Still life

Statement: The objects are seen in a cool space with an abstract background which focuses the eye of the viewer on the objects

Explanation: Space is empty and geometric, its edges, echo the edges of the painting and it is darker than the objects

Example: The light falls onto the dissected melon and illuminates the segment that has been cut from it and which points towards the next object. This is the lightest part of the picture and is in detail, we can see every pip on the open surface of the melon.

Conclusion: The artist uses lighting and focus to bring the attention of the viewer to the objects which are not shown in a traditional composition but as points of interest in a display.

Statement: Brushstrokes are visible throughout giving the picture an intimate and relaxed feel, as though the scene was every day, like opening letters at the breakfast table.

Explanation: The brushstrokes which describe objects are clearly visible and the thickness of paint is made clear as it is applied in thicker layers over thin ones. The means of making the painting isn't hidden from the viewer and one can see 'wet on wet' and 'dry on dry' techniques throughout.

Example: On the right edge, the background yellow ochre has been loosely brushed over a mid brown and the highlight on one of the knives is made from thickly applied stripes of light and mid-dark grey paint.

Conclusion: The way of making the painting has reinforced its meaning by making the subject appear simple, open and approachable and therefore, everyday and recognisable as an experience for the viewer. Although the viewer might not be able to paint, they can see easily how this one has been made and understand that it is a scene they might experience themselves.

Statement: This painting of a bowl of fruit has clear symbolic meaning that goes beyond just showing us a collection of fruits and leaves in a simple wicker basket.

Explanation: The leaves have been arranged so that they follow a lifecycle from new and fresh to old, dry and withered with holes in them, similarly then, we can see that the fruit which is fresh now, will quickly go beyond its best and will eventually shrivel dry too.

Example: The big leaf on the left is glossy and pliant, or bendable as it is full of sap, whereas, by contrast, the leaves on the right hang down as limp and lifeless.

Conclusion: The artist is using simple objects to suggest the passing of time and the fleeting nature of life from youth to old age and death through maturity. Given that there is some evidence of the leaves becoming corrupted and eaten by parasites, there could be a suggestion of earthly corruption affecting individuals through their lives.

Statement: This painting has a clean, lean and light modernism which is based on classical values and geometric forms. The colour design reinforces the drawn design.

Explanation: The palette is largely reduced to a narrow range of mid and light greys with a key colour of hot red and a light, warm foil of pale ochre in the background.

Example: The painting is arranged around bands of repeating diagonal lines and the patterns and shapes they make. The lines of the cloth create diagonal lines which bisect the curves of the bowl and the spoon. The design is artificial and undecorated. The composition appears unbalanced at first glance, but is more resolved on longer inspection - it is reminiscent of a photographic snapshot.

Conclusion: The artist looks as though he has been influenced by the experiments of Paul Cezanne since the picture uses flattening techniques such as the repeating diagonal lines from the top background to the bottom foreground and the use of the same grey to delineate shapes in each of the spaces of the painting. The cropping of the background shapes and the space in the foreground give the painting a feeling of not being formally composed but rather glimpsed in a moment.

Statement: This carefully painted and rendered image shows a series of events and processes which are underway or which could suggest mistakes and the wrong choice made.

Explanation: The composition is made with objects that are shown in a state of half completion or in disarray. Shapes are repeated and contrasted so that the shape of the decanter echoes that of the bread and the long curved peel of the lemon is contrasted with the hard thin shape of the knife.

Example: The wine in the large glass is half drunk, the lemon, half peeled and the bread has been picked at and started but not finished. The ornamental decanter has been left on its side and there are half-finished parts of the crab and nuts left loose on the table. The table itself is only half covered by the white cloth.

Conclusion: There is definitely a symbolic meaning to this image which carefully represents the rich surfaces of exotic and expensive items and which seems to be showing a scene of disorder or unravelling.

Statement: The brightly coloured, patterned and curved shapes in this image made of flat colours suggests the passing of the artist's interest from Cubism to Surrealism with the evocation of a woman's body through the central collection of musical instruments.

