Still Life (pt. 4)

Early on, during the Baroque period which we are looking at now, objects presented in a still life carried the distinct connotation of being the personal property of the artist.  Whatever you saw in a painting he owned, and that turned into a kind of status symbol.  No other genre of painting so conveniently provided a way to show off all of your stuff to the wealthy patrons purchasing works of art at this time.  It may even bring you more customers if you are suddenly thought to be both talented and wealthy.

Dutch still life paintings did this; they celebrated the abundance of wealth that trade brought to Flanders and the Netherlands.  This is why many of the objects you see in these Dutch paintings (some of them aren't) are exotic, imported goods from other countries.  The market was flourishing during this time.

It was also the golden age of horticulture.  Tulips especially priced high on the market as exotic finery more desired at that time than jewelry.  They were first introduced to the Dutch from Constantinople.  The word "tulip" is itself a Turkish word, indicating a turban.  Holland society quickly developed a demand that soon grew broader than the supply, leading to a historic display of exaggerated economic inflation.  The Dutch people's obsession with tulips literally became known as "tulipmania."

Here is a source that can better explain it than I can.  This short article on tulipmania was taken from the 2012-2013 exhibition called "Significant Objects," from the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California:

In a century characterized by inflation, the prices fetched by the tulips through sales and trade were constantly on the rise.  People eager to turn a profit flocked to the market to trade tulip bulbs.  Many gambled their homes, farm animals or other goods in anticipation of fortune to be made on tulip sales.  The intensity of this speculation appeared to operate outside the laws of common sense.  The phenomenon has been aptly named "tulipmania."

Particular tulips brought extraordinary sums.  The Semper Augustus, for example, was a rare tulip, characterized by blood-red flames and streaks on its white petals.  It sold for 1,000 guilders in 1623.  By 1637, just before the crash of the market, its price reached 10,000 guilders.  (To compare, the annual wage of a skilled laborer in Holland around this time was 200 to 400 guilders; a large house alongside a canal cost around 6,000 guilders).

In 1637, the combination of rumors about a failing market, and the fact that buyers and sellers could no longer transact business at such inflated prices, set off a selling spree.  Within months, the market for tulips collapsed.  Investors suffered heavy losses, and many went bankrupt.  Today, historians view this widespread market crash as "the first great speculation crisis of modern capitalism.

So.  A personal practicing exercise for artists, a display of wealth to viewers, an indiscriminate way to employ new artistic techniques collectively, a celebration of the successful trading industry, a cathartic expression of your tulip fetish: these are all functions that still life paintings served in the Netherlands during the Baroque period.  But apart from these mostly material purposes, still life art served a deeper role in communicating metaphysical sub-meaning and religious truth.  There is a lot of hidden meaning in most Dutch still life paintings; and if you thought the Renaissance imagery was difficult to follow, hold onto your berets.

Still Life (pt. 3)

As for the viewer, still lifes give an excellent opportunity to see into the mind of the painter.  How is this?  In a portrait, a landscape, historical scene, biblical scene, or any other genre of painting, the subject is, to a certain extent, already latent and manifest to the artist before he begins to paint it.  But with the still life, the artist has selected himself what is to be painted.  Everything we see within the frame is the artist's personal choice of objects.  When we see flowers, we can tell that artist has an appreciation for beauty and nature; when we see books, we can assume the artist is learned or probably well-read; when we see a skull, we come to different conclusions; and so on.  The images we see are not purposeless drawings; they represent something, either directly or indirectly, about the artist himself.

Many times the artist intentionally picks items to convey a particular message to his audience, not about himself but something else.  We will dissect this in greater detail later.  Unlike other kinds of paintings—landscapes, portraits, historical scenes, and so on—these works come solely from the artist's imagination as the scene is a created display of items handpicked by the painter, and these items begin to refer to ideas, making the assemblage of objects in a still life like a kind of narrative story, essay, or sermon.  The eye "reads" from left to right, after all, and the arrangement of objects is sometimes so precise that it almost forms something of a written text.

There can be many mysteries in a still life that at first hit the viewer with their stark visibility but then resonate back in the deeper sense only after careful study and thought.

Still Life (pt. 2)

Artists do use still life painting to polish their expertise.  Many of the most stunning paintings are still lifes.  The artist, as I said, has all the time in the world to painstakingly execute the minutest of brush strokes, leading to a stylistic element called photorealism.  This was known as trompe l'œil, which is French for "fooling the eye."  Linear perspective, chiaroscuro, tenebrism—all of the artistic elements we have looked at to date come into play here, making still lifes among the most dynamic paintings in all of art history to observe.  But, for me at least, there is something strange and almost unsettling about the realism of images that hangs inside a frame on a wall.  The objects are so close, poised on whatever cabinet surface or tablecloth, we feel we could almost stretch out our hand and touch it.  Why is that?  Approximately two hundred years early, I'll ask the question: why must paintings look real?  (Centuries later, artists will seriously contemplate this in their works).  What do you think is the point of making an inanimate object—that has no life of its own and that is painted two-dimensionally on a flat canvas—real?

