by Still life is the lowest form of art. So proclaimed the French Academy when it established the Hierarchy of Genres in the 17th century. Historical scenes and portraiture were the noblest genres, but landscapes and still lifes were considered inferior. According to the art institution, the biblical fresco required a higher level of mastery; a bowl of dead fruit, or a budding bunch of flowers? Anyone could paint those.
This categorization shaped the perception of the still life as a marginal genre. Four hundred years later, the discourse has softened. “Careful and meticulous depiction of an object has always been an element of art, but generally this was something you saw in the context of a religious scene or a portrait,” says Melanie Vandenbrouck, chief curator at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. This month, Chichester museum will present a comprehensive survey of around 150 still lifes made in Britain. Tracing its development chronologically, the exhibition presents it as a seminal genre of British art, one that has historically engaged with the universal human experiences of love and grief, yet provided a radical commentary on inequality gender, the climate crisis and war.
The genre was first brought to Britain by painters from the Dutch golden age in the 17th century. Back then, these paintings were commonly produced for the wealthy trading class. They represented worldly goods, but within that lay the motifs of the memento mori: skulls, bells, guttering candles and rotting fruit, all reminding us of our mortality. Artists in Britain reimagined these symbols, associated with the genre of still life, all the way into the 20th century. Photographer Madame Yevonde mourned the outbreak of the second world war, placing a gas mask on traditional rust as a poignant foreshadowing of a brutal conflict that was just beginning. In the 1990s, Jo Spence documented the cancer that would eventually kill her, through diary photographs of her own possessions.
“Any key aspect of the human condition is being treated in a still life,” says Vandenbrouck. This is particularly true of female artists of the surrealist movement, who used the still life to question their place in society. In 1929, photographer Lee Miller witnessed a mastectomy procedure on assignment for surrealist artist Man Ray. She interrupted, took a photo of a cut breast placed on dinner plates like a cut of steak. More recently, we see artists such as Jean Cook and Anna Fox using still life to talk about domestic violence. Fox shows the chaos that lies beneath everyday objects, juxtaposing images of his mother’s tidy cupboard with his father’s ugly words: “I’m going to tear your mother to shreds with an oyster knife.”
Today, contemporary artists are experimenting with new tools and processes, raising questions about some of the most pressing topics of our time. Maisie Cousins’ vivid images reveal overconsumption as waste, while Gordon Cheung distorts old pictures with digital algorithms to comment on the history of capitalism. “There is nothing ‘still’ in the way contemporary artists are rethinking the genre. It’s very dynamic,” says Vandenbrouck.
A hundred years ago, the genre was denounced as inferior due to its lack of human presence and unpredictable storytelling abilities. How wrong they were, because objects are intertwined with an implicit human presence. Close inspection can reveal a lot about the people or societies that once owned them, and reveal the emotional experiences we all might live through in a single day.
The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain which is at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 11 May until 20 October.
Still he got: five images from the exhibition
Maisie Cousins - Wasp, 2018
In her series Rubbish Cousins makes a living sculpture, pouring out of household waste. Flies, ants and maggots crawl and nest in the crevices of these glistening, oozing forms. A conflict between beauty and filth, Cousins’ images urge us to rethink the way we see waste.
Gordon Cheung still life with Goblet, 2017
Using a digital algorithm, Gordon Cheung distorts images of 17th century paintings from the Dutch golden age. These paintings were once a sign of opulence. Presenting a new vision of these historical artifacts, Cheung questions the history of capitalism and how technology is shaping today’s economic landscape.
Edward Wadsworth – Bright Interval, 1928 (main image)
Wadsworth’s maritime works made a significant contribution to modern art in the interwar years. He was part of the vorticism movement, which rejected realism for hard-edged abstraction. Although he never exhibited with British surrealists, many of his paintings reflect the movement’s tendency to exaggerate.
Jean Cooke – Through the Looking Glass, 1960
Cooke was married to the painter John Bratby who beat her again and locked her up, allowing her to paint for three hours a day. Like many women, she found relief in nature. Here, between the pansies and geraniums, there is a miniature self-portrait: a small statement of presence within its sanctuary.
Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham – Red Table, 1952
In the 1940s, artists including Barbara Hepworth, Bernard Leach, Ben Nicholson and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham began meeting in St Ives, Cornwall. The artists of St Ives School looked to ordinary objects as a vessel to experiment with color and composition.