Explanation: The artist had recently met a young woman and was entering intros secret and passionate affair and uses the language of synthetic cubism to evoke the rhythms of her body and blond hair.

Example: The central, curved, rounded and feminine shapes are surrounded by the geometric and angular background with its suggestion of male order and possibly the artist himself on the far right.

Conclusion: the private language of the artist and his infatuation for a young woman in this painting becomes the vehicle that is used to move from the cubist concern for cut up space towards a surrealist approach that allows the artist to evoke ideas of ‘the unconscious’ and ‘desire’ as drives.

Statement: in this painting the new cubist space of the period immediately before the First World War is the main focus of interest for the viewer.

Explanation: The entire style and form of the picture are entirely set in promoting the Cubist construction of space. We are given visual clues to the viewer that this is not an abstract image but is instead a faithful, accurate and twentieth century realist painting.

Example: The centre of the picture is divided and busy and the outer areas are progressively less busy and less cut up, as the image moves towards the edges of the canvas. Colour is muted and short notational marks are used to shade surfaces to suggest planes or facets running over a complicated structure of space. The representation of the subject - a clarinet and the background has developed beyond a simple figure in space idea, with both elements being treated in the same way.

Conclusion: This painting is clearly an example of Analytical Cubism. It declares its means of production as both its form and its content. It is a painting wholly concerned with the making of a cubist painting. Cubism allows different forms of representation to exist simultaneously in the painting with complex shading and written elements as well as cartoon reminders of the subject. There are visual puns and echoes throughout and this combines to form a new conceptual form of realism.

Statement: This painting clearly shows the visual effects of Synthetic Cubismand its emphasis on larger, simpler shapes, attractive colours and a move to more decorative effects than the pure investigation of analytical cubism and its intense fragmentation and understated colours.

Explanation: There is a clear return to a sense of the figure and background in this image with the background in indistinct browns and greys and the subject contrastingly bright in greens and cream colours. The image has a designed quality with a play of diagonal lines, shapes and the contrast of rectangles and ovals.

Example: The fruit in the top of the dish are negative round shapes with black outlines and the tablecloth depicted with light and mid-grey rectangles edged in white to contrast with the fruit at the top of the picture.

Conclusion: The style and visual language is made through interlocking shapes and areas of flat colour rendered with subtly shaded edges. Shapes and lines are also allowed to extend beyond solid areas, creating an impression of transparency. The style and the appealing colours of the restricted palette make this an elegant and attractive image which is charming and sophisticated but which doesn't offer anything beyond this visual pleasure.

Statement: This painting creates a rich impression in the mind of the viewer. It shows the faithful and accurate depiction of a lot of expensive and desirable foods on a single table.

Explanation: The items are laid out carrels like a shop window display or a heraldic design so that they are presented in ranks and formation like soldiers on parade. The surfaces and shapes of each object is carefully rendered in detail and texture.

Example: In the lower left corner, two pastry pies are laid on the corner of the table, one has been bitten into to reveal the lower level of pastry which is lighter in colour and softer in texture than the baked exterior. Next to them, an ornate handle of a table knife projects over the edge of the table into space in front and its gleaming details are picked out against the lower tones of the metal in shadow. Back up, and above the pies, a large decorated ceramic dish contains a flat round crab and in this small section of the painting we can see cold ceramic, set against soft and warm pastry and that contrasted with the thin metal of the knife. Under all of these contrasting textures and details, there is a finely decorated linen tablecloth.

Conclusion: This painting is a cool display of the ability of the painter to achieve Trompe-l'œil effects so that the viewer really feels that they stand in front of a splendidly provisioned table of the very best food, beautifully displayed and elegantly set.

Statement: This painting shows the artist at moment of change and investigation into colour harmonies and flat areas of colour.

Explanation: The painting features lots of repeating flat patterns - the pink sides of the patterned tablecloth and the blue wallpaper behind. These flat patterns are contrasted with the intervention of the apples which 'sit' in the mid space of the painting.

