History of Still-Life Ross Barber 12Be2
Flanders C16- Installed quite religious and common settings into the pieces, the extremely detailed oil on canvas works were often home to kitchen-like objects and utensils. Different foods such as cabbages, fish and hares were used especially to capture reflection from the surrounding light, thus creating a very real, almost touchable effect. Drink glasses were layered repeatedly to produce a realistic transparency; yet another method in generating such detailed realism in the piece.
Dutch C17-In this period, the artists had not completely cast off and thrown away any such relation to religion; they just concentrated sorely on the idea of symbolism and reflection of light. To a modern-day viewer, the still-life would appear to be an assortment of strange objects placed on a wooden table. But to the seventeenth- century Dutch observer, the paintings conveyed the theme of vanitas: objects that symbolized the vanity of worldly things and the brevity of life. The skull and bones refer to death, the books and writing instruments to excessive pride through learning, and the fragile glass goblet of wine to temporary pleasure. A golden cup on its side would suggest immoderate wealth, and a man smoking a pipe displays idleness. The obsessive layering of oil paints by the artists was their way of creating accuracy and perfection. As modern day people have found, the pigments suspended in the oil paints, which have lasted until current years have slowly turned brown, and therefore have demanded attention in the form of cleaning.
