Notes from the boundary: Peter Hart: Still life: 1

Fresco, Villa Poppea in Poplontis

I do not know, but I would imagine that it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty when it was that the ‘still life’ became — or was recognised as — a distinct form or ‘category’ of art. Quite probably there is at the back of our minds a rather hazy notion that the still life was a product of seventeenth century Dutch painting. Well, perhaps in some ways it was. However, on closer inspection this seems to be an oversimplification. For example the still life often forms a very important part of the wonderfully subtle roman frescoes — as at Pompeii and Herculaneum. However, it seems extremely unlikely that these were accorded significance as still lifes. The Roman ‘still life’ was part of the overall decoration of a wall or an entire room; and as such, not portable and purchasable as works of art (on canvas, paper, or wood). There is too that form of still life which forms a part of a larger painting: as a fishmonger’s slab, the corner of a dining room table, tankards on a barrel in an inn, and etc. The variety is much greater than is generally imagined. However, there is a sense in which the still life was indeed static — in all senses of that word — until Cezanne applied his formidable concentration to the genre. To get a sense of what I mean — and the claim is a large one — it’s necessary to compare his work with some of his predecessors / contemporaries.

Still Life on a Table, Roef Koets, Haarlem, 1664

Koets’ Still Life on a Table probably epitomises everything that we think of — and probably dislike — in a seventeenth century Dutch still life. Primarily we notice three things: a high facsimile ‘finish’; an over elaborate arrangement; and an attention to detail so fine that every single highlight, shade of cloth, texture of material, fruit skin, etc, is rendered with equal weight — by which I mean that no selection has been made. In pursuing these qualities [sic], Koelts sacrifices his imagination — assuming, that is, that he had any to apply. Everything in this painting breathes a desire to represent on canvas exactly what was before the artist’s eyes, but the result is one of artifice and artificiality.

It is refreshing to move from Koets to Renoir’s Melon and Tomatoes. In this painting there is certainly no attempt to reproduce a high finish or to minutely record every last detail. Consequently, the painting breathes and has life. The fruits are sensuous, voluptuous, erotic, placed with an easy grace; and the colours make Koets’ look heavy by contrast. (It is true that Renoir had a palate at his disposal that Koets can only have dreamt of, but it is what is done with the materials available that counts.)

Melon and Tomatoes, Renoir, 1903

How then does Renoir’s still life relate to those of Cezanne? Principally, in the casual arrangement of the fruits; in the freely applied brush strokes; and in the indication of such details as the blemishes on the melon. None of these are faults. In fact they are the very things that give us such pleasure in this painting. And Cezanne’s treatment would have been? A placement of the fruits such that you could not move one of them without throwing the entire composition off balance; a formal arrangement of the cloth, so that it had presence (as opposed to Renoir’s carefree insubstantiality); and a background of very specific colour (and often wallpaper design). George Heard Hamilton says of Cezanne that, ‘he pushed forward every area of a canvas simultaneously.’ And that is a summation of the difference between the (apparently) carefree Renoir and the intense Cezanne.

However, Cezanne was not the only painter to give the groupings in his still lifes a greater degree of consideration than is to be found in the majority of such studies (in those cases where ‘studies’ is the right word: Koelts studies only for a kind of verisimilitude; Renoir makes a painting, but not a study as such). The painter I have in mind is Paul Gauguin, whose Still Life with a Portrait of Laval is not only unusual in including a portrait, but shows too a very careful placing of the fruits. They are almost like billiard balls, and their colours are as varied as Renoirs’ tomatoes are unvaried (the yellow apple segment beautifully contrasting with the reds, greens, and pinks). And, as with Cezanne, each fruit has presence; their angles contribute decisively to the composition; and their linearity is especially pleasing. Gauguin’s background too is as varied and carefully painted as is customary with Cezanne. Was Cezanne influenced by Gauguin? I do not know, but I find it hard to believe that Cezanne would not have found this painting of exceptional interest. It would seem that still life painting was not quite so static, pre–Cezanne, as I suggested at the beginning of this piece. However, the pre-eminence belongs to Cezanne, as I hope to be able to demonstrate in Still Life: 2

Still Life with Profile of Laval, Gauguin, 1886