Still-lifes lead quite a quiet life beside portraits and landscapes. I find the micro universe of still-lifes fascinating. They are complete worlds of colour, light, shadows, form, shape, and symbology. This “poor relative” in the family of genres deserve better treatment, and is currently in the beginnings of what looks like it is going to be a revival.

Looking at  still-lifes through history, one may discover that they really are interesting. They mirror their times, the culture, and the overall paradigms, and also indicate paradigm shifts.

Etymology

Let’s start by looking at the word “still-life” in some languages.

French: nature morte
Italian: natura morta
Spanish: naturaleza muerta
English: still-life
German: still-leben

In the case of Roman languages, the ‘morte’/’morta’ doesn’t exactly mean dead, in this context, but more ‘inanimate’. So, still-life would be ‘inanimate nature’. 

The German “still” is similar to English ‘still’, as in ‘be still’, ‘stand still’. German “leben” is ‘life’, ‘living’.

OK, we get it – inanimate objects sitting still, posing for a portrait. Now, what about flowers, fruit... or cheese...? Are they truly inanimate? (My husband is fond of cheese so ripe and aromatic it needs to be chained in order to not escape.... Some cheese are definitely animate.) Living things, like flowers, do not move around, so they’re considered still.

Antiquity

There were still-lifes in Egyptian tomb murals, but I could only find  pictures of them incorporated in a scene with people. But, isolated it is a complete still-life, obviously of a genre type, as there are several based on the same pattern (1a and b).

Still-lifes existed in antique Greece, and were called “xenia”, according to one source. They were objects reserved for the comfort of guests, houseguests. Of course these objects were painted so the family could show their generous hospitality to guests, and casual visitors too. It is not unthinkable that such paintings greeted guests in the entrance hall, or on the walls in the guestrooms. I’ve personally seen still-lifes in mosaic floors in an excavated Roman villa in Cyprus. 

Pliny the elder (Plinius) has described these paintings very graphically:

 “Purple figs dripping with juice are heaped upon vine leaves and they are depicted with breaks in the skin, some just cracking to disgorge their honey, some split apart they are so ripe…”

Unfortunately, no painting has survived the ravages of time, but frescoes and mosaics have. In the picture above, we see a mosaic with lobster and fish, and another with a simple still life of vase and birds. Maybe not strictly a still-life, but it is near enough.

These antique Greek still-lifes were meant to be a form of what many centuries later became known as trompe-l’oeil (French for “trick the eye”), mimicking reality, in Greek mimesis.

(To be continued, in a new blog entry.)

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