Research point 2- 17th century Dutch & flower painters & subsequent developments to the present day Project: Still Life The Dutch Golden Age of painting coincided with a period of stability and wealth in the newly independent Dutch Republic. The development of still life as a subject for painting arose through a shift away from classical and religious subject matter to genres more suitable for the homes of the newly wealthy merchant classes. One of these genres was the still life. Towards the end of the 17th century, an interest in secular, domestic subjects made household objects, bowls of fruit, musical instruments, fabrics, dead game animals and birds, bottles and glass bowls the subjects of the highest level of scrutiny and analysis. These paintings weren’t just technical exercises. The objects in a picture frequently had an underlying significance, perhaps relating to the role or status of the person who commissioned the work. (The description and interpretation of the content of images is called iconography.) Sometimes these paintings were meditations on mortality with the presence of a skull or other motifs representing death. Paintings of this sort are often known as ‘vanitas’ paintings. The Dutch masters used still life as a way to explore the technical and artistic possibilities of applying paint. Their hyper-real works are a celebration of the beauty of the external world. They pushed painting to new boundaries in their rendering of light on and through glass, in exploring colour, texture and tonal arrangements. Research point Look at the work of some of the 17th century Dutch still life and flower! painters. Make notes on paintings that you especially admire and find out more about the! techniques that were employed at that time. Research at least one painting that has! iconographic significance. Which of the objects depicted carry particular meaning and! what was that meaning?! Then explore the development of still life through the eighteenth, nineteenth and! twentieth centuries. For example, look at how traditional still life subjects were dealt with! in some early Cubist paintings by Braque and Picasso. Investigate how some! contemporary artists are interpreting this genre.! Academies for painting were established across Europe during the 18th century although they first arose in Italy in the 16th century. They replaced and supplemented the medieval painters' guilds. The single most influential academy, the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in , was founded in 1648. [source: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/glossary/academy ] Throughout the 'Academy' system of learning painting skills an official list existed which detailed which paintings were more important than others - "The hierarchy of genres". The term 'Academic Art' refers to painting and sculpture produced under the influence of the various Academies in Europe (especially in France - 19th century) where many artists received their formal training. [source: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/academic-art.html ] The hierarchy is as follows: • History painting (classical, mythological, literary and religious subjects and events) • Portriature (portrait painting) • Genre painting (scenes from everyday life - containing people, animals, still life objects, bits of landscape, although interior scenes were more common) • (wide-open vistas, but also included cityscapes, seascapes, waterscapes) - anything found in physical geography • Animal painting (such as horse paintings) • Still Life painting (containing no living objects [source: http://arthistory.about.com/od/academic-art-academies/tp/The-Hierarchy-of-Genres-in-Academic-Art.htm ] With particular regard to genre painting, the Phaidon Press (1994) The art book. London: Phaidon Press, p504 states that it is: 'Painting that depicts scenes of everyday life rather than idealised or religious subjects [as with history painting for example]. Genre painting was particularly popular in Holland in the 17th century, and artists often specialised in subjects such as tavern scenes (see Jan Steen), musical parties or simple interiors (see Jan Vermeer). The style became more prevalent elsewhere in the 18th century with the work of Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin in France, Pietro Longhi in Italy and William Hogarth in England.' It is interesting to note that in genre painting there were often compositions of every day items laid out in still life form. For example, Johannes Vermeer’s ‘The Milkmaid’ (1658-1660) shows a table laid out with jugs, bread basket and pieces of bread as part of the overall composition of the every day life of the milkmaid:

[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age_painting ] However, what marked still life as different in western art was the fact that the subject matter of the painting or sculpture dealt with was inanimate - ‘anything that does not move or is dead’ - such as man-made objects like jugs, natural objects, flowers, fruit, vegetables, fish, game, wine and the like. [source: Tate Museum Glossary: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120203094030/http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=286 Still life painting flourished during the 17th century Golden Age of the Dutch Republic and is generally recognised as beginning with the Flemish-born flower painter Ambrosius Bosschaert (1573 - 1621). These painting were usually fairly brightly lit showing bouquets of simply arranged flowers: Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573-1621) Roses, tulips, anemone, cyclamen and other flowers in a porcelain vase [source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosius_Bosschaert ]. From the mid-17th century still life arrangements became more ‘chiaroscuro’ or baroque in style painted on dark grounds. The Delft-born artist Willem van Aelst (1627 - 1683) represents this approach as can be seen in ‘Still life with a watch’, c1665, with a typical dark background:

