Still-Life Painting

SECTION 6
Still-Life Painting

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Still-life painting, as a subject worthy in its own right,
produced it, yet abundance could also nudge the
seems to have appeared more or less simultaneously
conscience to contemplation of more weighty mat-
in Italy, northern Europe, and Spain in the sixteenth
ters. Paintings in which fruit rots, flowers wither,
century. Painters turned their focus on plants, ani-
insects nibble at leaves, and expensively set tables lie
mals, and man-made objects just as scientists and
asunder served as a memento mori or “reminder of
natural philosophers developed a new paradigm for
death,” intended to underscore life’s transience and
learning about the world that emphasized investi-
the greater weight of moral considerations.
gation over abstract theory. Exploration, by Spain
Still life did not rank high with art theorists.
and the Netherlands especially, increased interest
Hoogstraten (see p. 125) called still-life painters
in exotic specimens from around the globe and
“foot soldiers in the army of art.” Yet Dutch still-life
created a market for their accurate renderings.
paintings were hugely popular. They attracted some
Still-life painting also spoke more universally about
of the finest artists and commanded high prices.
the bounty of God’s creation and the nature of art
Many painters specialized in certain types of still
and life. “Simple” paintings of flowers and food
life, including pictures of flowers or game, banquet
could have complex appeal and various meanings
and breakfast pieces that depict tables set with food,
for viewers.
and vanitas still lifes, which reminded viewers of the
emptiness of material pursuits.
Ars longa, vita brevis (Art is long, life is short)
Painted images prolonged the experience of nature.
Finely painted flowers brought tremendous pleasure
during a cold Dutch winter. Permanence was consid-
ered a great virtue of art—it outlasts nature. Still life
reminded viewers of the prosperity of their repub-
lic. It is probably not a coincidence that it emerged
parallel with the world’s first consumer society. The
Dutch were proud of their wealth and the effort that
87

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Pieter Claesz, Dutch,
1596/1597–1660,
Breakfast Piece with
Stoneware Jug, Wine Glass,
Herring, and Bread, 1642,
oil on panel, 60
84
(235?8
33), Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston,
Bequest of Mrs. Edward
Wheelwright, 13.458
Willem Kalf, Dutch, 1619–
1693, Still Life, c. 1660, oil
on canvas, 64.4
53.8
(253?8
213?16), National
Gallery of Art, Washington,
Chester Dale Collection
88

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S T I L L- L I F E S U B J E C T S
Breakfast and Banquet Pictures
Pieter Claesz’ quiet tabletop still lifes, such as
this simple breakfast of fish, bread, and beer, have
extraordinary naturalism and directness. His warm,
muted colors echo the tonal qualities that appeared
in Haarlem landscapes around the same time (see
p. 74). Willem Kalf’s more sumptuous painting
reflects a later style, called pronkstileven, which
featured brighter colors and more opulent objects,
like this Chinese porcelain.
Game Pictures
Game pictures were especially sought by aristocratic
patrons (or those with aristocratic pretensions) who
alone had the land and means to practice the hunt.
In this large painting Jan Weenix combined a still
Jan Weenix, Dutch,
life—the textures of feathers and fur done with
1642–1719, Still Life with
remarkable skill—with a landscape. The sculpted
Swan and Game before a
Country Estate, c. 1685,
relief, pond, architectural follies, and garden statu-
oil on canvas, 142.9
ary would have been found on a patrician estate. The
173 (56¼
681?8),
National Gallery of Art,
painting, however, also has religious connotations:
Washington, Patrons’
the relief represents the Holy Family, and the depart-
Permanent Fund
ing dove beyond the dead swan probably relates to
Jan van Kessel, Flemish,
the freeing of the soul after death. Even the plants
1626–1679, Vanitas Still
reinforce the symbolism—bending before the plinth
Life, c. 1665/1670, oil on
copper, 20.3
15.2 (8
is a calendula, symbolically associated with death,
6), National Gallery of Art,
while the rose thorns in front recall Mary’s sorrows.
Washington, Gift of Maida
and George Abrams
Vanitas
Like the Flemish painter Jan van Kessel, some Dutch
painters also referred explicitly to the transience of
life by incorporating skulls, hourglasses, watches,
and bubbles. All these reminders of death serve to
underscore the “vanity” of life and the need to be
morally prepared for final judgment.
89

