Still Life

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Teacher Resource PackStill LifeKey Stages 3, 4
5
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Colour and composition

• Evaristo Baschenis (1617 1677)
• Still-life with Musical Instruments, 1660
• Italy
• Look closely at this picture for 30 seconds!
• Q. What can you see?
• Lots of musical instruments, including a violin
  which sits on top of a shiny black box. Q. What
  do we keep in boxes?
• What could be inside this box?
• This is a jewellery box. There is another little
  red box inside it.
• The instrument on the left of the painting with a
  five sided top is called a spinettino.
• The stripy instrument behind the spinettino, and
  the instrument on the far right are both lutes.
  Q. What kind of material do they look like they
  are made out of?
• There are two books in the painting.
• There is a fruit, possibly an orange, next to the
  violin.

A spinettino
3

• Style and symbolism
• Q. Is this a photograph?
• Q. Why might some people think its a photograph?
  
• Everything is painted very realistically, notice
  the dust painted on the lute on the right.
• Q. There is something wrong with the violin on
  top of the box, what is the matter with it?
• All of its strings are broken .
• Q. Why might the strings be broken?
• The artist, who was also a priest and a deeply
  religious man, may have painted the broken violin
  and the dusty lutes in this manner in keeping
  with the vanitas tradition of still life
  painting.
• A vanitas is a still life intended to remind the
  viewer of the short lived nature of worldly
  possessions the futility of human
  accomplishments and the inevitability of death.
• The violin with the broken string may,
  therefore, refer to the futility of pleasure.
• The orange, (like the apple) could be said to
  symbolise the fruit of temptation.

4

• Colour and composition
• Jan Davidsz de Heem
• Still Life with Nautilus Cup, 1632
• Netherlands
• Look at this picture for 30 seconds!
• Q. How old do you think it is? Its 379 years old
• Q. What do you see?
• Whole lemon, lemon peel, slices of lemon, grapes,
  
• grapevine, walnut, silver plate, bowl (on its
  side), vase, cup or tazza (which has been
  knocked over), a nautilus cup a precious
  drinking cup with a nautilus shell, table with
  dark table cloth.
• Q. Do you think everyone had objects like this
  379 years ago, or would they have been rare and
  expensive? Who might have used objects like this?
• Q. Did the artist find these objects like this or
  did he arrange them carefully? He arranged them
  carefully.

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Context

• Symbolism
• Lemons at that time
• were a rarity in Holland,
• and were therefore considered to be rather
  precious. They also grew all year round which
  could be a reference to fertility.
• Grapes are also used in art often referring to
  the use of wine by Christians to celebrate the
  Eucharist, and of
• course wine was consumed
• at the Last Supper.

• De Heem was a Dutch artist who made this painting
  when the Netherlands (Dutch Republic) was at war
  with Spain.
• The Netherlands was becoming very rich and
  powerful at this time, but it was also a
  Protestant country where large scale religious
  images were shunned in favour of small scale
  still life paintings in domestic settings rather
  than churches.
• Although this painting is smaller and much more
  subdued than the grand religious paintings made
  by catholic artists, the objects in this painting
  would have all been extremely hard to source,
  and therefore very expensive markers of status
  and wealth.

• The Nautilus Cup
• Below is a nautilus- a deep sea creature. Its
  shell was used to make nautilus cups. It is a
  prehistoric creature, still alive today. It is
  only found in certain parts of the Indian and
  Pacific Oceans hundreds of miles away from the
  Netherlands!

• The nautilus is a mollusk and a member of the
  cephalopod family. It is closely related to other
  cephalopods such as the squid, cuttlefish, and
  octopus.

6

• Colour and composition
• Francois Bonvin (1817 1887)
• The Attributes of Painting, about1879
• France
• Look at this picture for 30 seconds!
• Q. What kind of objects can you see in this
  painting?
• There is a large brown folder (a portfolio) in
  the background which is full of paper, in front
  of this there is a rolled up piece of paper, some
  paintbrushes and a paint palette on top of a
  leather paint box, with a pink rose.
• At the front, there is an inkwell, a red tube of
  paintbrushes, three tubes of paint and a piece of
  chalk.

