Category: Still Life

Art 2/Artist Spotlights

You will be introduced to selected works of art and artists as they relate to the curriculum. In your sketchbook:
1. Complete a thumbnail sketch of the work
2. Document the #, heading, and credit line
3. Review all provided resources - take notes
4. Answer the questions completely and with specificity; complete sentences should reveal the question (write legibly or type/print)

Entries started in class must be completed as homework by the same day/next week

MORE ART HISTORY!

#6 Janet Fish (b. 1938)

10/22/2018

Fish Vase
1997
Oil on canvas

"Over the last fifty years, Janet Fish has drawn on her embrace of change and her belief in the underlying interconnectedness of things to fuel her remarkable painting practice. She philosophizes that to stop changing is to die, a conviction that drives her unending formal experimentation and her mastery of multiple genres. Change inhabits each painting as well. The objects that serve as armatures for color and light in her work are exuberant in their state of flux. The long conceptual, formal, and iconographic history of the still life genre confirms our own experience. Though the artist works against the idea of capturing a photographic instant, she preserves a mood, a quality of light, and a sense of place to which we can continually return."

LOOK at more of Fish's work from the DC Moore Gallery, which represents her (this is also where the blurb above comes from)

READ this: Artist Profile: Janet Fish (as you read, make special note of the many connections between Fish and other artists we have discussed).

WATCH this:

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, notes taken, personal reflection, and additional research as needed. Make sure to consider how this information is relevant to your current work and practice.

1. The paintings of Fish and Cézanne are different - and they lived and worked at very different times in history. Still, they share similarities. Explain using points from the reading to support your answer.
2. Her work has been described as "photorealist" but she disagrees with this assertion. Explain using points from the reading to support your answer.
3. The assigned reading, video, and gallery link provided many more topics than those addressed in questions #1 and #2. Take this opportunity to explain what you found to be of particular interest.

#5 Giorgio Morandi (1890 - 1964)

10/10/2018

Still Life
1955
12” x 16”
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

READ THIS article (and study the pictures) to get to know Giorgio Morandi and his fascination with still life. Think about HIS explorations with THIS subject as you think about what YOU want to make art about....

New article: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/arts/design/19mora.html?

Watch this short video - it's an old exhibit but the info. and images are still relevant.

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, notes taken, personal reflection, and additional research as needed. Make sure to consider how this information is relevant to your current work and practice.

1. Look carefully and thoughtfully at Morandi's work. What words or phrases come to mind? What feeling do you get from the composition, colors, and the work in general?
2. List the artists who inspired Morandi. What did he take from these artists, in order to finally develop his own style?
3. He called himself a "monk" and others agreed with this nickname, also calling him a "zen master"....why?

CURIOUS? Here's more:
Morandi @ MoMA
Morandi @ TATE

#4 Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)

10/9/2018

Still Life with Chair Caning
1912
Oil and oilcloth on canvas, with rope frame
10 5/8 x 13 3/4 in. (27 x 35 cm.)
Musée Picasso, Paris

WATCH THESE VIDEOS and take good notes:

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, notes taken, personal reflection, and additional research as needed. Make sure to consider how this information is relevant to your current work and practice.

1. a) What was your first reaction upon seeing this painting? b) Is this painting style similar to or different from the art you like most?
2. Picasso said, “Can this object still be art if I don’t actually render its forms myself, if the quality of the art is no longer directly tied to my technical skills or level of craftsmanship?" What do you think?
3. After learning more about this work of art, and about Cubism in general, explain your thoughts about abstraction and its relationship to mimetic works of art.

#3 Paul Cézanne (1839 - 1906)

10/8/2018

The Basket of Apples
1893
Oil on canvas, 2’ 2” x 2’ 7”
The Art Institute of Chicago

READ THIS and take notes.

Watch this video:

AFTER CAREFULLY REVIEWING THE RESOURCES ASSIGNED ABOVE: Answer the following questions completely and with specificity to the provided resources, notes taken, personal reflection, and additional research as needed. Make sure to consider how this information is relevant to your current work and practice.
1. a) List and explain the hierarchy of subject matter found in paintings at the time in which Cézanne was working. b) Considering where still life lands on this list, why would Cézanne even bother with it?
2. The introduction of photography dramatically changed the way that artists were able to work. With this in with this in mind, what - specifically - did Cézanne attempt to do in his paintings that was such a drastic change from the norm?
3. Cézanne has been called the "Father of Modern Art." This is a pretty lofty title...what did he do to earn it?

