When I wrote the first Still Life blog in March, Sweden’s Claes Oldenburg was featured & was still with us. Sadly, he died on 18 July 2022, & as I’d said in March, he’d had a long & prolific career. He was perhaps best known for his outdoor enormo-sculptures, often witty & always eye-catching. The Oldenburg work I mentioned in March was Shelf Life Number 12, a sculpture made from what was ostensibly rubbish. We’re seeing more & more of the useless & the waste that we produce being recycled & reused or repurposed into artworks, sculptures & installations. Anyway, it feels sad to be adjusting someone’s name & dates according to when they have died, but it’s not the first time.
But we all know still life has been utilised throughout the History of Art under various guises to remind us of our mortality. In producing it, we’re leaving something of ourselves behind. Human experience can be expressed in myriad ways & no two lives are exactly the same. Luckily we have the artists of the world to remind us of & share some of them.
Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022), Tea Bag (from the Four on Plexiglas portfolio), 1965-67?
It’s not easy to get a sense of scale of this piece – not as large as Oldenburg’s outdoor installations, yet not as small as the shelf pieces, it measures at approximately 84 x 70 cm. Nevertheless, for a tea bag, it’s enormous & has a real Pop Art vibe; there is no attempt at strict realism, the constituent parts of the tea bag & the tea splashes round about are simplified to their basics even though they’re much larger than life. He once said, “I like food because you can change it. I mean, there is no such thing as a perfect lamb chop; you can make all types of lamb chops. & that’s true of everything. & people eat it & it changes & disappears.” There’s a profundity to that statement that could easily be missed in its surface flippancy, but it goes to the heart of still life art, its purpose & its meaning. “My art is made for human beings & it’s important that people enjoy the experience of seeing it.”
Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), Natura Morta, 1951
One of the great things about the still life is that there aren’t many rules. Something Claes taught us is, it doesn’t even have to be a painting or drawing. What Morandi shows us is you don’t need to have colour. This monochromatic piece is an exercise in tone. Had it been made purely in black & white it wouldn’t have been as effective or impressive. Here the different shades of white & beige have to be carefully mixed & he still manages to achieve depth in shade.
Mary Fedden (1915-2012), Thistle, 2008
In a naïve style, Feeden largely dispenses with perspective – despite the landscape behind – but makes a decision to hold onto features such as shadow, form & composition. It only appears to be the items on the table that have been flattened out. The pot holding the thistle has a Picasso-esque quality to it, as it keeps the shadow & shape generally, but then the base is a straight horizontal line, something that Cubists did to show different perspectives in one object. Another intriguing decision.
Terry Norris (b. 1960), Red and White Enamelware
This is painted in the style of a traditional still life, with many of the features of an Old Master painting. The composition has the rule of three, the dark background, the cloth sliding off the table & the sense of impermanence. It also feels freshly contemporary though & is also skilfully painted. I’m getting a “making soup” vibe from this - you can almost smell the onions & garlic.
Francisco de Zurbarán (1599-1664), Still Life with Lemons, Oranges & a Rose, 1633
& here we do have an actual 17th Century example to prove my previous point. My only quibble with this one (the cheek of me!) is that the cup looks like it’s got its hands on its hips & now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it.
Lucian Freud (1922-2011), Still Life with Squid & Sea Urchin, 1949
A strange & brilliant still life by a strange but brilliant artist. Better known as a great portraitist, Freud has nevertheless made some unusual object choices. There’s something of the naïve here too in terms of composition, although the individual items are of course expertly rendered & the way the plate skims off the edge of the painting (to my eyes) is just perfect.
Clara Peeters (active 1607–1621), Still Life of Fish & Cat, after 1620
Where there’s fish, there’s a cat. & if that isn’t a staggeringly slap-in-the-face metaphor for life, I don’t know what is.
Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), Still Life (1923)
What I love about this is that like Freud, Spencer was known for other forms & subjects, namely portraits & murals. Yet spend any time in his art’s company & you’ll find this highly recognisable as his work.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), Kitchen Utensils
Piranesi never ceases to seem more contemporary than he was. His imaginary architectural maze-like etchings of course predate graphic novels & Escher, yet if they don’t inspire them directly, they are surely part of that art trajectory. Here though, he goes to prove that every other artist known for other things still starts off drawing “stuff.” Objects fill up & contextualise many artworks & you’ve got to have some skills at shape-making & composition, if not tone or perspective. Once again, Piranesi proves he has the arty chops.
JD Fergusson (1874-1961), Silver Jonquils, 1905
You didn’t think you were getting away with me not mentioning a Scottish Colourist now, did you? Courting the traditional, skirting across the Impressionists & coming out the other side with his own thing, Fergusson’s masterful handling of paint always leaves me wishing I could see what was in the reflections…
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