Example: The apples are all painted the same way and are similarly sized so that they seem to float in space or almost be as though looked down upon rather than seen from the side as the perspective of the painting would suggest. The apples are a golden and light yellow with one dark emerald green fruit which is smaller - possibly a lime - and one apple placed foremost and lower which has a patch of strong red nearest the viewer, this pulls this apple forward and with it, the rest of the table.

Conclusion: The painting is static and made from large areas of flat colour that have been lightly brushed onto the surface of the painting. The two vertical bars and the repeating pattern of the background give the painting a frieze-like appearance and this is strengthened by the jug and the apples, which while three dimensional in appearance, do not seem to exist in true renaissance space but are tilted up and flattened through shared scale and treatment. The artist is clearly thinking of the tension between flat patterns and the illusion of space in a painting as well as the subtlety and beauty available from careful arrangements of colours.

Statement: This image is produced by the artist working in layers and glazing colours one over another, in turn, to create one combined image which is the harmonious blend of a play on red and green.

Explanation: Colours have been dabbed on with a sponge or rag across the entire canvas in translucent layers or glazes and then built top in patchers with slightly thicker layers of paint to create a restricted range of colours and to unify the picture as every part carries some of the basic building blocks of brown and green in its construction.

Example: The main bowl is built from soft dabs of brown applied over the background greens and brown and then heightened with red to suggest the reflection of the red from the apples and modulated with further greens and browns. As the patches of applied paint get smaller, so too do they get thicker so that the interior of the bowl is seen as a thicker and creamier light tone and the red rim is softened to the point of becoming indistinct with a very loose stroke. The highlight on the front rim of the bowl is one quick and thick stroke of near white.

Conclusion: The combinations of layers of the same colours worked up to different finishes throughout the picture allows the artist to create convincing surfaces and render different materials with skill and the appearance of simplicity. There is also a theatrical effect created through the use of the highlighted areas during almost a mid-tone, this gives the whole scene a sense of drama and gives weight and importance to the objects which are in themselves, simple and every day. The unity of the colours in the image makes the whole design self-contained and complete.

Statement: The highly finished and concealed surfaces of this image are at odds with the apparent careless manner in which the expensive items have been discarded after an event. This creates a mood of fashionable disdain and casual disregard for the value of things. Every item is exotic and expensive and at the same time, treated with abandon.

Explanation: The drawing is exact and careful in that the high viewpoint of the viewer is respected so that spoons, cups, saucers and even sugar lumps are all faithful to the perspective of the painting. (It is a pastel painting made with pastel crayons).

Example: The gold stiff edging of the tray and the lacquer design on its reflective surface are exactingly drawn and coloured in perfect tones so that the flowers on the tray, whilst being brighter than the designs on the cups and teapots are always underneath their ceramic surfaces.

Conclusion: The sense of a disorder imposed on a previous order is apparent in the arrangement of elements with the silver spoons setting up a rhythm of discarded and forgotten implements like the equipment that a retreating army leaves behind. The half-eaten bread and the half-consumed tea are as lost and cast aside as the cups on their sides in the saucers and dishes. The whole image is one of nonchalance and irresponsibility and with it a possible lack of social purpose and meaning.

Statement: The reduced colours and variations on grey with hot and cold versions place an emphasis on abstraction and the consideration of the shape and forms of objects against their background spaces. The visual language is deliberately stylised and flattened, reducing the space, illusionism and colour of the whole image.

Explanation: Since the colour is so reduced, the smallest changes and nuances register like different colours in another painting. The depleted pink at the centre seems all the more pink set against the cooler grey to the left and the warmer yellow of the box on the extreme left edge.

Example: There are deliberate flattening effects on show as for example, the tops of edges are made to line up with the line demarcating the join of the background wall and the table top on which the objects are placed. This increases the band-like, striping effect of the composition. It also helps to reduce the shapes of the items to flat diagrammatic shapes like icons on an interface or symbols on a map.

