Still Life

This is my Still Life page. When I was younger I did not like this type of art, but I must say it has stood the stand of time and the following examples are testament to this.

Still life is defined as being a work of art depicting inanimate objects either natural or man-made dating back to early Egyptian and Roman times. Dutch painters made it popular and it has been in and out of fashion ever since. It just shows there is ‘still life’ left in these pieces.

	Spanish painter and pioneer of realism, Fray Juan Sanchez Cotán was born on June 25, 1560 at Orgaz, La Mancha and studied at Toledo under little known Mannerist style painter Blas del Prado who was famous for his still life paintings. Bodegón (Sp. for “Still Life“) aka  Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber, ca 1602;  San Diego Museum of Art. For further information, click here.
	Clarice’s Table (gouache and acrylic) is a vibrant splash reminiscent of a Van Gogh floral still life. I saw this on exhibit many months ago at a winery which was show-casing local artist “Meg” aka Megan Hayley Abrecht. Click here for more information on Meg Abrecht.
	Georges Braque was born on 13 May, 1882, in Argenteuil, Val-d’Ois and was raised in Le Havre. Braque is considered to be a major French 20th-Century Fauvist and Cubist artist, collagist, draughtsman, print-maker and sculptor. Click here for more information on Georges Braque.
	Butterflies – Very large collections of butterflies are conserved in museums, colleges and/or universities where they are maintained and studied by specialists known as entomologists. Many amateur collectors and enthusiasts can also be referred to as entomologists. As a hobby, insect collecting became popular during the Victorian era. Click here for more information on Butterflies
	This first bag of chaff sits in an art gallery – the wonderful National Gallery of Victoria. It is called “Art Stuffing” (1970) , an installation by conceptual artist, Aleks Danko, born in 1950. It is a hessian bag stuffed with paper and contains enamel paint. Click here for more information on Aleks Danko.
	The French painter, sculptor and film-maker Fernand Léger was born in Argentan, Normandy, France, 133 years ago on February 4th, 1881. Regarded as the forerunner of the Pop Art movement, Léger had been developing his own form of Cubism, which he modified into a figurative style.  Originally trained as an architect, he became a student at the School of Decorative Arts (Paris). Click here for more information on Léger.
	Scottish artist, Robert MacBryde (1913– 1966) was a still-life, figure painter and a theatre set designer. Born in Maybole, MacBryde worked in a factory for 5 years after leaving school until he enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art from 1932-1937. Click here for more information on Robert MacBryde.
.	This is “Garden Green,” an oil on canvas, (1962) which is on display at the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, in Dublin. It was painted by the Irish born artist and illustrator, Norah McGuinness. Click here for more information on Norah McGuiness
	Karlis Mednis is not so well known in the international art arena, but I find his work vibrant and energetic. Karlis was born in Russia in 1910, and studied at the Latvian Riga School of Art, before he emigrated to Australia in 1949. Click here for more information on Karlis Mednis
	Fiona Murphy is a Melbourne-based contemporary artist and ceramicist.  This piece, entitled “Seedlings“(2007); is inspired by nature; and her “biomorphic” vessels express the structural, dramatic and metaphoric qualities of plants. Click here for more information on Fiona Murphy.
	Have you noticed how common the term “pod” has infiltrated our vocabulary? There are endless catalogue drops wanting us to buy items from their lists; such as i-pods, folding tripods, coffee-pods, can-I-get-my-food-from-ya-pods, senna-pods and been-there-done-that-a-pods. However, here’s an example from an earlier time. It’s called a seed pod. Click here for more information on ‘Pod Off.’
	Topiary is considered an art form and I guess they are living sculptures. To some people, this would be a topiarist’s delight. Somewhere in the UK I found this topiary zoo. I’m thinking … whoever created these has way too much time to spare. But, on a scarier thought, in the Stephen King novel The Shining, there are topiary animals that move when people aren’t looking, which ultimately frighten the Torrance family. Click here for more information on Topiary.
	So what does alcohol and art have in common? Well, in some cases, some people may need enough alcohol to appreciate art, but in this case, I saw the absolute opposite. Within the walls of the museum of Locke’s distillery, I saw the ‘art’ of the presentation of its pieces, which brings distilled life, when captured on camera, into still life. More information in this post.