Wednesday, December 9, 2009
11:06:00 AM ●

the life which is my life..the life is what your life..!
hees, be happy awaes..!
TheLife.;)

A still life (plural still lifes [1]) is a work of art depicting mostly inaminate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on) in an artificial setting. With origins in ancient times and most popular in Western art since the 17th century, still life paintings give the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscape or portraiture. Still life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. Some modern still life breaks the two-dimensional barrier and employs three-dimensional mixed media, and uses found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound.

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. Similar still life, more simply decorative in intent, but with realistic perspective, have also been found in the Roman wall paintings and floor mosaics unearthed at Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villa Boscoreale, 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.[2] 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).[3] These vanitas images have been re-interpreted through the last 400 years of art history, starting with Dutch painters around 1600.[4]
The popular appreciation of the realism of still life painting is related in the ancient Greek legend of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who are said to have once competed to create the most life-like objects, history’s earliest descriptions of trompe l’oeil painting.[5] As Pliny the Elder recorded in ancient Roman times, Greek artists centuries earlier were already advanced in the arts of portrait painting and still life. He singled out Peiraikos, “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 [paintings] of many other artists.”[6]

[edit] Middle Ages and Renaissance
By 1300, starting with Giotto and his pupils, still life painting was revived in the form of fictional niches on religious wall paintings which depicted everyday objects.[7] Through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 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.[8] Painters like Jan van Eyck often used still life elements as part of an iconographic program.
The development of oil painting 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 colors.[9] Among the first to break free of religious meaning were Leonardo da Vinci, who created watercolor studies of fruit (around 1495) as part of his restless examination of nature, and Albrecht Dürer who also made precise drawings of flora and fauna.[10]
Petrus Christus’ 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.[11] 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.[6] Another step toward the autonomous still life was the painting of symbolic flowers in vases on the back of secular portraits around 1475.[12] Jacopo de’ Barbari went a step further with his Still Life with Partridge, Iron Gloves, and Crossbow Arrows (1504), among the earliest signed and dated trompe l’oeil still life paintings, which contains minimal religious content.

Sixteenth century

Annibale Carracci, Butcher's Shop (1583)
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, a practical extension of this new knowledge. In addition, wealthy patrons began to underwrite the collection of animal and mineral specimens, creating extensive “curio cabinets”. 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 (imported to Europe from Turkey), were celebrated in still life paintings.[14] The horticultural explosion was of wide spread 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 court in Florence, Italy.[15] 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.[16]
By the second half of the 16th century, the autonomous still life evolved.[17] Gradually, religious content diminished in size and placement in these painting, though moral lessons continued as sub-contexts. An example is “The Butcher Shop” by Joachim Beuckelaer (1568), with its realistic depiction of raw meats dominating the foreground, while a background scene conveys the dangers of drunkenness and lechery.[18] Annibale Carracci’s treatment of the same subject in 1583 begins to remove the moral messages, as did other “kitchen and market” still life paintings of this period.[19]


Even though Italian still life painting was gaining in popularity, it remained historically less respected than the "grand manner" painting of historical, religious, and mythic subjects. Prominent Academicians of the early 1600s, like Andrea Sacchi, felt that genre and still life painting did not carry the "gravitas" merited for painting to be considered great. On the other hand, successful Italian still life artists found ample patronage in their day.[20] Furthermore, women painters, few as they were, commonly chose or were restricted to painting topics such as still life, Giovanna Garzoni, Laura Bernasconi, and Fede Galizia for example.
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.[21] Though not overtly symbolic, this painting was owned by Cardinal Borromeo 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.[22] 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’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.[23] 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.[24]
Still life came into its own in the new artistic climate of the Netherlands in the 17th century (with the name stilleven: still life is a calque while Romance languages (and Russian) tend to use terms meaning dead nature). While artists found limited opportunity to produce the religious iconography which had long been their staple—images of religious subjects were forbidden in the 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.[25] 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.[26] 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 color, arranging, brushwork, preparation of specimens, harmony, composition, perspective, etc.[27]
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.[28]
Dutch artists also branched out and revived the ancient Greek still-life tradition of trompe l’oeil, particularly the imitation of nature or mimesis, which they termed bedriegertje (“little deception”).[29] 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.[30]

Juan Sánchez Cotán, Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber (1602)
Especially popular in this period were vanitas 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.
Another type of still life, known as “breakfast paintings”, represent both a literal presentation of delicacies that the upper class might enjoy and a religious reminder to avoid gluttony.[31] In another Dutch innovation, around 1650 Samuel van Hoogstraten painted one of the first wall-rack pictures, trompe l’oeil 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.[32] Another variation was the trompe l’oeil 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.[33] 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 “the four seasons”, showing a goddess or allegorical figure surrounded by appropriate natural and man-made objects.[34] The popularity of vanitas paintings, and these other forms of still life, soon spread from Holland to Flanders and Germany, and also to Spain[35] and France.
German still life followed closely the Dutch models. German painter 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.[36] 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.[37] 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.[38] 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.[39]......

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