Symbolism in still life

Reading
symbols
Symbols in art are a rich multilayered
language that can be both read,
and decoded

Symbolism is a visual language that has built

up over centuries and forms part of what is
called our conceptual map – our shared
cultural dictionary of meanings. The
philosopher Roland Barthes had an equation
that explained what a sign – a symbol with
an agreed-upon meaning – is, and how it
works. It runs ‘Signifier + Signified = Sign’. In
the still life paintings we’ve been looking at,
for example, the Signifier could be an apple,
and the Signified its obvious meaning, food
from nature. Therefore, the apple is a Sign
that denotes food from nature, and by
extension lots of it. It’s a fairly obvious
meaning that is immediately apparent. But
you’ll have noticed the word ‘connotes’
cropping up a lot in this discussion too, and
that alludes to a second part of Barthes’
equation that governs more hidden,
subtextual meanings that you might need to
probe a bit to discover. The second part of
Barthes’ equation runs ‘Sign + Myth =
Mythology’. A Myth that we’ve attached to
apples is the biblical story of the Temptation
in the Garden of Eden, when Eve tempts
Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, and the two
are cast out of God’s Garden in
consequence. Put the Sign and the Myth
the possession of one, leading eventually TOP In this bodegón image,
together and it’s this Mythology that is
to the Trojan War. They therefore mean Juan Sánchez Cotán has
subtly referenced, or connoted: apples depicted a ripening melon,
riches and wealth, while their perfumed
stand for temptation and for sin. It’s not overripe quince, cucumber,
blossom is associated with love; some
immediately obvious: you need to know the and a cabbage – peasant
orange trees can have both blossom and foods that need to be used
story to decode the hidden meaning, but
fruit on them at the same time. In up before they go bad,
once you have an idea of the Myths an
Botticelli’s Primavera the artist sets his alluding to the harsh
image might be referencing, you can infer all realities of life
enigmatic spring scene in an orange
sorts of inner meanings.
grove just like this, alluding to the golden
ABOVE Pineapples, so
ABOVE Apples initially denote food, plenty, orbs on the family crest of his clients for expensive they could be
and the bounty of nature, but their deeper the painting, the wealthy and powerful rented for parties, became a
meaning relates to the tale of Adam and Eve, Medici family of Renaissance Florence. symbol of wealth, as in this
as in Dürer’s painting of the pair with 19th century still life by
Art historians still don’t know what many
meticulously observed fruit John F Francis
details of Botticelli’s painting mean, but

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The history of still life
we can guess that overall he’s comparing
his clients to the bounty of spring and
showing off their super-rich status.
A lot of fruit symbolism comes from
ancient myth. Pomegranates are
associated with the classical Greek myth
of Persephone and Hades, and symbolise
death and rebirth. Grapes are a symbol of
the Greek god Dionysus (Roman
Bacchus) and denote wine, revelry and
joie de vivre; alternatively they can
symbolise the wine in the Christian
Eucharist and allude to the blood of Jesus
Christ. In Asian imagery peaches
symbolise immortality – a banquet of
peaches keeps the ancient Tao deities
youthful. But not all fruit symbolism is
from antiquity. In Georgian London
pineapples were so exotic and expensive
that you could rent them by the hour to
display on your dinner table when you
had a party; they’re still visual shorthand
for decadence and fun to this day.
Other kinds of plants also have
meaning. Vegetables represent
nourishment and the bounty of the earth;
they can also connote the hardworking
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farmers who produce them or the
peasantry for whom they made up most
of their diet. A breakfast piece is a style of
16th century still life from northern
Europe that features the simple items of
a lower-class morning meal; a bodegón is
its Spanish equivalent. Unlike the lavish
still lifes of the Flemish Baroque, packed
with elaborate fantasies of indulgent
banquet spreads, these more austere
subjects have a moral element rooted in
workaday, no-frills Dutch Protestantism
or the deliberate self-denial and
asceticism of Spanish Roman Catholic
sects like Opus Dei. They feature eggs
and cabbages and seasonal fruit, with the
occasional haunch of meat or fish, often
past its best. The message here is that it’s
the simple, peasant produce that is real;
wealth and decadence is fleeting.
Another symbol of fleeting transience
is flowers. Their tendency to wilt and fade
is a strong allusion to the fragility of
beauty and success – which makes it all
the more ironic that the Dutch flower
painting craze of the early 17th century
was driven by tulipmania, the vogue for
an exotic Turkish flower. In a spectacular
case of life imitating art, the merchants
who had paid fortunes for tulip bulbs, and
for artists to depict their blooms, as a
symbol of wealth and prestige, were
brought low when the tulip bubble burst
and the bottom fell out of the market. For
Dutch merchants in 1637, tulips really did
mean the swift and spectacular decline of
what was once beautiful and precious.
Flowers can have a deeper meaning
than symbolism. Floriography, or the
language of flowers, is a centuries-old
system of code that became extremely
popular in the straitened society of
Victorian England. It’s from here that we
get the idea that red roses mean intense
romantic love and white lilies mean
innocence and purity, and it’s in this
context that John Singer Sargent used
them in his painting Carnation, Lily, Lily,
Rose, influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites,
particularly Millais’ use of the language of
flowers in his painting Ophelia, which
directly references blooms that the titular
character mentions in a key speech in
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Like the ill-fated