Discussion

What is a Still Life?

According to Wikipedia, a still life is a painting "depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, etc.)." Examples of still lifes (this spelling of the plural form is correct) have been found dating back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Starting in the 16th century, however, still lifes became established as a prominent artistic genre in Western art, and they have remained so ever since.

Art historians have identified a specific panel painting, done in 1504 by Italian Jacopo de' Barbari (1440 - 1516), to be the first true still life in Western art. It depicts a dead partridge and iron gauntlets,

What is considered to be the first still life masterpiece, the fruit basket below, was painted by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) in 1599.

As painting styles and methods have changed over the centuries, still lifes have changed, too. Just one example is this 1918 still life by Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973).

Still Lifes in Japan

We have shown several examples of kachō-ga (birds and flowers pictures) in this course. Technically speaking, kachō-ga are not still lifes, but they are the closest thing to Western still lifes in Japanese art before Japan opened up to the West. The painting below by Watanabe Shōtei (1851 – 1918) just misses being a still life by having a live mouse in it.

The Japanese idea of what a still life is is similar to the Western concept but differs in subtle ways. One Japanese art dictionary defines seibutsu-ga (still life painting) this way:

"It is a picture drawn of subject matter which cannot move by itself. They are mainly flowers, fruits or articles for daily use. This term originates from the West and if we classify them within the categories in the East, they apply to kaki (flowers and plants) and kibutsu (implements). The composition (kōzu) of the picture concerned with the whole as well as how to depict each object is especially important."

In spite of the concept of still lifes having been imported from the West, some Japanese artists achieved similar ideas on their own. Itō Jakuchū (1716 – 1800) painted this Vegetable Nirvana in 1792. The work is allegorical with the object in the center standing (or lying) in for the reclining Buddha

The 19th c Japanese artist Kuniyoshi Utagawa (1798 – 1861) produced this woodblock print of Japanese vegetables called hōzuki being frightened by a corn ghost. They're moving, but they're still just vegetables.

Look to Katsushika Hokusai (1760 – 1849) for the closest thing I've found in Japanese art to the Western idea of what a still life should be. The surimono (high quality, limited edition print) below--Double Cherry-Blossom Branch, Telescope, Sweet Fish, and Tissue Case--was done sometime between 1804 to 1813.

The two poems by Asakusa-an and Teika-an are both on the theme of cherry blossoms.