[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willem_van_Aelst_-_Bloementuil.jpg ] There were a variety of themes explored throughout this period of still life painting, including ‘vanitas’, and ‘ostentatious’ or ‘pronkstilleven’. ‘Vanitas’ still life paintings were concerned with imparting some form of moralistic message, often about the brevity of life and often included clear symbols such as broken eggs, half-peeled fruit and even in some instances, a skull. The Belgian-born artist Pieter Claesz’s works ‘Vanitas’ of 1625 (below left) and 1630 (below right) are good examples of this style of still life painting, showing skills of handling the details of texture and surfaces as well as realistic light effects:

[sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Claesz and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age_painting ] Skull and bones, the dying of the light, deterioration of flowers, fruit and even parchment, and the vanity of the mirrored glass and maybe even a ‘key’ to what comes after? The Hague-born artist Abraham Van Bereyen’s ‘Banquet Still Life’ of 1660 is an example of the ‘ostentatious’ or ‘pronkstilleven’ still life format, showing a wide range of objects which would seem to be beyond the reach of the majority of the populace such as expensive goblets, intricately patterned table cloth or tapestry, exotic fruit, oysters and lobster! - maybe more directed towards the Dutch middle class. And, what does the wee mouse on the silver platter above the knife signify? - wow, what a feast:

[source: http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/beyeren/index.html ] The Haarlem-born artist Willem Claeszoon Heda’s still life paintings often depicted reflective surfaces, as can be seen in his ‘Breakfast Table with Blackberry Pie’, 1631:

[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age_painting ] The Utrecht-born artist Jacob Gillig was well known for his still life paintings of dead fish, as can be seen here in his work ‘Freshwater Fish’, 1684, with its evocative composition of river detritus, fishing nets, cork floats and (of course) caught fish:

[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Gillig ] The Brussels-born portrait painter Philippe de Champaigne painted a very clear ‘vanitas’ style still life in 1671 entitled ‘Still-Life with a Skull’ showing the classic tryptic images of all of our essential histories - life, death and time - which, in essence, sums up the fundamental underlying themes of still life painting throughout the ages: [source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:StillLifeWithASkull.jpg ] In the 18th century, Jean Siméon Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Oudry are among the many eighteenth-century heirs to the Dutch tradition of still life painting. [source: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nstl/hd_nstl.htm ] Born in Paris, Jean Siméon Chardin was greatly influenced by the domestic genre of 17th century Dutch art, and as well as genre scenes he is considered a master of still life, expressing ‘the life of inanimate objects’ [source: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jean-simeon-chardin ].

[Jean-Siméon Chardin, Still Life with Glass Flask and Fruit, oil on canvas, c 1728. image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Baptiste_Siméon_Chardin_029.jpg ]. In ‘Still life with glass flask and fruit’, the reflected light on the glass flask and silver help to illustrate Chardin’s own statement on painting, “Who said one paints with colours? One employs colours, but one paints with feeling.” The French artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry is renowned mainly as a designer of tapestries and as one of the outstanding animal painters of the 18th century, excelling in hunting scenes and still life compositions with dead game. Like Chardin, he employed the effects of chiaroscuro, light/dark and reflections. [source: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=541 ].

[Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Still life with dead game and peaches in a landscape, oil on canvas, 1727. image source: Birmingham Museum of Art http://www.artsbma.org/ - image copied to .pages, saved as .pdf, imported to Photoshop and extracted as newly manipulated .jpg image]. Compare the intricacies of this still life with the more simplistic, though nonetheless effective, starkness of ‘A hare and a leg of lamb’ painted by Oudry in 1742: ‘Oudry used a starkly simple composition and sterile background to emphasize his virtuosity in depicting textures, a highly desirable skill of still-life painters at this time. These artists were aiming for the highest level of accuracy -- an effect of the Enlightenment, the contemporary intellectual movement that emphasized scientific reasoning in all pursuits. These paintings were generally displayed in hunting lodges or dining rooms, as a glorification of the hunt and the bounty it brings. --David Silvernail (March 2013)’ [Jean-Baptiste Oudry, A hare and a leg of lamb, oil on canvas, 1742. Source: Cleveland Museum of Art and image source: http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1969.53?collection_search_query=Jean- Baptiste +Oudry&year_operator=1&year=&year_era=1&year_end=&year_end_era=1&op=search&form_bui ld_id=form-D3YbKNH- Zh2F7n6nYWqxEfj3TY9aUObLeKgAHboFEVs&form_id=clevelandart_collection_search_form ]. Before moving on to the 19th century, I decided to take a look back before the 17th century. One reason for this are two images I have on the wall of my studio by the 16th century Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo. The other reason is the image I came across by the late 17th, early 18th century painter Edward Collier and his ‘Still Life’ of 1699. Arcimboldo’s forte was creating imaginative portrait heads made up of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish and books. [source: http://www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org ]. The two images that are resonating with me here are one by Arcimboldo and one by Collier. [Giuseppe Arcimboldo, The Librarian, 1566] [Edward Collier, Still Life, 1699. image source: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120203144956/http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=2465&tabview=image ] The reason I have picked this out is because of how I perceive these two images. As a still-chartered librarian, I have always related to the Arcimboldo - the manuscripts-body, book- head & hair and bookmark-hand with the curtain drape cloak, all painted in dark and light. As for the Collier still life, there is a similar arrangement of objects and perspective that depict, to my eye, the image of a ‘worldly’ globe-head with helmet, with quill and ink-well nose and mouth. Even the grey strip of a mouth on the page behind the quill is evocative of ‘speech’. And the Latin motto on the table bottom-left translates as ‘Life is short, but art endures’. Still life artists of the 19th century such as Fantin-Latour, Cézanne and, in the United States, Raphaelle Peale took still life painting in new directions. [source: http://www.artspan.co.uk/still-life-painting#.UtLY03kg_qt ].

The French painter, Henri Fantin-Latour was well known for his flower paintings and still lives although he was better known in England than in his homeland during his lifetime. As an example of his work, ‘Dahlias’, 1873, shows the rich colour combinations he favoured, arriving ‘by oppositions to arrive at harmony’. [source: Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums - http://www.aagm.co.uk/thecollections/objects/object/Dahlias ].

[image source: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/henri-fantin-latour/dahlias-1873 ] Raphaelle Peale was one of a group of early American still life painters that included John F. Francis, Charles Bird King and John Johnston applying European styles to their work [source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still-life ]. Most of Peale's paintings are small in scale, and depict a few objects—usually foodstuffs—arranged on a tabletop before a darkened background, such as his still life ‘Melons and morning glories’, 1813:

[image source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Melons_and_Morning_Glories.JPG ] Paul Cézanne’s still life paintings concentrated on familiar items and explored ways of encapsulating his vision and explorations of the organisation of space, colour, form and line, later influencing Abstract art and Cubist still life in the 20th century. His ’Still life with water jug’, c1892-3 (Nature morte à la cruche), is an example of how he perceived perspective as a combination of views, as in this case with the fat-bellied jug and fruit:

[source: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120203144956/http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=2116 ].

It is interesting to note the change from painting on dark ground to light ground with Cézanne’s work.

Other 19th century artists who included still lifes in their body of work were: Francisco Goya ‘Still life with fruit, bottles, breads’, 1824-26; Eugène Delacroix ‘Still life with lobster and trophies of hunting and fishing’, 1826-27; Mary Cassatt ‘Lilacs in the window’, 1880; ‘Still life with apples and grapes’, 1880; Paul Gauguin ‘Still life with apples, a pear, and a ceramic portrait jug’, 1889. [source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still-life ].

One of the best known still life paintings of the 19th century is arguably Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’, 1888:

[image source: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/vincent-van-gogh-sunflowers ] Painting in tones of yellow built up in layers (impasto) the resulting impression is a highly textured representation of the dying sunflowers, one of four such painting he completed between August and September 1888. The blue background/foreground line and signature are striking and mixed with yellow provide the green of the stems and foliage.

As with Cézanne, it is interesting to note that the move from using a dark ground on which to build the still life composition, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were among the first to also adopt this technique. This can be seen particularly in Monet’s ‘Still life with melons’, 1872, with light bluish-grey background and Renoir’s ‘Still life with bouquet and fan’, 1871, with its bright orange background. [image sources: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/claude-monet/still-life-with-melon and http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/pierre-auguste-renoir/still-life-with-bouquet-1871 ]

As well as these changes to using lighter grounds, the ‘impressionist’ still life artists were more concerned with experimenting with broad, dabbing brush strokes, tonal values and the placement of colour, moving away from the fascination with detailed brush work and mythological or allegorical subject matter of their predecessors.

