Virtual Gallery
Learn more about still life
Jan Davidz de Heem, Still Life
The Artist
Jan Davidz de Heem is the best know and most brilliant member of a large family of Dutch still life painters. He was born in Utrecht in 1606 where he first learned to paint from his father. After 1636, most of de Heem’s career was spent in Antwerp. Historians speculate he was drawn to this bustlng and prosperous commercial port city because of its richness and abundance of fresh and exotic fruits, plants, and flowers that he could paint year-round. In Antwerp, de Heem began to specialize in increasingly more lavish flower and fruit still lifes and richly adorned banquet scenes where tables were filled to overflowing with a pictorial and symbolic feast for the eyes. These earned him an enduring reputation as one of the greatest of the 17th century Dutch still life masters.
Elements and Principles of Design
The composition of this painting is a popular one in history, a triangle whose bottom corners are the lute on one side and the gold urn on the other. The top point is the covered goblet in the center of the painting. Yet as powerful as this is, it is the simple white crumpled cloth that seems to draw our eye. What reasons can you give for this? Where is the brightest part of this cloth? It points the way for the eye to travel, and we can enjoy each and every item in the scene.
Subject
Still life as a subject only began toward the end of the 16th century, though there is evidence of types of still lifes, “scenes-within-scenes,” as far back as 4th century Greece. The term still life was not coined until the middle of the 17th century, and it is credited to the Dutch. Int the early part of the 17th century, still lifes had symbolic messaes which taught lessons or warned against earthly pleasures. Flower still lifes were also quite popular. Entire compositions were sometimes created from individual exotic or seasonal flowers that could not possibly have been painted at the same time. There were animal still lifes and later, hunt scenes. Simple breakfast scenes developed into elaborate banquet scenes, almost overburdened with detail. The Dutch merchants and traders tended to collect still lifes by type rather than by artists. In the second half of the century, symbolism in still lifes fell out of favor, and it was never again to achieve the importance it did in the 17th century.
Questions: (select the painting to check your answers.)
Where is the brightest part of this cloth?
Where is the weight of this scene?
Ralph Goings, Still Life with Red Mat
The Artist
Ralph Goings is one of the most well-known of the Photo-Realist painters, a largely American art movement that gained national attention in the movement that gained national attention in the 1970s. Although the movement quickly spread to other countries, Goings’ art is still recognized as perhaps the classic example of Photo-Realism. In his paintings, Goings does not allow any one element to dominate or become more important than another. For a long time, he would not put people in his paintings because he felt they would naturally command the most attention. Goings wanted the viewer of his works to see the objects for what they were, to see light and how it reflected off the objects. Goings’ works are undisturbed by personal interpretation or emotional expression. What the viewer sees is a Goings painting is visual fact, anonymous, a freeze-frame slice of life in Anywhere, USA.
The Art
Still Life with Red Mat shows one of Ralph Goings’ most recent subjects, table-top condiments and booth settings inside a diner. What clues are there that it might be later in the afternoon? The shades are pulled against a bright sun that shines through the slats; the catsup bottle is already more than half empty. This painting was executed from a 35mm slide projected onto the canvas. The image was exactly reproduced in oil paint, and we would barely be able to distinguish the painting from its photographic source if it were in front of us.
Questions: (select the painting to check your answers.)
Can you find rare instances of brush strokes in the painting?
Why is the glass of the salt shaker less refletive and shiny than that of the other glass items?
Besides the words on the labels of the catsup bottle, where else do you find evidence of words?
How is Still Life With Red mat both cool and warm at the same time?
Rene Magritte, Time Transfixed
The Artist
Magritte was born in 1898 in a small town in Belgium. With few exceptions, he lived all his life in a suburb of Brussels. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, he worked as a commercial artist, at one time designing wallpaper in a factory. In 1927, Magritte had the first exhibition of his paintings in Brussels. They were not well-received, and he and his wife Georgette decided to move to France where the Surrealist movement was gaining momentum. While in Paris, Magritte associated regularly with other surrealists and spent hours discussing art, poetry, philosophy, and politics. He wanted the viewer to see and appreciate objects for what they are and could be rather than only for how they are used.