Conclusion: The spare simplicity of the design and the objects contained within it suggests that as the colour in the painting, 'less is more'. The more must be something that is not present in the everyday identity of the simple objects and their simple composition in a line on a neutral table. It must be something else, something that goes beyond every day and the physical being of these simple arrangements.

Statement: The daily offering of food in Spain is shown in the detail and physical properties of items that combine together to create meanings. They make life-sustaining tastes and textures that feed the nation. From the simplicity of each ingredient comes the best of the natural provision of food.

Explanation: Meléndez celebrates the outward appearance of the different textures and aspects of cold, hard china and warm soft fruit against the warmth of the bread and the wooden cask. Each is a container, the jug encompassing milk, the plums containing juice and the bread, the germ of wheat, whilst the cask and dishes sit in deeper space waiting to be emptied and filled in the process of making the meal.

Example: The hard and shiny surface of the earthenware jug which is rustic and simple in its style is set against the soft and fuzzy skins of the plums which pile up around the loaf on the textured grain of the table.

Conclusion: The provincial style of the implements is celebrated as a regional truth rather than being seen as common or of low quality. The jug, which seems slightly too isolated as a discrete shape is spotlit to present itself as the main subject even though it doesn't figure in the title of the painting. Its cold and glistening surface is rendered in clarity and detail, especially for example in the handle in shadow. This jug shows a provincial style of pottery, typical no doubt, of the area in which figs and plums are traditionally grown for the larders of Spain.

Statement: A simple approach is grounded in clear drawing and a post-cubist space that is flattened and in which perspective is inverted.

Explanation: The colours are used strictly within each object but they are held together by simple black line drawing and an axis of green blues against purple greys (tending to the red end of purple).

Example: The flattened composition places the table top as almost upended and in parallel with the picture rather than in recessional space and perspective. This effect is further heightened by the two distinct shapes of the eggs which sit on the table and float on the surface of the image like two cut out stencils. The space on the table is mediated by the cascade of green beans that flows out from the curves and folds of the cloth. This, in turn, is folded back into the simple closed curve of the tureen. The round loop handle acts as a final curve to fines the shape and echo the eggs. The background is modulated slightly but essentially made from simple rectangles which echo the outline of the entire painting.

Conclusion: In an effort to reduce the language of the painting to that of contemporary modern art with its quest for flatness and the removal of extraneous detail or unnecessary elements, the artist has achieved a range of colour and description which is something like that of Matisse but which lacks the grace and charm and sheer beauty of Matisse. Instead, the image has a remarkable ungainliness which is the sum of all its elements but which makes it memorable and convincing in its details. It comes close to a cartoon language in its directness and immediacy.

Statement: This painting is concerned with the faithful replication of nature to achieve a poetic and lyrical effect of passing beauty.

Explanation: The flowers and the leaves are shown in the first full flush and are full of life, the petals are lifted up and the leaves are supple and pliant. These flowers have been pulled from their natural habitat and placed in a vase so that they can be valued as 'beautiful'. One flower has yet to bud into full life. There is no suggestion of a narrative in any of this, the viewer is asked to merely enjoy the visual appearance of beauty.

Example: The natural beauty of the flowers have been cut down in their prime and arranged by people to create an effect, this is held in place by the transparency of the glasswork which doesn't hide the way the stems and lower leaves are crushed together so that the plants above can be shown to best effect. The viewer can compare the visual sensation of looking at the crushed stems against the open flowers.

Conclusion: There is a mood of tranquillity and meditation throughout the simple backdrop and the painstaking capture of the details of the beautiful flowers which must inevitably wither and die. However, there is no sense of story or narrative. Still life which had been considered the lowest level in the genres of art is stripped here of all its traditional associations and commentaries. In this respect, there is an association with the contemporary Impressionists and a feeling of modernity. Despite that, the artist could be said to be invoking the tradition of Chardin and laying out his claim to be the inheritor of that reputation as the current master of the ingenious still life.

