable as any other animal to leave a mess of bones and torn animal flesh after “feeding.”
124. The Lopez Garcia painting is here being quoted by contemporary post-modern painter Alex
Kanevsky, a professor of painting at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. Kanevsky keeps the
white-on-white starkness of the earlier work, and he ups the ante by replacing the “remains of a
meal” with what looks like the shred of some animal’s (human?) internal organ (it’s further unsettling
that we don’t know exactly what that bloody-fleshy thing is, but whatever it might be, we know it’s
not something anybody should be eating).
125. Finally, the Lopez Garcia is effectively quoted again in this etching by young Spanish painter Alejandro Marco
Montalvo. Here, replacing the fork with a paintbrush and the food with a bone, the artist gives this image an
entirely new meaning, harkening back in a casual way to the 17th century Dutch tradition of “vanitas” still
lifes we saw earlier, in which the painter includes symbolism intended to act as reminders of human
mortality.
126. It’s what you say, not just what you can do, that counts.