The Still Life genre exists since Roman times and has evolved over time. I selected five paintings from different artists after 1600 to look at developments since the 17th century.

Roelant Savery’s 1624 Still life seems to exemplify the love of detail of medieval paintings. He depicted 44 different species of animals and 63 species of flowers in a single painting.  There may have been symbolic meanings in his choice of species, but these are not immediately accessible to a 21st century viewer of the painting. Contrasting to still lives from earlier times, there are no direct allusions to religious topics, reflecting the turn of the times to science and humanism.

Anne Vallayer-Coster, c. 1770, Still life with a round bottle represents a more modern style, still naturalistic but less overburdened with details compared to Savery. Vallayer-Coster was a French painter whose style was very successful in 18th century France. Hers is like an archetypical still life: A selection of ordinary objects, nicely arranged and depicted naturalistically.

Henri Matisse’s 1910 Still life with geraniums shows influences of modern abstraction through the somewhat distorted perspective, beyond directly naturalistic depiction.

Georges Braque’s 1910 Violin and Candlestick illustrates the influence of Cubism into the still life genre.

Finally Giorgio Morandi’s 1956 Natura morta (oil on canvas) painting is entirely focused on tonal values, leaving out problems of colour. The composition serves the particular aim of studying light on objects. The still life as such has no meaning. Where cubism abstracted from object forms and classical composition, Morandi abstracted from colour and any meaning the particular objects might have for those who live with them and use them. This is a stark contrast to still life paintings of earlier ages which were often full of symbolism.

Background/foreground: Savery’s background is a stylized window sill. Similarly, Vallayer-Coster has a neutral but realistic background – just the table and the shades of light on a wall, no objects. Matisse places the actual arrangement in a rich context – a table with a tablecloth, a wooden background, floor planks, pictures in the background. Braque’s cubist still life has no clearly defined foreground/background composition. Morandi’s background is flat and abstract.

Space between objects: Savery’s, Vallaer-Coster’s and Matisse’s spacing between objects seems natural, with Savery’s arrangement a bit stuffed, but filling the entire picture plane. In Braque’s cubist still life the spaces are again beyond traditional understanding of object placement because object boundaries are not clearly defined. Morandi’s composition is a bit strange in that the objects are very close together in the center of the painting, with lots of empty space around them. This space is filled with shadows on the right side, otherwise the relatively large plain area shows subtle tonal variations created through the painting technique.

Sources
– Wikipedia Article: Still life, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_life