Still Life (pt. 1)

The Baroque age in art also saw the surge of the Still Life.  A still life is a painting of an arrangement of inanimate objects usually showcased on a tabletop or other flat surface in an enclosed space.  We have all seen paintings like this before and may have thought them simple or even boring enough, but "surely all this is not without meaning."

In this case, the "subject" is whatever is pictured in the image.  The subject of a still life can be a glass cup, a vase of flowers, a book, a skull, or (most popularly) an assortment of objects.  To the untrained eye these items can at first appear random, but as you will see, some still life paintings ambitiously tackle more subject matter, artistic form, color scheme, and picturesque detail than landscapes or historical paintings.

Still lifes—and I distinguish: the plural of "still life" is not "still lives"—can offer a unique blend of genres for both artist and viewer.  By simply painting immobile objects on a stationary table or drawer-top, the artist can have the chance of practicing his trade on something decidedly easier than, say, a portrait, where a live sitter is involved (who coughs, moves, easily becomes bored, and can distract the painter from his duty).  In the case of a still life, the objects are all completely motionless; the artist can take all day, or even a year—it matters not: the objects will still be there.

Dutch Baroque (pt. 12)

This is another painting from a kind of closet view, called The Love Letter.  There are two women in a room: one is a servant, the other is receiving a letter.  The woman with the letter looks at the servant, who smiles back.  A story is being told here in a very creative way.  The paintings on the wall might hint to us that the writer of the letter is away at sea.  The woman's expression implies that it is an important letter being given, and the title denotes a sentimental interpretation of that.  The servant's expression also seems to say that it could be a letter from a lover, and the fact that the lady is playing the lute also demonstrates that she is a romantic woman.  But all of this is seen from afar.  The viewer (that's us) is in a dark closet, but the two women are well-lit in the room in front.  Here, nearly half of the painting is concealed in darkness.  Once again, the black and white tiles on the floor show linear perspective and lead us into the action of that room.  We are drawn to the event taking place, but we remain far away in this private chamber.  Perhaps it was to give us the sensation that what we are seeing is completely real and candid, not prearranged and staged like other portraits of the time.  Perhaps he wanted to go a step further from Hals and display the true human emotions of individuals when they know that no one else is watching.  Why do you think Vermeer chose to paint from this perspective?

Dutch Baroque (pt. 11)

Known to be the artist's own personal favorite of his works, this painting is enigmatically titled The Allegory of Painting, and it is a prime example of Vermeer's stylistic approach towards painting.  The room is the main attraction, with dramatic lighting coming from a window on the left-hand side, allowing the viewer to begin with light and read over, from left to right, the images to follow (the painter of which is last).  Props in the room such as chairs, tables, tapestries, books, cloths, a mask, and an overhanging chandelier create an interest in the viewer towards this mysterious setting.  The tiles on the floor further act to bring us into the painting because of their stark three-dimensionality.  The tiles represent textbook one-point linear perspective (which we learned about in the Renaissance).

The intriguing aspect of this painting is of course its elusive title.  We see a woman posing in Greek literary attire for the portrait artist, whose back is turned to the viewer.  We can see neither his face nor much of the painting he has begun.  Also, where are the paints?  The artist has no palate.  Is he, then, really painting?  What is actually going on?  Taking a step back—which the perspective of this distant work is quite a few steps back—we cannot ignore the draping tapestry that covers almost a third of the painting.  It has been pulled back, almost as if the audience were secretly peering into a private chamber from behind the curtain.  Some hidden reality, some deeper truth is being shown here by the curtain being pulled back, and the riddle goes unanswered.

Dutch Baroque (pt. 10)

The Astronomer.  This one is maybe my favorite.  Everything about this speaks philosophy and the work of the person—not the person himself.  Even his full face is hidden from view, turned towards his endeavors in studying the universe.  He reaches out toward the globe, the spherical representation of knowledge, with an opened book placed in front of him on the desk.  More books fill the shelf in the back, and pinned to the front of the shelf is a diagram of geometric lines of radial symmetry.  He is, as most of Vermeer's figures, near a window.  The lighting in the room is warm, and the glow from the outside sunlight falls onto the astronomer as a kind of symbolic display of God's radiant presence in his studies of the cosmos.  It was around this time that scientists Johannes Kepler, Galileo, and Sir Isaac Newton were making breakthrough discoveries in the study of nature and the order of the universe.  Even these scientists, and especially these scientists, believed in the existence of a Supreme Deity, God, a Creator and Sustainer of the heavens.  Recently Dr. Stephen C. Meyer spoke on this subject in an interview, stating, "The founders of early modern science…all not only believed in God but they thought that their belief in God actually made it easier to do science."