Q. What kind of person would have used materials
like these? A painter. Francois Bonvin has
painted the materials of his profession. If you
look closely at portfolio, its possible to make
out a face. We dont know if this was
intentional, or coincidental. Q. What do you
think?
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Style and symbolism

• Bonvin was attached to the Realist movement a
  group of painters who rejected the popular
  mythological, historical and religious subjects
  of the day in favour of scenes from everyday
  life. They wanted to portray the world around
  them as they saw it.
• Mass produced tubes of paint had only recently
  been invented when this painting was made.
  Before that artists had to buy all their own raw
  materials which they then had to grind down and
  mix with linseed oil., then they stored their
  paints in pigs bladders! By including tubes of
  paint in this picture, Bonvin is proudly showing
  his audience what the modern-day materials of a
  painter look like.
• Q. Do you think that Bonvin carefully arranged
  everything in this picture, or did he simply find
  these objects lying around in this way?
• We know that Bonvin wanted to paint the world as
  he saw it accurately - but he still probably
  arranged this still life scene very carefully.
  The addition of the rose suggests that the artist
  still feels connected to the more symbolic still
  life paintings that came before.
• Q. When do people buy roses for each other? What
  do they symbolise?
• Roses often symbolise love. Bonvin might have
  included one here as a reference to Louison
  Kohler, the woman who was his companion, model
  and muse for the last seventeen years of his
  life.

8

• Colour and composition
• Joseph-Fernand-Henri Léger (1881- 1955)
• Composition with fruit, 1938
• France
• Look at this picture for 30 seconds!
• This is not a painting with objects that we can
  easily identify. It is an abstract painting full
  of bold shapes and thick black lines, and it is
  often up to us to work out what abstract artists
  were painting.
• Q. What could the round things at the bottom
  left of the painting be? apples with worms
  wriggling out?
• Q. In the middle of the painting is a large shape
  divided down the centre by a vertical black line.
  Q. What could this be? It has shapes cut out of
  it like a jigsaw puzzle.
• Q. What other shapes and patterns can you see?
• What is a 3D square called? a cube
• a 3D circle? a sphere

Léger inspired many of the Pop artists! Q. Can
you name any Pop artists?
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• Context
• About the artist..
• Joseph-Fernand-Henri Léger was a French painter,
  sculptor, and filmmaker. He initially trained as
  an architect.
• Léger wasnt interested in direct representation
  he was an early abstract artist and wanted to
  breakdown the world around him and paint it in a
  different and simplified way.
• He was fascinated by modern technology,
  especially by motorcars he loved their precise
  construction.
• Q. Take another look at the paintingcould the
  sharp shapes in the centre refer to the
  individual parts of cars?
• Léger was in World War I (1914-1918) and it is
  thought that he was inspired by the machinery and
  weaponry used during this time.
• Q. So what else could the round shapes be? and
  the big shape in the centre?

1930s car

• Although he loved the bright colours and new
  technological forms of modern life, the apples
  with worms inside could also be said to refer
  back to more historical methods of still life
  painting. Rotten apples being symbolic of the
  fall when Eve picked the forbidden fruit and was
  then expelled from the garden of Eden. Could
  Léger, at the same time as honouring the new
  technology of his day, also be warning us of some
  future dangers that it may pose?

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Composition and technique Howard Hodgkin
 Artificial Flowers, 1975 England Look at this
painting for 30 seconds! Q. What can you see?
what shapes and colours can you see? orange
circles, red curved shape, Q. What do the
orange shapes above the red curve look like?
oranges in a fruit bowl! The title of the
painting is Artificial Flowers Q. Can you
see any flowers in this picture?
Q. All of the other paintings you have looked at
are painted onto canvas. This is different, what
is it painted onto? wood. Q. Do you notice
anything unusual about the frame? There isnt
one! The artist has painted a thick black line
all the way around, which resembles a frame. Q.
How long do you think it took the artist to make
this painting? It might look like it was made
quickly, but in fact Hodgkin paints extremely
slowly, sometimes taking up to four years or more
to complete a single painting!
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• Style and context
• We might describe this painting as abstract, but
  Hodgkin himself has always described himself as a
  representational painter.
• Q. What is abstract art?
• Abstract art art that doesnt depict
  recognisable scenes or objects, but instead is
  made up of forms and colours that exist for their
  own expressive sake.
• Q. What is representational art?
• Representational art to look like or to
  resemble something.
• Instead of representing objects, Hodgkin is
  interested in representing feelings.
• Q. How does this painting make you feel?
• His subject matter is often very personal. The
  titles of his paintings often refer to memories,
  like parties, dinners with friends, meetings and
  departures.
• Q. Is this a happy or sad picture?......
• What colours do we associate with being happy?
  what are warm colours?
• pinks, reds, yellows, oranges
• What colours do we associate with being sad? what
  are cold colours?
• blues and greens