2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Still life in painting - images of static inanimate objects combined into a single ensemble. A still life can be presented as an independent canvas, but sometimes it becomes part of the composition of a genre scene or a whole picture.
What is a still life?
Such painting is expressed in the subjective attitude of a person to the world. This shows the master's inherent understanding of beauty, which becomes the embodiment of social values and the aesthetic ideal of the time. Still life in painting gradually transformed into a separate significant genre. This process took more than one hundred years, and each new generation of artists understood canvases and color according to the trends of the era.
The role of still life in the composition of a painting is never limited to simple information, an accidental addition to the main content. Depending on historical conditions and social demands, objects can take a more or less active part in creating a composition or a hotel image, obscuring one or another goal. Still life in painting as an independent genre is designed to reliably convey the beauty of things that surround a person every day.
Sometimes a single part or element suddenlyacquires a deep meaning, takes on its own meaning and sound.
History
As an old and revered genre, still life in painting knew its ups and downs. Severe, ascetic and minimalistic Byzantine style helped to create immortal monumental generalized lofty heroic images. Sculptors with extraordinary expressiveness enjoyed the image of individual objects. Types of still life in painting and all sorts of classifications originated during the formation of art history, although the canvases existed long before the writing of the first textbook.
Icon traditions and still lifes
In ancient Russian icon painting, a big role was played by those few things that the artist dared to introduce into the strict laconicism of canonical works. They contribute to the manifestation of everything immediate and demonstrate the expression of feelings in a work devoted to an abstract or mythological plot.
Types of still life in painting exist separately from icon paintings, although the strict canon does not prohibit the depiction of some objects inherent in the genre.
Renaissance still life
However, works of the 15th-16th centuries play a big role in the Renaissance. The painter first drew attention to the world around him, sought to determine the meaning of each element in the service of mankind.
Modern painting, still life as popular and belovedthe genre originated in the Tricento period. Household items acquired a certain nobility and significance of the owner they served. On large canvases, a still life, as a rule, looks very modest and discreet - a glass jar of water, the silver of an elegant vase or delicate lilies on thin stems often huddled in a dark corner of the picture, like poor and forgotten relatives.
Nevertheless, in the image of beautiful and close things there was so much love in poetic form that modern painting, still life and its role in it already timidly looked through gaps in landscapes and heavy curtains of genre scenes.
Tipping point
Subjects received a real element in paintings and a new meaning in the 17th century - an era when still life with flowers prevailed and dominated. Painting of this kind has gained numerous admirers among the nobility and the clergy. In complex compositions with a pronounced literary storyline, the scenes got their place along with the main characters. Analyzing the works of the era, it is easy to see that the important role of the still life was similarly manifested in literature, theater and sculpture. Things began to "act" and "live" in these works - they were shown as the main characters, demonstrating the best and most beneficial aspects of objects.
Objects of art made by hardworking and talented craftsmen bear the personal imprint of the thoughts, desires, and inclinations of a particular person. Still life with flowers, painting better than all psychological tests help to track the psycho-emotional state andachieve inner harmony and integrity.
Things faithfully serve a person, adopting his enthusiasm for household items and inspiring owners to purchase new beautiful, elegant little things.
Flemish Renaissance
Gouache painting, still life as a genre people did not immediately accept. The history of the emergence, development and widespread implementation of various ideas and principles serves as a reminder of the constant development of thought. Still life became famous and fashionable in the middle of the 17th century. The lifeline of the genre began in the Netherlands, bright and festive Flanders, where nature itself is conducive to beauty and fun.
Gouache painting, still life flourished in a time of grandiose change, a complete change of political, social and religious institutions.
Flanders Current
The bourgeois direction of the development of Flanders has become a novelty and progress for the whole of Europe. Changes in political life led to similar innovations in culture - the horizons that opened up before artists were no longer limited to religious prohibitions and were not supported by appropriate traditions.