Statement: This painting is the result of careful measuring and scrutiny of the proportions and relationships between the shapes and forms observed and the lighting conditions at the time of the painting.

Explanation: The colour is carefully modulated to accentuate the forms of the pears and to create a suitable blanks space for them to exist in. Each facet the surface is carefully measured and judged and the colours and tones are chosen to show what the adits observed when working. The record of the observation and measuring can be seen in the pencil and thin brushstrokes and notational marks which describe the surface and plot out the contours of the forms.

Example: The righthand pear has a clear highlighted area in the top of the pear and this is shown falling into a warm mid-tone shadow which is mediated by a pale orange colour. These warm colours are the foil of the deep blue background and the warm red inflected surface on which the pears sit.

Conclusion: This painting style and language is indebted to Paul Cezanne but it is quite different in that Cezanne was asking new questions and 'leaping into the unknown' with every painting whereas, this artist knows precisely how he wants the painting to turn out and records the look of the picture as he makes it for us, the viewer. It is a work of considerable skill. It is also just a picture of two pairs.

Statement: In this painting, this artist is struggling to find a new means of expression and what painting can be asked to represent. There are various attempts at solutions for the different aspects of the painting and the problems it posed in showing the space and the separate parts.

Explanation: The space in the painting has been upended so that the table is seen at one angle but the plate of cherries is tipped right up so that it is in parallel with the painting and not in perspective at all. Compare this to the plate of peaches which is seen more in line with the perspective of the table top. Again this straining towards multiple viewpoints in a painting is threatening the central vertical element of the green jug which is seen at one angle when looking at the top and another when looking at its body.

Example: In a lesser artist, these would look like mistakes but in a work such as this it is clear that the artist is trying new things and pushing his practice into new areas. The repetition of the colouration and strokes for the shadows and highlights on the sold china and the soft folds of the white sheet are a case in point: there is rigger in the drawing and an economy in the handling of paint which is highly proficient and not the work of an amateur, yet the colouration produces a flattening effect which seems at odds with the drawing. Again this is restated in the flat bands of colour which make up the simple rectangular strips of the background and the table.

Conclusion: This is a difficult and ambiguous work to evaluate. With the economy of colours and the clarity of expression throughout the drawing and the paint handling, this is a work where there are considerable skill and resource applied to the subject at hand. The composition and the presentation of the elements are artfully arranged. It is also true to say that the elements are awkward when taken together. The space created in this image is inconsistent throughout. The paintwork on the green jug is out of keeping with the detailed work on the plate of cherries or indeed, the peaches. The background and green drapery is then rendered in another style again. The colour is as vibrant as that of the green jug and this sits awkwardly against the red of the cherries and the oranges of the peaches.

Statement: This is a complex and highly achieved print which echoes the works of the Renaissance in general and those of Caravaggio in particular.

Explanation: The viewpoint of the picture is low and recalls the famous still life of Caravaggio, Basket of Fruit, 1596. As Caravaggio's work seems to show us the life cycle of the fruit as a metaphor for earthly existence, so too does this work seem to show us the spent forces of nature at the end of the season. Everything is still rich and full of life but the end of the growing and harvesting season is fast approaching and the cut brashness of the fruit trees can no longer support the rich fruit they carry.

Example: The scale of the elements has been brought to life by the removal of unnecessary detail and the sense that all the elements are piling ups and filling the scene. The dish is full of fruit and leaves and there are more over the marble table top on which everything rests. The fruit in the foreground are slightly set in shadow and are more red and bluer in colour. The fruit in the background, in the bowl, are more brightly lit and are coloured in yellow ink which is an underlying colour, applied before the reds and blues which makes the oranges and greens. This helps to create a sense of large-scale and the air that surrounds the objects.

Conclusion: The image has an interesting light which covers nearly the entire composition, leaving very few dark tones except the lower band which is set in shadow, and which gives the surface an underlying solidity and weight. Again, this helps to push the bowl back in space and create space and scale. The image achieves a monumentality through these processes and decisions.