Painting. Still Life.
Viktor Mikhailovsky
Gallery 1
Still Life. A genre in fine arts, primarily in easel painting, consisting of the representation of objects arranged against a
common background. The special organization, or formulation, of the motif is one of the principal components of the
genre. Besides depicting such inanimate objects as household utensils, still lifes include objects from nature that have
been removed from their natural environment—for example, a fish on a table or a bouquet of flowers. Live, moving
creatures—insects, birds, animals, and even people—may sometimes appear in a still life, but they serve only in a
subordinate capacity. Unlike other genres, still life deals with small objects from everyday life. It requires that the artist and
the viewer pay particular attention to the subjects’ structure and details, to texture, and to spatial relationship.
The representation of objects in still-life painting has substantive artistic significance. The artist can create a
comprehensive multidimensional image with a complex hidden meaning. The historical development of still life, with
content that has changed in various epochs, reflects in a specific way the social orientation of art as a whole.
The emergence of still life as an independent genre is related to the general character of European art in modern times, to
the rise of easel painting, and to the formation of a ramified system of genres. In the works of Italian and, especially,
Netherlandish masters of the Renaissance, unprecedented interest in the material world and love of the sensuous beauty
of things are evident. At the same time, the symbolic meaning that characterized the pictorial rendering of objects during
the Middle Ages was often preserved.
The history of still life, particularly of the trompe l’oeil type, as a form of easel painting began with works by the Italian
artist Jacopo de’ Barbari (1504), in which objects are rendered so faithfully that they seem to be real.
Still-life painting did not become popular until the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Its popularity was spurred by the
interest in natural history characteristic of the era, by the artists’ interest in people’s everyday and private lives, and by the
development of artistic methods of representing the world.
The 17th century marked the height of development of the still life. The diversity of its types and forms at that time was
connected with the development of national schools of painting. Italian still-life painting was largely influenced by the
innovations of Caravaggio, which resulted in artists’ addressing themselves to common “low-life” motifs and which
determined the distinctive stylistic features of Italian still lifes. The most popular subjects of Italian still-life painters (P. P.
Bonzi, M. di Campidoglio, G. Recco, G. B. Ruoppolo, E. Baschenis) were flowers, fruits and vegetables, sea life,
kitchenware, musical instruments, and books.
Gallery 1
