The Delightful Artificiality in the Realism of 17th-Century Dutch Still Life

FAH231, Baroque Art and Architecture, 30/10/2018

Realism was indeed reconsidered in the mind’s eye after perusing ​Natural Artifice and

Material Values in Dutch Still Life by Celeste Brusati, published in 1997, a valuable piece in

critiquing the approach to interpreting 17th Century Dutch Still Life paintings. The intrigue the

writer introduced was phenomenal through its highly descriptive and well supported argument

about how one must observe or interpret Dutch still-life paintings in the seventeenth century,

characterized by the sumptuous (​pronk) ​and elaborate representation of a variety of objects such

as flowers, fruits, goblets, jewels, and seemingly all other natural or artificial phenomena that

one can place on a table. ​(p.144, p.153) Brusati observes through the accounts of other art

historians/critics like Erwin Panofsky, Eddy De Jongh, Roland Barthes, and Svetlana Alpers,

among others, their differences and what makes them essentially effective in their respective

approaches, as well as the support they provide to Brusati’s main arguments. Barthes

underscored how Dutch still lifes contained two main qualities such as: 1) objects never being

isolated and always significantly grouped together; and 2) such objects always subjected to an

exploitative rendering that makes particularly obvious their purpose and primary properties.

(p.147) Alpers, along the same line as Barthes, propositioned the still lifes as explorations of the

artists’ craft and inventiveness or what was mentioned in the reading as ​ingenious contrivances

that contribute to what is felt or experienced by the viewer of the painting. ​(p.147-148) ​These are

seen as fundamental to Brusati’s goals of exploration. ​(p.146)

 Brusati highlights in several instances within the reading, the vital synergy of

natural/manmade artifices achieved by the technical ability of the painter through various

representational practices sears through what the viewer may, in turn, experience and reflect on,

following through many different meanings and interpretations. This synergy of elements is, for

Brusati, the crowning glory of 17th-century Dutch still lifes that transcends conventional realist

approaches, such as those by Panofsky and De Jongh that concentrate on an iconological

vantage, looking immediately into the cultural context and the symbolism of the objects

represented in realist still lifes, casting aside the technicality or the artistry of the work. ​(p.146)

Brusati challenges that still-lifes are no more fictionalized worlds than they are mere

representations of random objects, each with separate symbolistic meanings. ​(pp. 144-145)

According to Brusati, painting is a means of self-expression, and for realism more than

just accurately putting into canvas what is in front of the painter as this entails a transformative

process for both the objects being rendered and the painter himself/herself. ​(pp. 145-146) Thus,

Dutch realism in 17th century still lifes for Brusati formed itself around three main

representational practices based on existing works by some of the most prominent artists of 17th

Century Dutch still life: that the way natural curiosities were depicted provided extended

enjoyment of these usually very expensive and ephemeral curiosities through Jan Brueghel’s

works and his patrons’ commentaries ​(pp.148-150)​; Clara Peeters’ works that reinforce the

significance of the juxtaposition of natural entities alongside human products made from such

along with Karen van Mander’s concept of reflexy-const ​(the art of reflection) ​wherein the

painter utilizes the strategy of rendering reflective objects as a way to exemplify one’s artistry in

translating nature’s way of bending light and simultaneously introduce the milieu of the objects
as well as a reference to the artist’s own involvement in the still life itself ​(pp.151-154)​; and

Simon Luttichuy combining aforementioned elements (juxtaposition, ​reflexy-const, ​and visual

delight), yet with the quality that expresses a most ambiguous line between what is there and

what it can mean (its possibilities). ​(pp.153-157)

Take for example, Jan Davidz. De Heems’ ​Still Life with Drinking Glass, Fruit, and

Roses (​ c. 1632-1624), displayed at the AGO’s exhibit entitled “Painting in the Netherlands in the

1600s”. De Heems’ work is a still life of several objects on a table covered with black fabric. The

composition of the painting has its subject(s) positioned a little more towards the left side,

leaving a bit of more a void on the right, which reveals a plain brown background. There is a

glass of water with an ornate bottom, a silver plate with a slice of lemon (characteristic peeling in

view) and the severed stem of 2 pink roses on top, a picked-out stem with 4 cherries, and a shiny

white and slender object that could be a pen or a knife made of an exotic mollusk or a stone like

marble .

