THE STILL LIFE.
Less a self-contained, completed truth. More an evolving experiment - through new methods and old means of expression made new.
Think early 1600s. Religion losing control; threats to importance by changing manufacturing methods. New lavish abundance; unparalleled desires for luxury goods.
Still life paintings as status items; displaying patrons' tastes, desires. Their conspicuously public evidence of ability to acquire and consume.
Fast forward to middle 1800s. Further religious decline; further improvements in production capabilities. More spectacular commodity consumption. The Academies losing influence over form and content of painted image. Challenging work found in Salons de Refusé.
Think late 1800s. Investigations rife into nature of a painting á la impressionism, pointillism; along comes Fauvism, Cubism. Extraordinary populist rebirth of still life, again.
Matisse rendering the luxurious nature of everyday things; without being definitive in representation. Picasso counter-balancing that sumptuous materialism with more detached, clinical interpretations.
Then...1912; Still Life with Chair Caning. Picasso experimenting with Collage as serious form of art. Presumed realities of space, depth, perspective and composition questioned. Use of found material and objects.
Think middle 1900s. Matisse "painting with [his] scissors". Krasner creating by ruthlessly recycling old work. Collage revitalised with Kolar making the visual equivalence of cut-up poetry.
Fast forward again. Remaining rules of artistic expression dissolving. Now the unimagined being translated with digital brushes and paints; virtual scissors and scalpels.
A painting doesn't have to be painted; and the still life is reinvented. Again.
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Clay Bodvin ©2008
a brief history of object & desire -
changing influences and modes of expression
In the early 1600s religion began to lose some of its control over the minds of the people as a threat arose to its position of importance in their perceptions and lives. This threat took the form of changing manufacturing methods which produced a burgeoning array of new consumables.
In response to this new and lavish abundance, unparalleled desires for these luxury goods stirred in the privileged and style-conscious viewer. An amazing range of new experiences and objects was mirrored by an increasing compulsion to enhance and document one’s personal, sensual pleasure.
This was evidenced by an upsurge in the popularity of the painted image (especially the still life). These paintings became status items in that they displayed a patron's tastes and desires while also providing a conspicuous public record of their ability to acquire and consume.
In the middle 1800s, further declining religious influence once again coincided with improvements in production capabilities - which again triggered a wave of spectacular commodity consumption. And, yet again, these converging events resulted in the extraordinary, populist rebirth of the painted image which lasted for over a hundred years.
This resurgence of painting was exemplified by the way Matisse, especially in his still life work, rendered the luxurious nature of everyday things without being definitive in their representation. During this period, Matisse’s world of sumptuous materialism was counter-balanced by Picasso’s more detached and clinical interpretations (also strongly evidenced in his still life work) as, together, they set the visual tastes, styles and tone for the 20th Century.
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