Greyhound
Still Life
Gray's Anatomy
Grey
Gris
Grizzly
Cardinal
Juan Gris
Prov.16:5
"Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished."
"For he was great, ere fortune made him so"~~~Dryden
“questa mi porse tanto di gravezza
con la paura ch'uscia di sua vista,
ch'io perdei la speranza de l'altezza.
She brought upon me so much heaviness,
With the affright that from her aspect came,
That I the hope relinquished of the height.”~~~Dante: La Divina Commedia.
"Shoot if you must this old gray head"~~~Whittier
Justus Juncker (1703-1767),German.
Pear With Insects, 1765.
Oil on oakwood
Greyhound
grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis)
Juan Gris, September 1916,
Woman with Mandolin, after Corot (
La femme à la mandoline, d'après Corot), oil on canvas, 92 x 60 cm,
Kunstmuseum Basel
Städel Museum
Städelsches Kunstinstitut
und Städtische Galerie
+ 069-605098-200
Dürerstrasse 2
Frankfurt
Städel Annex, Ground Floor
March 20-August 17, 2008
Dewdrops on dainty petals, light glancing off precious
silverware, candied confectionery in blue and white Chinese porcelain bowls,
the soft plumage of a dead songbird, the pale hue of a skull — still lifes have
not ceased to exercise their spell upon us to this day with their close-up
views of inanimate, yet by no means lifeless objects reproduced with painterly
finesse.
However, still life painting was anything but a merely
aesthetic affair, even if today’s viewer tends to perceive it as such. It
reflects not only a feeling of transience and a longing for redemption, but
also the pleasure of visually representing exotic trading goods with which
Dutch and other merchants made their fortunes.
Assembling the superb holdings of the Städel Museum, the
Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, the exhibitions
unfolds a spectrum of still life painting in the Netherlands and Germany from
the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth centuries with more than ninety
masterpieces by Jan Brueghel the Elder, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Willem Kalf,
Rachel Ruysch, Abraham Mignon, Georg Flegel, Jan Soreau, Gottfried von Wedigh, and
Sebastian Stosskopf.
This offers a panorama of the genre’s different varieties from
prosaic pieces of the early seventeenth century to later works depicting things
of splendor, from banquet still lifes to sumptuous bouquets and picturesque
animal still lifes.
Since its emancipation from the religious painting of the late
Middle Ages, when objects mainly served as symbols or attributes, still lifes
initially provided a means of understanding and interpreting things from the
viewer’s everyday world that were “lying still.” These objects reflected the
order and structure of the Baroque era’s superior abstract world: the human
senses or a certain temperament, the elements or the seasons informing the
individual’s world, or impermanence and guilty mankind’s need of redemption.
Yet, both the painters’ and the collectors’ and clients’
economic reality and its specifics also manifested itself in the still lifes as
early as in the seventeenth century. The same merchant princes and investors
who, primarily in the Netherlands, strove to make their country the most
powerful trading nation of the globe, importing exotic goods into Europe from
all over the world, ordered still lifes for decorating their town palaces and
country houses with pictures revealing the sources of their wealth such as
foreign spices, Venetian glass, and Chinese porcelain.
With the artists’ concentration on a few, often the same
objects, still life painting gradually also turned in an ideal field of
experimentation for their possibilities of expression. Painterly issues of
representation became more important than the originally so prominent contents
many works were charged with without ever replacing them entirely.
It was above all in still life painting, which held a low
position in the hierarchy of genre categories that the artist had to prove his
specific skills and a work’s attraction and value depended on its composition
and ingenious assemblage of objects, its convincing coloring and masterly
brushstroke. The paintings also evidence the expertise in rendering the most
different materials and surfaces in a manner that deceives the eye. The artists
experimented with various kinds of lighting from the even brightness of
daylight to the weak glow of a single candle, utilizing them for the mise-en-scène
of manifold situations and moods.
The exhibition, structured to provide the visitor with a
survey outlining the development of the genre between 1500 and 1800 and to
convey an idea of the most important subjects and varieties of still life
painting, commences with early still life forms from the dawn of the modern
age.
The first section illustrates the process of the still life’s
emancipation from a symbolically charged accessory of religious painting to a
subject in its own right. The following chapter dedicated to the early
autonomous still life around 1600 with Jan Brueghel and Georg Flegel as main
representatives marks a first highlight of the exhibition thanks to the
selection of particularly fabulous works on display.
The next group comprises banquet and vanitas still lifes
introducing the visitor to the symbolism of Baroque imagery and its very
peculiar oscillations between sensual appeal and admonitions about the
transience of worldly existence. The vanitas, the vanity and futility, of all
things becomes visible in distinctive symbols, such as a skull, a candle going
out, or a clock symbolizing the passage of time.
The following sections presenting fish and hunting still lifes
as well as cartouche pictures convey the 17th-century painters’ extreme
specialization in certain varieties, offering a strategic advantage on the art
market as monopolists in a certain field in their town. These still lifes
represented primarily by a larger number of works by Jan Davidsz. de Heem and
Willem van Aelst are not only aimed at a display of splendor but also show the
artists’ painterly virtuosity in minute details.
The last chapter of the exhibition is dedicated to the 18th
century: here, “the magic of things” becomes especially manifest in Justus
Juncker’s works, who, for example, presents a huge pear like a monument on a
pedestal.
The section comprises no fewer than three masterpieces by the
great French still life painter Jean Siméon Chardin. He required just a few
laconic brushstrokes to lend the objects of his still lifes, which constitute
the final highlight of the exhibition, an incredible presence.
Artists in the exhibition include Willem van Aelst, Pieter
Aertsen, Abraham van Beyeren, Peter Binoit, Jan Brueghel d. Ä., Jan Brueghel d.
J., Jean Siméon Chardin, Adriaen Coorte, Georg Flegel, Jan Fyt, Willem Claesz.
Heda, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Cornelis de Heem, David Cornelisz. de Heem, Hans
Holbein d. J., Jacob van Hulsdonck, Justus Juncker, Jan van Kessel, Jacob
Marrel, Abraham Mignon, Pieter de Ring, Ludger tom Ring d. J., Rachel Ruysch,
Isaak Soreau, Peter Soreau, Harmen Steenwijck, Sebastian Stoskopff, Jan van de
Velde, Jacob van Walscapelle, Gottfried von Wedig, Jan Weenix, a.o.
The exhibition The
Magic of Things has been
prepared by the Städel Museum and the Kunstmuseum Basel in cooperation with the
Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt. After its presentation in the Städel, it
will be shown in the Kunstmuseum Basel from 5 September 2008 to 4 January 2009.
Exhibition curator is Dr. Jochen Sander, Vice-Director and
Curator of Flemish painting and Paintings of the Romance schools before 1800.
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