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In Focus Luxury and Lessons
Flavored with currants and expen-
to be prepared for death and judg-
two platters and knife handle and
sive spices, mince pie was a treat
ment. Another warning may lie
the dangling lemon peel bring the
reserved for special occasions.
in the oysters, which were com-
scene into the viewer’s own space.
Other foods on this sumptuously
monly regarded as aphrodisiacs.
These elements, which increase
set table are also exceptional—im-
Empty shells litter the table, while
the immediacy of seeing, con-
ported lemons and olives, oysters
in the center of the composition a
nect viewers with Heda’s message
to be enjoyed with vinegar from
simple roll remains the only food
about the true value in life.
a Venetian glass cruet, seasonings
uneaten. Enjoying the pleasures
This painting is an example
of salt mounded in a silver cel-
of the flesh, these banqueters have
of the monochrome palette Dutch
lar, and pepper sprinkled from a
ignored their salvation, leaving
artists preferred for still lifes and
rolled paper cone. At the top of
untouched the bread of life.
landscapes (see p. 74) from the
Heda’s triangular arrangement is
Characterized by a contem-
1620s to the late 1640s. Heda was
a splendid gilt bronze goblet. But
porary Haarlem historian as a
a master of these cool gray or
the meal is over and the table in
painter of “fruit and all kinds of
warm tan color schemes. The col-
disarray. Two platters rest pre-
knick-knacks,” Willem Claesz
ors of gold, silver, pewter — even
cariously at the edge of the table.
Heda was one of the greatest
the vinegar and beer in their glass
Vessels have fallen over and a glass
Dutch still-life artists, noted par-
containers — play against a neutral
has been broken. A candle has
ticularly for breakfast and banquet
background and white cloth.
been snuffed out. Along with the
(ontbijtje and banketje) pieces. The
edible items, these objects were
large size of this painting sug-
familiar symbols of life’s imper-
gests that it was probably made on
manence, reminders of the need
commission. Its scale helps create
the illusion of reality—objects are
life-size. The projection of the
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Willem Claesz Heda,
Dutch, 1593/1594–1680,
Banquet Piece with Mince
Pie, 1635, oil on canvas,
106.7
111.1 (42
43¾),
National Gallery of Art,
Washington, Patrons’
Permanent Fund
91

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F L O W E R S A N D F L O W E R P A I N T I N G
The Dutch prized flowers and
On paper, the same bulb could
flower paintings; by the early
quickly change hands many times
seventeenth century, both were
over. Speculation drove prices
a national passion. Flowers were
upward. The price of a Semper
appreciated for beauty and fra-
Augustus was 1,000 guilders in
grance and not simply for their
1623, twice that in 1625, and up to
value as medicine, herbs, or dye-
5,000 guilders in 1637. The aver-
stuffs. Exotic new species from
age price of a bulb that year was
around the globe were avidly
800 guilders, twice what a master
sought by botanists and garden-
carpenter made annually. A single
ers. Paintings immortalized these
tulip bulb could command as
treasures and made them available
much as a fine house with a gar-
This painting, based on a print, was made
to study—and they gave sunny
den. People from all walks of life
shortly after the tulip market’s col apse.
pleasure even in winter. View-
entered this speculative market,
Haarlem weavers, who have abandoned
ers could see—almost touch and
and many made “paper” fortunes,
their looms, follow the goddess Flora as her
smell—the blossoms.
which disappeared after a glut
chariot drives blindly to the sea. She holds
caused prices to plummet.
out flamed red-and-white Semper Augustus
The Tulip Craze
Among those ruined was the
tulips while another woman weighs bulbs,
The Dutch were entranced most
landscape painter Jan van Goyen
and other companions in fool’s caps, one
of all by flowering bulbs, espe-
with a bag of money, drink and chatter on.
(see section 10). Eventually bulb
cially tulips. After arriving in
prices normalized to about 10
Hendrik Gerritsz Pot, Dutch, c. 1585–1657, Flora’s Wagon
of Fools, c. 1637, oil on panel, 61
83 (24
325?8), Frans
the Netherlands, probably in the
percent of their peak value. They
Hals Museum, Haarlem
1570s, tulips remained a luxurious
were still costly, but not outra-
rarity until the mid-1630s, when
geously so.
cheaper varieties turned the urban
middle classes into avid collectors.
The Dutch interest in tulips was
also popularized around Europe,
This watercolor was made for one of
as visitors to the Netherlands
the many tulpenboeken — illustrated
were taken with these exotic
catalogues of tulip varieties. Flamed
flowers and with Dutch garden-
tulips were highly sought after. Today it is
ing prowess in general. At the
understood that their broken color results
same time, a futures market was
from a virus.
established. Buyers contracted to
Unknown artist, Dutch, Geel en Roodt van Leydden (Yellow
purchase as-yet-ungrown bulbs
and Red of Leiden), from a tulip book, 1643, watercolor on
parchment, volume 39.7
28.5 (155?8
11½), Frans Hals
at a set price, allowing bulbs to
Museum, Haarlem
be traded at any time of the year.
92