Late 19th and early 20th century artists such as continued the link back to Chardin and his ‘Still life with oranges (II)’, 1899, displays the newly adopted ‘lightness’ and ‘impressionistic’ depiction of everyday objects in colourful patterns:

[image source: http://www.henri-matisse.net/paintings/ad.html ]. In the early 20th century artists such as Georges Braque and painted many still life compositions, focusing particularly on stripping back objects to their fundamental geometrical shapes and planes. Known as ‘cubist’ artists, their work displays a ‘modern’ interplay of overlapping forms and shapes, producing results that were far removed from traditional still life painting.

Georges Braque’s still life ‘Bottle and fishes’, c1910-2, does indeed deal with ‘traditional’ still life objects such as ‘a bottle and fishes on a plate, laid on a table with a drawer’ , but these ‘objects’ have been almost ‘morphed’ or ‘shattered’ into something disjointed and ephemeral. It is also worth noting the use of a more neutral (monochromatic) palette, picking out the individual objects in the overall composition:

[image source: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/braque-bottle-and-fishes-t00445 Pablo Picasso’s still life painting ‘Bowl of fruit, violin and bottle’, 1914, also shows an interpretation of a table-top composition, but this time with a ‘collage’ type finish, where the coloured areas seem to resemble coloured paper cut-outs affixed to the canvas:

[image source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/picasso-bowl-of-fruit-violin-and-bottle-l01895 However, Picasso also extended traditional still life composition into 3D space. His ‘Still life’, 1914, demonstrates this through the medium of relief constructions - this one based on the appearance of a table top with real upholstery material fringe, with painted knife, beer glass, sausage slices and cheese/pâtè - ‘the incorporation of found objects … helping to establish a new freedom in the artist’s choice of materials.’ [source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/picasso-still-life-t01136 ]:

One example of innovative mid-20th century still life is the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi, with his sensitive tonal and balanced still life compositions of bottles and vases - simple (in the best sense of that word) executions of visual art as meditation. His 1946 ‘almost sculptural’ painting ‘Natura morta’ (still life) shows this clearly:

[image source: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/morandi-still-life-n05782 ]. The 1934 lithograph ‘Still life with reflecting globe’ by Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, continues to show the fascination with ‘table top’ compositions, but using different viewpoints through space and distance:

[image source: Escher, M.C. (1972) The graphic work of M.C. Escher. London: Pan/Ballantine. print 50]

The American artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s close-up paintings of natural forms relate to a still life inheritance, as shown here in her 1937 painting ‘Two pink shells/pink shell’:

[image source: http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/natural-and-still-life-forms.html ].

The Abstract Expressionist painters of the period spanning the 1930’s to the 1950’s reduced paintings to basic form and colour. For example, artists such as Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollok, while their styles varied, all produced large scale works of abstract forms and expressive brushwork. Their central theme was ‘the human condition’ - creation, life, struggle and death - of particular relevance to the year’s surrounding the Second World War. [source: https://www.clyffordstillmuseum.org/clyfford-still ]. By the 1960’s and 70’s ‘pop art’ creations were again picking up on the still life form. Much of Andy Warhol’s ‘pop iconography’ pieces were based on the still life form, such as his 1967 ‘Ten Foot Flowers’:

[image source: http://www.museum-frieder-burda.de/Andy-Warhol-bei-Sommerausstell.618.0.html ]