#2 Rachel Ruysch (1664 - 1750)

10/1/2018

Still-Life with Fruit and Insects
1711
Oil on wood, 44 x 60 cm (approx. 18” x 24”)
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

READ: Adapted from the National Museum of Women in the Arts):

Rachel Ruysch was successful for nearly 70 years as a specialist in flower paintings.
Ruysch's maternal grandfather, Pieter Post, was an important architect,and her father, Frederik Ruysch, an eminent scientist. From him, she learned how to observe and record nature with great accuracy.
At 15, she was apprenticed to the well-known Dutch flower painter Willem van Aelst. From that point on, she produced various kinds of still lifes, mainly flower pieces and woodland scenes.
In 1701, Ruysch became a member of the painters' guild in The Hague. At that time, she began producing large flower works for an international circle of patrons. Several years later, Ruysch was invited to Düsseldorf to serve as court painter to Johann Wilhelm, the Elector Palatine of Bavaria. She remained there from 1708 until the prince's death in 1716.
After returning to Holland, Ruysch kept painting fruit and flower pictures for a prominent clientele. She remained artistically active, proudly inscribing her age on a canvas she completed in 1747, at age 83.
Despite the changes in popularity of flower paintings during the years since her death, Ruysch's reputation has never waned.

LOOK AT THIS PAINTING CLOSELY AND READ ABOUT IT'S COMPOSITION (make sure to click on the photo to see it in full)

WATCH BOTH VIDEOS:

What were the circumstances of Ruysch's formal training in careful observation? How was this level of observation beneficial to her work?
Look carefully at the composition of BOTH "Still Life with Fruit and Insects" (above) AND "Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge" (from the linked article). What is similar AND different between the two? As a viewer, do you have a preference? (think about this as you consider your own compositions and how the viewers will experience your work)
What is a "vanitas" painting? According to art scholars, are Ruysch's paintings considered "vanitas?" Explain.
Read through the vocabulary list you were given. Define the terms that you already know AND those that have been mentioned in AS #1 and #2 (write in your own words/leave the unknown words alone for now).

CURIOUS? Find out more:
For more information, a review of Dutch still lifes and vanitas in general, and the definition of the word, "pronk," watch this!

#1 Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699 - 1779)

9/24/2018

The Silver Tureen
c. 1728
Oil on canvas
30 x 42 1/2 in.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin (b Paris, 2 Nov. 1699; d Paris, 6 Dec. 1779). French painter of still lifes and genre scenes, subjects in which he was one of the greatest masters of all time. He was the contemporary of François Boucher and he briefly taught Jean-Honoré Fragonard, whose work typified the more fashionable Rococo style of the times. Chardin's work was a contrast to theirs in every way. More naturalistic, it was heavily influenced by 17th-century Dutch still life and genre paintings. Almost all his pictures are small in size and simple in subject, depicting objects and scenes from everyday middle-class life. They create their magic through an extraordinarily subtle mastery of composition and colour, tone and texture (he was a notoriously slow and fastidious worker).

In 1728 he was accepted into the The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture as a ‘painter skilled in animals and fruits,’ although still lifes and genre scenes were not popular with the Academy at the time. Denis Diderot, the period's foremost critic, called Chardin the "grand magician," suggesting the seemingly effortless harmony of color and composition with which Chardin imparted gravity to ordinary objects and occupations. It was customary for new members to give an example of their work to the Academy and Chardin presented The Rayfish (c.1725) and The Buffet (1728), both now in the Louvre, Paris. The Rayfish is, by Chardin's standards, an unusually flamboyant work: the gutted fish has a strangely human-like ‘face’ twisted in a macabre grimace, and its raw flesh is depicted with virtuoso skill.

Adapted and modified from: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford University Press) with additional info. from: https://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg53/gg53-over1.html#jump
"Chardin, Jean-Siméon" The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Ed Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press 2009 Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.

READ, TAKE NOTES, and VIEW other works by Chardin

Use the images below to help understand the context of Chardin's work.

Above: Contrast François Boucher's Rococo work, Venus Consoling Amor, 1751, with that of Chardin

Above: Contrast Jean-Honoré Fragonard's Rococo work, The Swing, 1767, with that of Chardin

Below: Contrast Angelica Kaufmann's Neoclassical work, Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, Pointing to her Children as Her Treasures, ca. 1785, with that of Chardin:

Chardin was painting still lifes and genre scenes. Define each term and explain how these subjects contrasted with what was commonplace for the time period.
After viewing other works by Chardin, name a favorite and explain your choice. What, specifically, do you admire or find interesting about the work?
What specific painting techniques did Chardin use to achieve the realistic effects that his paintings were known for (remember, he was called "the grand magician")?