Still Life with Vegetables and Fruit before a Garden Balustrade 1658
panel, oil-paint
panel
baroque
oil-paint
oil painting
14_17th-century
Dimensions 69.8 x 87.1 cm
Cornelis de Heem created “Still Life with Vegetables and Fruit before a Garden Balustrade” sometime in the 17th century. It’s a composition that reflects the Dutch Republic’s burgeoning wealth and global trade networks. This isn’t just a painting of food; it’s a display of status. The variety of fruits and vegetables, some of which would have been imported, speaks to the family’s affluence and global connections. Also note the subtle presence of insects – a reminder of life’s fragility and the ephemeral nature of earthly pleasures. De Heem seems to be reminding us that beauty and abundance are fleeting. The painting's hyper-realistic style invites the viewer to indulge in the sensory experience of the scene. Ultimately, this still life invites us to contemplate the complex relationship between humans and nature, wealth and mortality, and the ways in which art can both celebrate and critique the values of a society.
Comments
As if by chance, freshly gathered fruit and vegetables lie at the edge of a Baroque stairway leading to extensive parkland. In their midst is a valuable blue-and-white Chinese porcelain pitcher. Extravagant wealth was an important element of the European aristocracy’s ideal of life. Here, it is expressed in the type of painting known as ‘sottobosco’ (forest still life) also very popular among middle-class collectors of the seventeenth century. Like his father, Jan Davidsz., before him, Cornelis de Heem was one of the leading still-life painters of his day.
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