Historical

Historical - Breakfast Items

Breakfast items, 1646 - Pierer Claesz
Oil on wood
60x84 cm

• Made by a dutch painter therefore coming from the period where the genre of still life paintings originated. The main goal of still life paintings is to create an optical illusion and make the viewers forget that the picture is an illusion of reality.
• His early works show an influence of older still life painters, but soon changed his style and limited his compositions to a small meal set near the corner of the table. This typically featured some bread or cheese on a small platter, a piece of meat on a pewter dish, a glass of beer or wine (perhaps a silvery pewter vessel), and a white crumpled tablecloth – suggesting a light breakfast or snack.
• Pieter Claesz’s still life’s prove to be very realistic due to the amazing detail in the lighting reflected on the items in the composition. The lighting serves for a tonal emphasis for the painting giving it more depth. Pieter reacted to the comprehensive forces of light and atmosphere which envelop us and the things with which we live.
• The foreground of their unpretentious arrangements is spacious, and there is clear recession. Instead of vivid local colours, monochromatic harmonies with sensitive contrasts of valeurs of low intensity are favoured, without however a loss of earlier regard for textual differentiation. From the point of view of composition, tonal, and spatial treatment, the still life’s created by Pieter Claesz are among the most satisfying Dutch paintings made during the century.
• His early work incorporates brilliant colours but as he matured as an artist, his palette was much more subtle. His compositions acquired more elegance, broadness and nonchalance than previously. Nevertheless, the objects in his still life’s rarely overlap. For Pieter Claesz, the principal aim was to render the materials and catch the reflected light as accurately as possible. This was his speciality.

Modern

Modern - Still life with silver pitcher

Still life with Silver Pitcher, 1972 - Roy Lichtenstein
Oil on canvas
51x60 inches

• Made in the Pop Art era. (1972) which explains the nature of the still life painting. the pop art movement focused on challenging the standard definitions of an artwork by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news etc.
• The artwork is an appropriated form of the still life genre and presents a whole new meaning, suggesting that the original standards of still life paintings have been abolished boldly stating that art is not confined by rules referring on how to correctly define an artwork into a specific genre.
• Artwork reflects a lot of the visual elements of an artwork in the Pop Art era, with a lot of vibrant colours contrasting strong black and whites. It also features strong black lines which supposably substitutes for the three dimensional aspect given by shadows and highlights – another technique used in Pop Art paintings.
• Lichtenstein's Still Lifes cover a variety of motifs and themes, including the most traditional such as fruit, flowers, and vases. During the 1970s he began to quote art-historical styles as well as his own previous works. Using his "cartoonish" method of painting, he stripped both subjects and movements of their original import and gravitas. He also mined the modern masters of painting for still life motifs, which included paintings or used alone in sculptures.
• From 1974 through to the 1980s he probed another long-standing issue: the concept of artistic style. All his series of works played with the characteristics of the well-known 20^th century art movements (such as still life). Lichtenstein continued to question the role of style in consumer culture in his 1990s series Interiors, which Included images of his own works as decorative elements. In his attempt to fully grasp and expose how the forms, materials, and methods of production have shaped the images of Western society, the artist also explored other mediums such as polychromatic ceramic, aluminium, brass, and serigraphs.

Modern

‘Glass and Bottle of Suze’, 1912, Pablo picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), Pasted papers, gouache, and charcoal

• Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist, painter, sculpture and draughtsman. He was born on October 25th, 1881 in Malaga, Spain.
• Picasso is one of the most recognised 20th Century artists and is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for his wide range of styles produced in his works.
• The Cubist movement involved artists painting images using cubes, spheres, cylinders and other geometric shapes. Artworks would often look as if they were separate images, cut up and put back together.
• This work is on a liquor bottle with a label and glass placed on a table, with an ash tray and cigarette and smoke. In this work, Picasso explores different levels of interpretation and illusion by forcing the viewer to notice the simple flat arrangement of objects cut out of paper, as well as the individual objects themselves.
• The newspaper provides an interesting background to the work as well as suggesting the popular activity of reading the paper whilst drinking and having a cigarette, as well as adding a political and social dimension to the image.

Historical

Still Life with Fruit, Glassware and a Wan-Li Bowl, 1659, Willem Kalf (Dutch, 1619-1693), Oil on Canvas

• Willem Kalf was a 17th Century Dutch painter, known for his incredible detail in his works.
• The 17th Century was a crucial time in art history as it sae the transition in the development and market of art. At this time the distinct category of still-life became officially accepted in the art world.
• This painting uses techniques of lighting, texture and colour to portray the rare craftmanship and talent Kalf used in his work.
• The glossy, transparent glassware contrats with the duller highlights that edge the rim of the platter. Willem Kalf was particularly interested in the way light and colour gleamed off reflective surfaces.
• The peeled lemon, bowl of fruit, glassware and Turkish carpet are symbols of affluence and suggest that this artwork would have been reflected of an affluent household.

Historical Artworks

Francisco de Zurbarán, Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, 1633, oil on canvas, 60x107cm, The Norton Simon Foundation 

• The 17^th Century was an important time for still life painting as it was accepted by the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture in the 1660’s as an official genre.
• This piece was aimed at and appreciated by the religious Spanish Catholics in the 17th century, as the objects portrayed contained significant religious meaning which was popular in many still lifes at the time.
• Through the composition, the individual objects encourage deep, symbolic religious meaning as all the items are related to the Virgin Mary, and is seen as a tribute to Our Lady. 

• The citrons on the left signify faithfulness, the basket of oranges in the centre represents virginity, the orange blossoms symbolise fertility, the cup of water signifies purity and the rose is a symbol of divine love.
• The structural division of the composition into three separate units alludes to the Holy Trinity, or can be interpreted as offerings on an altar. 

Artist: Janet Fish

Title: 8 Vinegar Bottles

Date: 1972

Material: Oil on canvas

Size: 134.62cm x 183.21cm

Location: Dallas Museum of Art, USA

• Janet Fish was born in 1983 and was a contemporary American artist who specialised in still life paintings
• Her works are flourishing and textural and packed with organic brushstrokes and lusty colours
• Her paintings are very simple containing simple everyday objects, but yet are very interesting, this can be seen in this quote, "Her paintings of things can be as... beautiful objects that convey no message, that cause the mind to stop thinking and to contemplate the marvel before one's eyes."
• She uses light as her subject and loves to produce harmonious compositions that vibrate with energy and light
• Her work has been characterised as photorealist but to describe her work in terms of art history, it is a 17th century Dutch still life artwork combined with Abstract Expressionist brushwork

Modern Artwork

Picasso, Pablo Bull Skull, Fruit, and Pitcher, 1939, Oil on canvas, 65 x 92 cm, The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Bull's Skull, Fruit and Pitcher is a modern Cubist painting that has adopted the conventions of the seventeenth century vanitas still life.
• It was painted around the time of the fall of the Spanish Republic and during the rise in dictatorial governments in Europe, and this painting provided hope for the people. 
• One idea portrayed in this artwork is the opposing principles of life, which is shown through the contrasting elements present - the gloomy foreground and the bright background - providing that there is light and dark to every situation.
• Life and death are also present in this work as the skull, a representation of death, contrasts with the fruit, a symbol of nourishment and life, and the tree in full bloom which gives this otherwise depressing work hope for something better.  
• The third idea relates to the dismay Picasso felt after the fall of the Spanish Republic, which is shown through the symbol of the bull which signifies power, contrasted by the fact that the bull in this work is dead and decaying.