still life

In art, the representation of objects such as books, candles, cooking utensils, musical instruments, fruit, flowers, etc. Still life was painted in antiquity; in W Europe it flourished above all in the Netherlands in the 17th-c. Some still lifes are obviously symbolic; others seem to be demonstrations of painterly skill.

A "still life" is a work of art depicting inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (flowers, game, sea shells and the like) or man-made (drinking glasses, foodstuffs, pipes, books and so on). 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 often adorn the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs.

Through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, still life in Western art was mainly used as an adjunct to Christian religious subjects.

Still life came into its own in the new artistic climate of the Netherlands in the 17th century.

Especially popular in this period were vanitas paintings, in which sumptuous arrangements of fruit and flowers, or lavish banquet tables with fine silver and crystal, were accompanied by symbolic reminders of life's impermanence.

The French aristocracy of the 18th century also employed artists to execute paintings of bounteous and extravagant still life subjects, this time without the moralistic vanitas message of their Dutch predecessors. The Rococo love of artifice led to a rise in appreciation for trompe l'oeil (French: "trick the eye") painting, a type of still life in which objects are shown life-sized, against a flat background, in an attempt to create the illusion of real three dimensional objects in the viewer's space.

With the rise of the European Academies, most notably the Académie française which held a central role in Academic art, and their formalized approach to artistic training, still life began to fall from favor.

It was not until the decline of the Academic hierarchy in Europe, and the rise of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, who emphasized technique and design over subject matter, that still life was once again avidly practiced by artists. Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" are some of the best known 19th century still life paintings, and Paul Cézanne found in still life the perfect vehicle for his revolutionary explorations in geometric spatial organization.

Indeed, Cézanne's experiments can be seen as leading directly to the development of Cubist still life in the early 20th century. Between 1910 and 1920, Cubist artists like Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris painted many still life compositions, often including musical instruments, as well as creating the first Synthetic Cubist collage works, such as Picasso's "Still Life with Chair Caning" (1912).

Artists in the United States, largely unburdened by Academic strictures on subject matter, had long found a ready market for still life painting. Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825), eldest son of Revolutionary era painter Charles Willson Peale, was the first American still life specialist, and established a tradition of still life painting in Philadelphia that continued until the early 20th century, when artists such as William Harnett and John Frederick Peto gained fame for their trompe l'oeil renderings of collections of worn objects and scraps of paper, typically shown hanging on a wall or door.

When 20th century American artists became aware of European Modernism, they began to interpret still life subjects with a combination of American Realism and Cubist-derived abstraction.

Much Pop Art (such as Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Cans") is based on still life, but its true subject is most often the commodified image of the commercial product represented rather than the physical still life object itself. While they address contemporary themes, Flack's paintings often include trompe l'oeil and vanitas elements as well, thereby referencing the entire still life tradition

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Still life paintings