A pictorial history of artistic still life paintings from the earliest Roman examples to the current day.

1. Still Life
A Whirlwind Tour
Douglas Fryer
A presentation by Christopher Volpe

2. Roman Wall Paintings, c. 40 AD

3. Jacopo de' Barbari
Still Life with Partridge and Gauntlet
1504
oil on wood, ~20”x16”
Considered the first ”modern”
European still life since antiquity

4. Caravaggio - Bacchus, 1595-97, detail
The overflowing cornucopian basket in
Caravaggio’s Bacchus contained a
signpost for future still life painting.

5. Caravaggio - Basket of Fruit 1599/1601

6. Caravaggio - Basket of Fruit - Decadence

7. Random still life
by one of thousands of contemporary artists

8. Still-Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber (c. 1600)
by Juan Sanchez Cotan
An innovative compositional format — from 1600!

9. Related composition by Sean Beavers, one of many
painters today who are “boxing” the still life subject.

10. Still-Life with Quince Pears (c. 1887-1888) by Vincent Van Gogh
Typical 17th century Dutch still life. Everything here — the general abundance, the booze, the enameled silverware and fancy glass, the
orange and the cooked crab (both at the time exotic fare available only to the wealthy) — is intended to signify the comforts of “having
made it” and to imply the affluent social status of the patron who could afford to buy and display such a painting in his home.

11. Vanitas Still Life, 1603
Jacques de Gheyn II (Netherlandish, 1565–1629)
Oil on woodn Sanchez Cotan
Still Life with Lobster and Fruit, 1650s
Abraham van Beyeren (Dutch, 1620/21–1690)
Oil on wood; 38 x 31 in. (96.5 x 78.7 cm)
V a n i t a s

12. Vanitas still life paintings like this one were a favorite among the Dutch, who read such
symbols of mortality as “memento mori” — reminders that life is fleeting and that one
should look to the condition of one’s soul through faith in God.

13. Chardin- 1699-1779
Chardin dispensed with the heavy symbolism of still life, creating a lyrical visual world in
which ordinary, even humble objects become worthy of attention for their beauty alone.

14. Chardin - Pheasant and hunting Bag
It’s perhaps no coincidence that this still life of Chardin’s
harkens back to the early example in slide #1.

15. Chardin
Chardin’s compositions set a tone for traditional still life painting that is still practiced today.

16. Chardin- Silver Cup -

17. Cardin -

18. Chardin- The Attributes of Music
Here Chardin drawn upon the Dutch masters but his composition is original and the symbolism (except
perhaps for the one unlit candle) is entirely allegorical and without moral dimension.

19. Chardin- The Ray
In this genius-level painting, Chardin included a partially flayed skate and a very alive hissing, predatory
cat, moving still life beyond the merely beautiful to suggest the strangeness and brutality of nature.

20. Goya- Still Life with Golden Bream
In his few still life paintings, Goya in the 1700s stripped the genre of its artifice and
stressed the raw facts of visual truth and death without symbolism or lyrical beauty.

21. In his few still life paintings, Goya in the 1700s stripped the genre of its artifice and
stressed the raw facts of visual truth and death without symbolism or lyrical beauty.

22. Corot - Flowers in a glass beside a tobacco pot
Camille Corot in the early to mid 1800s approached still life with an honesty and directness
that stressed "objective” naturalism and the observational aspect of the painter’s task.

23. Manet’s
Flowers
(Painted as he
lay dying in
hospital, a
perfection of
purely
observational
painting)

24. Manet
Here realism begins to yield to Impressionism and painterly editorialism.

25. Just an interesting realist observational still life by Monet.

26. Still-Life with Quince Pears (c. 1887-1888) by Vincent Van Gogh

28. Vincent van Gogh
Paintings of real life that look
like no one else’s (because van
Gogh felt and saw and had the
courage to paint the life of
ordinary humanity).

29. Vincent van Gogh
Still Life with Shoes 1886
1886

30. Renoir
Impressionism - the lyric mode.

31. Cezanne
(perceptual)
Cezanne (something else again!)

33. Cezanne
(perceptual)

34. Cezanne
(perceptual)

35. Cezanne
(perceptual)

36. Cezanne
(perceptual)

37. Matisse - In Dialogue w/ Cezanne

38. Matisse, in dialogue with Cezanne, 1909

39. Matisse
(making it his own, 1910 - ‘30+)

40. Picasso in dialogue with Cezanne
(and the whole history of still life painting)
Still life by Pablo Picasso

41. Pierre Bonnard - it’s all about the color

42. Modernism – Still Life with Watermelon, Umberto Boccioni, 1914

43. Diebenkorn, 1970s (in dialogue with Matisse)

45. Chaim
Soutine
Russian
(1893-1943)
Death in Life
We’ll return to
this motif - dead
things and forks -
at the end of the
presentation

46. Soutine - forceful, unforgettable painting

47. Rembrandt, "The Slaughtered Ox," 1655

48. Alex Kanevsky, 2013
In dialogue with Rembrandt

49. Giorgio Morandi

51. Morandi — modern yet timeless

52. Morandi

53. Stuart Shils
(in dialogue with Morandi)

54. Return to Realism

55. Return to Realism

57. JASON DE GRAAF

58. JASON DE GRAAF

61. An aside: this
portrait was
done using
only a pencil.
The question
is… why?
(Given time, anyone
could copy a sexist
magazine photo
to prove how
awesome they are.
Technique is JUST
technique. Painters
aren’t obligated to
reproduce objects
realistically.)

