Evolution of Still Life
Until the Renaissance, elements of still life, often imbued with symbolic or ritual significance, appeared as subordinate subject matter in religious or allegorical paintings. Hellenistic frescoes and mosaics from Pergamon, Alexandria, Rome, and Pompeii included depictions of plants and food in which a trompe l'oeil illusionism illusionism, in art, a kind of visual trickery in which painted forms seem to be real. It is sometimes called trompe l'oeil [Fr.,=fool the eye]. The development of one-point perspective in the Renaissance advanced illusionist technique immeasurably.
..... Click the link for more information. was often stressed. In early Christian and Byzantine religious paintings still-life elements were handled in a schematized and symbolic fashion until the end of the Middle Ages. Franco-Flemish paintings of the late Gothic era revealed close observation of natural details, as seen in much of the period's manuscript illumination illumination, in art, decoration of manuscripts and books with colored, gilded pictures, often referred to as miniatures (see miniature painting ); historiated and decorated initials; and ornamental border designs.
..... Click the link for more information. .
At the beginning of the Italian Renaissance such detail was handled far more formally and was utterly dominated by the religious theme of the work, as in the paintings of Giotto. By the 15th cent. still-life objects were used to enhance the illusion of scientific perspective perspective, in art, any method employed to represent three-dimensional space on a flat surface or in relief sculpture. Although many periods in art showed some progressive diminution of objects seen in depth, linear perspective, in the modern sense, was probably
..... Click the link for more information. , a subject of passionate study in the new humanism. At that time still life became a separate genre in Italy; it was used to great effect by masters of marquetry marquetry (mär`kətrē)
..... Click the link for more information. .
It was in the religious works of Northern European masters that the revival of the study of nature was most completely revealed. The van Eycks Hubert van Eyck, c.1370–1426, and
Jan van Eyck, c.1390–1441.
Their Lives
Very little is known of Hubert, the older of the two brothers.
..... Click the link for more information. , van der Weyden Weyden, Roger van der (vän dər vī`dən), c.1400–1464, major early Flemish master, known also as Roger de la Pasture.
..... Click the link for more information. , van der Goes Goes, Hugo van der (h
`gō vän dĕr g
..... Click the link for more information. , and Robert Campin Campin, Robert (käm`pĭn), 1378–1444, Flemish painter who with the van Eycks ranks as a founder of the Netherlandish school.
..... Click the link for more information. , to name but a few, observed carefully and recorded exactly objects of everyday use and subjects from nature. They incorporated these into religious works, giving them more and more importance until the still-life elements appeared in the foreground and diminished the religious, or landscape subject, as in the works of Aertsen Aertsen or Aertszen, Pieter (both: pē`tər ärt`sən)
..... Click the link for more information. and Beuckelaer.
Specialists in the handling of specific textures or effects such as glass, fur, plants, and the translucence of grapes came into being. Where Italian artists had communication with Northern masters, their works reflected the Northern interest in still-life subjects. The direction of this influence was reversed by the time of Caravaggio. Specialty pictures were the first major separate still lifes. These included works on the vanitas vanitatum theme featuring skull, hourglass, candle, book, and flowers in their iconography, as well as the banquet pieces that had become popular with collectors of 1600.
Still Life in the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries
Still life was developed as a separate genre primarily in the Netherlands in the works of Jan Bruegel (see under Bruegel Pieter Bruegel, the Elder, c.1525–1569, called Peasant Bruegel, studied in Antwerp with his future father-in-law, Pieter Coeck van Aelst, but was influenced primarily by Bosch . In 1551 he became a member of the Antwerp Guild. Bruegel visited Italy in the early 1550s.
..... Click the link for more information. , family), Rubens Rubens, Peter Paul, 1577–1640, foremost Flemish painter of the 17th cent., b. Siegen, Westphalia, where his family had gone into exile because of his father's Calvinist beliefs.
..... Click the link for more information. , Snyders Snyders, Frans (fräns snī`dərs), 1579–1657, most celebrated Flemish still-life and animal painter, b. Antwerp.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn or Ryn (rĕm`brănt, Du.
..... Click the link for more information. . In France still life was used in the 17th cent. primarily for trompe l'oeil exercises and not significantly elevated until it received brilliant handling by Chardin Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon (zhäN-bätēst`-sēmāôN` shärdăN`), 1699–1779, French painter.
..... Click the link for more information. in the 18th cent. French 19th-century masters, including Courbet Courbet, Gustave (güstäv` k
..... Click the link for more information. and Cézanne Cézanne, Paul (pōl sāzän`), 1839–1906, French painter, b. Aix-en-Provence.
..... Click the link for more information. , adopted still life wholeheartedly, giving it status equal to that of their other subjects. In the United States, Harnett Harnett, William Michael (här`nət), 1848–92, American painter, b. Ireland.
..... Click the link for more information. and Peto Peto, John F. (pē`tō), 1854–1907, American painter, b. Philadelphia.
..... Click the link for more information. used still life in order to display brilliant trompe l'oeil techniques.
Still Life in the Twentieth Century
In the 20th cent. both American and European artists' most characteristic subject matter was still life. The cubist artists, Picasso Picasso, Pablo (Pablo Ruiz y Picasso) (pä`blō pēkä`sō; r
..... Click the link for more information. , Braque Braque, Georges (zhôrzh bräk), 1882–1963, French painter.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Gris Gris, Juan (hwän grēs), 1887–1927, Spanish cubist painter, whose original name was José Victoriano González.
..... Click the link for more information. , painted still-life subjects predominantly. The artists in many schools of abstract painting, beginning with Cézanne and continuing to the present day, forsook the objective representation of still life and developed myriad varieties of treatment of the subject, concentrating on color, form, and composition. Occasionally they painted other subjects, applying to these their still-life stylistic techniques. The painters of the pop art pop art, a movement that first emerged in Great Britain at the end of the 1950s as a reaction against the seriousness of abstract expressionism . British and American pop artists employed a common imagery found in comic strips, soup cans, and Coke bottles to express
..... Click the link for more information. movement and their followers frequently criticized contemporary social values using, almost exclusively, still-life subject matter. They chose objects of popular culture relevant to their thesis such as soup cans and comic strips.
East Asian Still Life
In East Asia still-life subjects were depicted as early as the 11th cent. Chinese works were distinguished by brilliant brushwork and rapid execution. Objects were frequently endowed with symbolic import in both Chinese works and the Japanese compositions often derived from them. The importance of illusionistic representation of the object was minimized in East Asian Art, and in general its treatment of still life does not correspond with that of Western art.
Bibliography
See C. Sterling, Still Life Painting (rev. ed., tr. 1959, repr. 1981); W. H. Gerdts and R. Burke, American Still-Life Painting (1971); R. Gwynne, The Illustrated Guidebook to Still-Life Painting (2 vol., 1982); E. E. Rathbone and G. T. M. Shackelford, Impressionist Still Life (2001).
still life
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