Still life as a genre of painting became the flagship of the new art, which glorified everything natural, bright and beautiful. The strict canons of Catholicism no longer held back the flight of imagination and curiosity of painters, and therefore, along with art, science and technology began to develop.
Ordinary everyday things and objects that were previously considered base and unworthy of mention, suddenly ascended toobjects of close study. Decorative painting, still life and landscapes have become a real mirror of life - daily routine, diet, culture, ideas about beauty.
Genre properties
It was from here, from a conscious, in-depth study of the surrounding world, that a separate genre of everyday painting, landscape, still life developed.
Art, which acquired certain canons in the 17th century, determined the main quality of the genre. The picture, dedicated to the world of things, describes the main properties inherent in the objects that surround a person, shows the attitude of the master and his hypothetical contemporary to what is shown, expresses the nature and completeness of knowledge about reality. The artist necessarily conveyed the material existence of things, their volume, weight, textures, colors, the functional purpose of household items and their vital connection with human activity.
Tasks and problems of still life
Decorative painting, still life and everyday scenes have absorbed the new trends of the era - the departure from the canons and the simultaneous preservation of the conservative naturalism of the image.
Still life of the revolutionary era during the complete victory of the bourgeoisie reflects the artist's respect for the new forms of national life of compatriots, respect for the work of simple artisans, admiration for the beautiful images of beauty.
The problems and tasks of the genre as a whole formulated in the 17th century were not discussed in European schools until the middle of the 19th century. Meanwhile, artists constantly set themselves new and new tasks, and did not continue to mechanically reproduceready-made composition solutions and color schemes.
Modern paintings
Photos of still lifes for painting, prepared in modern studios, clearly demonstrate the difference between the perception of the world by a contemporary and a person of the Middle Ages. The dynamics of objects today exceeds all conceivable limits, and the statics of objects was the norm for that time. Color combinations of the 17th century are characterized by brightness and purity of color. Saturated shades harmoniously fit into the composition and emphasize the idea and idea of the artist. The absence of any canons did not have the best effect on still lifes of the 20th and 21st centuries, sometimes striking the imagination with their ugliness or deliberate variegation.
Methods for solving the problems of still life are changing rapidly every decade, methods and techniques do not keep up with the imagination of recognized and not so masters.
The value of today's paintings lies in the expression of reality through the eyes of contemporary artists; through the incarnation on the canvas, new worlds arise that will be able to tell a lot about their creators to the people of the future.
Influence of Impressionism
The next milestone in the history of still lifes was Impressionism. The whole evolution of the direction was reflected in the compositions through colors, technique and understanding of space. The last romantics of the millennium brought life to the canvas as it is - quick, bright strokes and expressive details became the cornerstones of style.
Painting, still lifes by contemporary artists will certainly bear the imprint of inspirers-impressionists through color, methods and techniques of image.
Departure from the standard canons of classicism - three planes, central composition and historical heroes - allowed the artists to develop their own perception of color and light, as well as to demonstrate the free flight of emotions to the audience in an accessible and visual way.
The main tasks of the Impressionists are to change the painting technique and the psychological content of the picture. And today, even knowing the situation of that era, it is difficult to find the correct answer to the question of why impressionist landscapes, as joyful and unsophisticated as poetry, caused sharp rejection and rude ridicule from picky critics and an enlightened public.
Impressionist painting did not fit into the framework of the generally accepted, therefore, still lifes and landscapes were perceived as something vulgar, unworthy of recognition, along with other dregs of high art.
The art exhibition, which became a kind of missionary activity for famous artists of that time, was able to reach the hearts and demonstrate the beauty and grace of unusual paintings. Images of objects and objects by all available means have become commonplace even within the walls of formidable institutions that profess only the principles of classical art. The triumphal procession of still life paintings has not stopped since the end of the 19th century, and the variety of genres and techniques today makes it possible not to be afraid of any experiments with color, textures and materials.
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