62. Emil Carlsen - early 20th c. - An example of what I’d call “poetic” still life painting

63. Emil Carlsen - early 20th c.

64. Emil Carlsen -

65. David Leffel
Riffing on Carlsen’s still life style.
Adding anything new?

66. John Singer Sargent

67. Raimonds Staprans (1960s - Matisse, de Stahl…)

68. Helene Scherfbeck

70. George Nick

71. George Nick

72. Penumbrian Bowl- Israel Hershberg

74. David park
Wayne Thibaud
Richard Diebenkorn
1970s
“post abstraction”

75. Euan Uglow

79. Robert Kulicke Catherine Kehoe

80. Catherine Kehoe

81. Catherine Kehoe

82. Kehoe
Uglow

83. Stanley Bielen
(remember Manet?)

85. Stanley Bielen

86. Zoey Frank

87. Ron Krouk

88. Loose- Carol Marine, Lisa Noonis

92. Carol Marine
(a “daily painter”)

93. Doug Freyer
(a landscape painter)

95. Jon Redmond

96. Jon Redmond

97. “Postcard from Provence”
(Like closeups from a Chardin)
Daily Painter:

98. Same guy.

99. Tony Scherman
(random
contemporary)

100. Contemp realism - Jeremy Mann (a la Chardin)

101. Contemp realism - Catherine Murphy - Bathroom Sink 1994

102. Quang Ho

103. Nathan Ford

104. chelsea james
(notable for treatment of themes of feminism and contemporary domesticity)

105. chelsea james

106. chelsea james

107. chelsea james

109. The object
deconstructed
Walter
Murch

110. The object
deconstructed
Walter
Murch
Cylinder & Pigeon, 1961-62

111. 1504 / 1962

112. The object
deconstructed
Walter Murch

113. The object
deconstructed
Oliver Rouault

114. Roger Chavez
Roger Chavez

115. Tonal Still Life
Two Blue Bowls
Christopher Volpe

116. Diebenkorn again - paint handling!

117. Christopher Volpe
Still Life with Crafting Table

118. Christine Lafuente

119. Jan Mankes
Dutch, 1889-1920

120. Jan Mankes
Dutch, 1889-1920
"I paint or rather wish to paint
paintings, silent but singing,
singing indeed by their silence.”
October 20 1911

121. Random contemporary seen in a hotel, ripping off Mankes.

122. Again, today there are literally thousands of “me too” painters making technically impressive yet
unimaginative (and in large part nearly identical) still life paintings. This requires little more than a few
online tutorials and lot of patience. But there are exceptions, as we’ve also seen. Sadie Jernigan Valeri is
someone whose still life paintings are traditional, yet imaginative and lyrical. Note the self-portrait in the
silver jug.

123. This is 20th century Spanish master Antonia Lopez Garcia’s still life “Remains of a Meal.” This nearly white-on-white
painting elevates the still life genre out of the merely “cool to look at” or “decorative,” as it’s called. It does what great
art does - it brings the viewer right up against his or her basic humanity. Although the painting is exquisitely composed,
the way it seemingly casually crops some objects and centers on others, it ends up documenting one of the most basic
facts of human life – namely, that despite all our civilizing (denoted by table cloth, neatly placed utensil, water glass)
we are “only” human, and as liable as any other animal to leave a mess of bones and torn animal flesh after “feeding.”

124. The Lopez Garcia painting is here being quoted by contemporary post-modern painter Alex
Kanevsky, a professor of painting at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. Kanevsky keeps the
white-on-white starkness of the earlier work, and he ups the ante by replacing the “remains of a
meal” with what looks like the shred of some animal’s (human?) internal organ (it’s further unsettling
that we don’t know exactly what that bloody-fleshy thing is, but whatever it might be, we know it’s
not something anybody should be eating).

125. Finally, the Lopez Garcia is effectively quoted again in this etching by young Spanish painter Alejandro Marco
Montalvo. Here, replacing the fork with a paintbrush and the food with a bone, the artist gives this image an
entirely new meaning, harkening back in a casual way to the 17th century Dutch tradition of “vanitas” still
lifes we saw earlier, in which the painter includes symbolism intended to act as reminders of human
mortality.

126. It’s what you say, not just what you can do, that counts.