The Art
Time Transfixed is an artistic achievement requiring extraordinary skill and thought. The viewer is in a room where there are no visible paintings, floor coverings, furniture, or other decorative or functional ornamentation other than two candlesticks, a mantle clock, and a large mirror with a very simple frame. The fireplace is clean and its ornamentation minimal. The wood flooring is as muted in color as the entire room. What could possibly hold our interest in this scene? Is that a steam locomotive escaping from the rear of the fireplace into the room? A cloud of smoke gives us a sense of its great speed.
Elements and Principles of Design
Times Transfixed is a very interesting picture in the way Magritte has rendered it. There is the obvious illusion of a steam engine rushing into a room through a fireplace, but closer examination reveals other illusions we might tend to overlook.
Questions: (select the painting to check your answers.)
Can you discover any horizontal lines at all?
Jud Nelson, Hefty 2-Ply
The Artist
Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1943, Jud Nelson studied at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and at the University of Minnesota. His first one-man show was at the age of twenty-six. By 1981, the year Hefty 2-Ply was permanently installed at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the artist has explored a variety of media, scale, and techniques.
The Art
Nelson carved the amazingly accurate 40-gallon stuffed garbage bag from classic Italian
Carrera marble, the same marble from which the Michelangelo sculpted the Pieta. The bag is life-size, pure white, and appears to be stretched to the point of bursting. It appears so taut, in fact, that the viewer can identify the brand names and other identifying marks of several of the items inside. Each seam, crease, pucker, and fold of the bag is painstakingly reproduced. We must continually remind ourselves that it is a reproduction of carefully-chosen items actually arranged in a common plastic trash sack.
Elements and Principles of Design
Essential to the appreciation of sculpture is light. The direction from which the light is coming can dramatically affect the appearance of the form. The intensity of the light, soft or strong and direct, adds to our understanding and appreciation of the fine details.
Question: (select the painting to check your answer)
After studying Still Life by Jan de Heem and Hefty 2-Ply, can you find similarities? what might they be?
Pablo Picasso, Bull’s Head, Fruit, and Pitcher
The Artist
Picasso wa born in 1881 in Malaga, on the Mediterranean coast of spain. From a very early age, he showed extraordinary talent. His father, an art instructor at the local academy, guided his studies until 1896 when he ceremoniously handed over his brushes and paints to the boy, saying, “Pablo, you are a better painter than I.” By sixteen, he ahd set himself up as an independent artist, with a one-man exhibition and a magazine article in a prestigious art magazine already to his credit.By the 1930’s, Picasso was internationally recognized. He was deeply affected by the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War that broke out in his country in 1936, and his famous painting Guernica remains a vivid memorial to this and all war. It is considered to be the masterpiece of the 20th century painting.
The Art
Bull’s Head, Fruit, and Pitcher is a startling scene, dominated by the skull of a bull, though the brilliantly colored pitcher and fruits compete for the viewer’s attention. The skull is painted in the most muted colors in the entire piece. This is in stark contrast to the visually jolting colors of the pitcher, made even more lively by the bright white triangles of color that butt up against it. The skull is surrounded by subtle, cool triangles. The painting shows both the profile and front of the skull. It shows the top and underside of the pitcher’s handle at the same time. We look both down and sideways at the table. In this still life, we also see two pieces of fruit. Their colors echo the pitcher’s and their bases line up with the base of the pitcher. What appears to be bars confine the tabletop scene, yet one single element, a flowering tree, exits beyond the bars. Because of its central placement and soft pink halo, it draws our attention. Though Picasso always maintained that his paintings contained no symbolism, it is difficult to view this piece without seeing some significance in its elements, Life (the pitcher and fruit), Death (the skull), and Rebirth (the flowering tree).
Elements and Principles of Design
Can you imagine that the long diagonal line starting at the top right corner of the painting passes through the skull, ending at the lower left corner?This divides the picture in half another way. Most of the brighter colors in the painting fall below this line. It is almost as if a shaft of light from a spotlight shines down from the right corner, intensely illuminating the pitcher, fruit, and table. Do the bright white triangles look a bit like mini-spot-lights?
Questions: (select the painting to check your answer)
How is balance created in this picture?
How is Bull's Head, Fruit, and Pitcher like Jan de Heem's Still Life? how is it different?