The curious natural entities of water, flowers, and fruits in the process of dying or being

consumed, preserved through the portrait were grouped together. The juxtaposition of the objects

may feel more simple and domestic than Luttichuy’s ​Still Life with the Attributes of the Pictorial

Arts (c. 1646) t​ hat was suggested to be in the artist’s studio. But despite such deduction, one may

look into the tiny details of a broken premature cherry stem near the knife, the unruly placement

of the roses on the plate (or did it fall out of the glass?), the raw peeling of the lemon, and the

drop of water as signifiers of a subtle chaos of the almost ‘perfect’ arrangement of the objects.

One may also ask, why is the pen or knife obscured? ​(pp.155-157) ​Is it also similar to Cardinal

Federico Borromeo’s commentary over Bruegel’s flowers laid on top of jewels, suggesting the
lavish precedence of the other ‘natural’ elements of the flowers over what may ordinarily seem

like an expensive item. ​(p.150) ​Then the art of reflection is exhibited through the water

contained within the ornate glass, a touch of a singular drop of water at the edge, beaming

through the painting, and the reflection of the objects placed on top of the plate suggesting what

Brusati stated from Van Mander’s idea of “​linking imaging processes ​found in nature to the

painter’s descriptive skill in rendering the many kinds and degrees of reflected light.” (​ p.152) ​As

one already attempted to zoom in the painting, drawn by its apparent vividness, one feels almost

required to endlessly zoom in further to fully assess the details of texture, color, and even smell,

engaging the viewer in a such a way the objects feel real, yet remains delicate and out of touch.

The black cloth now is possibly soft velvet.

Ultimately, the purported aim of Dutch still lifes in the 1600s, as was exemplified by

Brusati’s criteria and that of what is observed in the chosen painting, is to be delighted, yet to

feel obliged to question and further inspect what is in front of the viewer as was the intention by

way of the technique established by these Dutch still-life painters. And with the pleasure of being

delighted, a tenderness for life and its minute details seemingly insignificant at first is what

makes it most striking, and especially ​lasting for the beholder. As confirmation of Brusati’s

argument as to the aesthetic value of Dutch Realism with its self-reflective aspects via

representation, that is indeed what one may feel at the presence De Heems’ work ​within the

walls of AGO.
● Margins: 1 inch for the top and bottom margins; 1.25 inches for the left and right margins.
● Footnotes, w ​ ith accurate and specific page numbers​, following the Chicago Manual of
Style: ​http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
● Footnote format: Times New Roman, 11 point; single spaced.
● Although you will only be using one source for this assignment, we want you to get in the
habit of using footnotes effectively. The first time you cite a source in your footnotes,
provide the full bibliographic information. Every time you cite that source thereafter, use a
shortened title – do not use “Ibid.”

THE READING:​ Celeste Brusati, “Natural Artifice and Material Values in Dutch Still Life,” in
Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered,​ ed. Wayne Franits
(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 144-57,​ ​233-34. (The assigned
reading for Week 9)

THE PAINTING:​ Go to the Art Gallery of Ontario and find Room 121 (on the first floor), also
called The E.R. Wood Gallery. There are a number of still life* paintings there from which you
can choose. Note: there is one painting that combines still life with portraiture (Cornelis de Vos
with Frans Snyders). You are free to choose this one. Otherwise, if in doubt, double check with
the instructor that your choice is suitable for the assignment.
*Still Life = an image that depicts a grouping of inanimate objects, including once living objects
like fish.