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For religious reasons, Bosschaert moved from Antwerp to
Middelburg, one of the centers of the Dutch East India Company and
noted for its botanical garden. Several of the blooms he included
here appear in more than one of his paintings, sometimes reversed.
They are based on initial studies made from life. Sometimes artists
waited whole seasons for a particular plant to flower so it could be
drawn. The species here actual y flower at different times of the year:
cyclamen (lower right) blooms from December to March and iris (top
right) from May to June. Spring bulbs and summer roses are shown
as well.
This must be among Bosschaert’s last paintings. The French
inscription, added after his death, is a testament to the painter’s
fame: “It is the angelic hand of the great painter of flowers,
Ambrosius, renowned even to the banks of death.”
Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, Dutch, 1573–1621, Bouquet of Flowers in a Glass Vase, 1621,
oil on copper, 31.6
21.6 (127?16
87?16), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons’
Permanent Fund and New Century Fund
This sheet from a florilegium, a book devoted to flowers, depicts
an imaginary garden, but several cities in the Netherlands opened
real botanical gardens. The first, one of the earliest anywhere in
the world, was established in 1590 at the Leiden University. Carolus
Clusius (1526 – 1609), among the most important naturalists of the
sixteenth century, arrived there in 1593 and remained as professor
of botany until his death. He collected plants from around the
globe and traded them with scholar-friends. In those exchanges
he probably introduced the tulip to Hol and. Clusius was most
interested in tulips’ medicinal potential, but others were charmed by
their beauty and rarity. Clusius’ own tulips were stolen, but today his
garden has been re-created at the university botanical garden.
Crispijn van de Passe II, Dutch, c. 1597–c. 1670, Spring Garden, from Hortus Floridus
(Flowering Garden) (Arnhem, c. 1614), hand-colored book illustration, 19.1
55.3
(7½
21¾), Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon, Oak Spring Garden Library, Upperville,
Virginia
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In Focus A Full Bouquet
The illusion is so convincing that
different times of the year. This
in the glass vase, there are other
it extends to senses beyond sight.
arrangement of peonies and roses,
signs. A butterfly, often associated
In 1646 a Dutch poet extolled the
poppies and cyclamen not only
with the resurrection, alights on a
beauty of a flower picture and its
reflects the wonders of nature’s
white poppy, a flower linked with
fragrance: “our eyes wander in
creations but also something of
sleep, death, and the Passion of
the color, and also her fragrance
the artist’s making. He manipu-
Christ. A sweeping stalk of grain
permeates more than musk.”
lated the forms: exaggeratedly
may allude to the bread of the
Dew clings to leaves whose
long stems allow for a more
Eucharist. Morning glories, which
every vein is delineated; it is dif-
dynamic composition, and the
open only during the day, may
ficult to fathom that paint, not
dark background intensifies
represent the light of truth, while
surface tension, shapes these
his color.
brambles may recall the burning
droplets. Tulip petals are silky, a
This painted bouquet out-
bush signaling God’s omnipres-
poppy paper-thin, a burst seed
lasts nature, and permanence was
ence to Moses. Perhaps not every
pod brittle and dry. Yet the like-
argued by theorists to be one
viewer would “see” these mean-
ness is shaped by art and embod-
of art’s fundamental virtues. By
ings, but they were certainly
ied with meaning beyond surface
contrast, caterpillars and tiny ants
intended by the artist.
appearance.
that eat away at leaves and flowers,
Dutch painting is not an ordi-
Still-life painting was not
petals that begin to wither, flower
nary mirror of the world. Bou-
a slavish recording of what the
heads that droop—all remind us
quets such as De Heem’s address
artist saw before him—all art
of the brevity of life. De Heem’s
the meaning of life, the nature
demanded imagination, artifice.
bouquet also seems to make
of art, and the bounty of God’s
Here are blossoms that appear at
symbolic reference to Christ’s
creation.
resurrection and man’s salvation.
In addition to the cross-shaped
reflection of a mullioned window
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Jan Davidsz de Heem,
Dutch, 1606–1683/1684,
Vase of Flowers, c. 1660,
oil on canvas, 69.6
56.5 (273?8
22¼),
National Gallery of Art,
Washington, Andrew W.
Mellon Fund
95

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