And the series of still life paintings made by Roy Lichenstein between 1972 and 1974 using the imagery of the comic strip and commercial advertising referred back to a previous age, using the work of Henri Matisse as inspiration. For example, Lichtenstein’s 1974 ‘Still life with Goldfish’ repeats the image of the goldfish bowl found in Matisse’s ‘Goldfish’, 1914-15: [image sources: http://www.henri-matisse.net/paintings/bga.html ] http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/roy-lichtenstein/still-life-with-goldfish-1974 ]. Matisses’s influence on artists is wide ranging, including on the like J.D. Fergusson (‘Still life’, c1920, , p325); F.C.B. Cadell (‘The red chair’, 1920, Scottish Art, p328); Leslie Hunter (‘Still life with a green tablecloth’, c1921, Scottish Art, p330); and also on later artists such as Anne Redpath (‘Still life with orange chair’, 1944, Scottish Art, p366). The principal reason for this being the use of strong colour, total relationships and line to define the picture. [MacMillan, D. (2000) Scottish Art 1460-2000. Edinburgh: Mainstream.] [Anne Redpath ‘Still life with orange chair, 1944. image source: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/151081762473026112/ ]. In the 20th century, innovative art movements such as Cubism and Pop Art helped to inform others such as Photorealism. Still life remains a popular genre and while some artists take a traditional approach, others see it as a vehicle to explore new artistic possibilities or to convey political or social meaning. [source: http://www.artspan.co.uk/still-life-painting#.UtLWdHkg_qt ]. Now in the 21st century, still life artists make use of technology (photography, videography, sound, computers and digital art) as well as traditional visual art methods. Other references: Recently, BBC 4 Television aired an informative documentary on the still life genre ‘Apples, pears and paint: how to make a still life painting: a look at the history of still life painting, featuring a range of delights from the earliest existing Xenia mural paintings found at Pompeii to the cubist masterpieces of Picasso’, (aired 5th January 2014, 20:30 to 22:00). Spookily, this conceded with my purchase of Michael Petry’s ‘Nature morte: contemporary artists reinvigorate the still life tradition’. (2013). London: Thames & Hudson. This comprehensive and well illustrated (391 illustrations) document of the still life genre begins with a concise and informative chapter on the history of the genre ‘Revisiting the still life’. The remainder of the book is divided into chapters dealing with the main still life themes: flora; food; house & home; fauna; and finally death. From the fine array of contemporary still life images to chose from in this book (too many to mention), my eye has been drawn to a two page spread (pages 236-237) which show firstly Elizabeth Peyton’s 2009 still life ‘Cezanne & Balzac’, painted in oil on linen on board, depicting the coming together of the groundbreaking painting style of Cezanne and the literary work of Balzac that so influenced the birth of modern fiction - two different artists, two different art forms - both ‘addressing memory, visual symbolism and loss’ (p236). The strong use of colour, line and symbols (skull, red poppy, book) seem to encapsulate for me the ‘story’ to be told here in a still life painting: [image source: http://elizabethpeyton.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/elizabeth-peyton-vanidad-de-vanidades/cezannebalzacweb/ ]. The opposite page (p237) presents two modern still life interpretations reflecting back to the Dutch still lives of the 17th century. One, a photographic still life by Alexander James in 2011 presents an evocative image of flowers, a skull and a butterfly, shot underwater in a large tank - ‘Vanitas, ‘The great leveler’:

[image source: http://www.multyshades.com/2011/12/the-vanitas-series-a-fresh-take-on-an-old-theme/ ]. The other image on that page is by the Iranian artist Shirana Shahbazi, whose 2009 ‘Stilleben-33-2009’ is a crisp digital photographic silver based archival C-print on aluminium: [image source: http://blog.yummyink.com/2012/05/shiran-shahbazi.html ]. Having also looked through the two Phaidon ‘Vitamin P’ books on the course reading list, I have picked out the following two examples of 21st century still lifes of note, exhibiting use of colour, form and line to inhabit the space on the canvas: Verne Dawson, ‘Still life (Art supplies)’, 2000:

[Schwabsky, B (2002) Vitamin P: new perspectives in Painting, Phaidon Press. p76] Gillian Carnegie, ‘Yellow wall’, 2009: [Phaidon Editors, (2011) Vitamin P2 : New Perspectives in Painting. p72] http://www.contemporary-still-life.com - An overview of contemporary still life painters. http://www.independent.co.uk - Visual arts: is there still life in the 20th century? (Tom Lubbock, Tuesday 14th October 1997). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_life - online article. http://bigthink.com/Picture-This/is-this-what-still-life-for-the-21st-century-will-look-like - online article, (Bob Duggan, April 18th 2012). http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/07/american-still-life-paintings-by-pamela-michelle-johnson-food- art/ - online article, (Michelle Mettler, July 14th 2009). http://aponovich52.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/still-life-with-pears-plums-and.html - online blog of James Aponovich. Stuart Brownlee - OCA 512319: 15th January, 2014