aus MutualArt February 5, 2021 zu
Old Mistresses:
Tracing the Origins of Still Life
Many believe that the Dutch Golden Age is responsible for still life painting, but its roots are older. Women played a defining role in both cases.
Rachel Ruysch, Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies, and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, ca. late 1680s, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the National Museum of Women in the Arts
While many of the Old Mistresses are known for their still life painting skills, the time and place often credited for its adoption into mainstream culture is almost always the Dutch Golden Age — so much so that “still life” is said to come from the Dutch word stilleven. Of the European countries recognized for a flourishing still life genre, the Netherlands often leads the conversation, despite the form’s inception occurring in Italy in 1504. Known as a champion of the arts and the center of the Renaissance, Italy’s contributions to still life, or natura morta, somehow slip through the cracks of history. A simple explanation is that between chiseled marble figures and large-scale frescoes, the art of the Italian Renaissance is so grand that arguably less monumental works were overshadowed. But the other factor keeping Italian still lifes from the limelight is the fame of the Dutch Golden Age and the artists that revolutionized the genre.
One of the first names that come to mind when thinking of Old Mistresses in the still life genre is Rachel Ruysch, an artist from the Dutch Golden Age best known for her floral paintings. Ruysch was born in The Hague in 1664 to a family that was equal parts creative and scientific. Her mother’s side was made up of imperial architects and landscape painters, and her father was a well-known physician, a university professor in Botany and Anatomy, and an art collector. With such a background, Ruysch found herself drawn towards art from a perspective of documentation. After years of obsessive sketching, her father arranged for her to apprentice with Willem van Aelst, a famous still life painter in Amsterdam. This opportunity was rare for a woman, but even more so for a 14-year-old girl. The accuracy with which she painted her subjects was unparalleled in its time, as she found ways to make her paintings, ironically enough, come to life.
Rachel Ruysch, Flowers in a Glass Vase, 1704, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum
Historians documented Ruysch’s fascinating approach to her natural compositions — allowing the paint to dry before adding delicate details: fragile petals, freshly bitten leaves, and hair-like antennae. She took inspiration from male artists in the genre, like her teacher van Aelst and his friend Otto Marseus van Schriek, using her subjects in a variety of ways, like applying paint with bits of moss and using insect wings as stamps for texture. Ruysch’s knowledge of her subjects, which stemmed from years of studying plants and animals at every angle, sketching them for her own enjoyment, translated beautifully into her still lifes. Her fascination with the minutiae of each leaf and insect she found is palpable in her work, and people took notice. By 1699, with her blossoming career, her fresh marriage to fellow painter Juriaen Pool, and her membership as the first woman of the The Hague painters’ society, Confrerie Pictura, Ruysch had become a household name.
Rachel Ruysch, A Tulio, date unknown, watercolor on paper. Courtesy of Nadeau's
With her paintings selling for incredibly high prices, more than double the amount that Rembrandt’s work was selling for at the time, she found herself in a position of artistic freedom. Her popularity gave her total control in terms of subjects, patrons, and timeliness, allowing her to live an idyllic life for a female artist of the era — she and her husband had great jobs as painters to the court, she was allowed to take the time to focus on minute details as she pleased, and she was able to still pursue a more traditional role as a mother, bearing ten children over the course of her life. While her accomplishments are impressive and her fame is well-deserved, the belief that she was one of the earliest influential women in the genre is actually a misconception, as the Italian still life painters had set that precedent long before.
Fede Galizia, A Glass Compote with Peaches, Jasmine Flowers, Quinces, and a Grasshopper, date unknown, oil on wood panel. Courtesy of Sotheby's
One such artist was Fede Galizia, who lived her entire life in Milan before Ruysch was even born, from 1578 until 1630. Few details are known about Galizia’s life, as she was one of the first painters in all of Europe to enter the still life genre — in fact, Galizia is responsible for the first signed and dated still life in all of Italy. Known for her immaculate depictions of fruit, the new, experimental nature of her work, combined with the fact she was a woman, put Galizia at a disadvantage, ultimately preventing her from the success she could’ve had in a different place and time. What is known, however, is extremely noteworthy.
Fede Galizia, Cherries in a Silver Compote with Crabapples on a Stone Ledge and Fritillary Butterfly, date unknown, oil on wood panel. Courtesy of Web Gallery of Art
It is believed that Galizia gained her skills as an artist by learning from her father, who was a miniaturist. By the age of 12 she was already an internationally known portraitist, with some historians going as far as referring to her as a “prodigy” of her day. But despite whatever pressure may have existed to pursue a genre in which she already showed promise, she found her way down a different path. At the time, the still life paintings that were being created were made to express wealth, documenting the lavish material goods of the upper class. Instead, she focused on flora and fauna, as if studying their every minute detail. However, what sets her apart the most was her innovational shadowing, using careful modulations of light to strategically enhance the textures of her subjects. Her techniques were closely associated with Flemish painters of the time, like still life painter Jan Breughel, an early pioneer of the Dutch Golden Age who arrived in Milan around the year 1600. In many places, he is credited for that technique, but in Italy, it’s remembered as her own.
Fede Galizia, Still Life of Fruits with Grapes in a White Ceramic Bowl with Pomegranate and Pears on a Stone Plinth, date unknown, oil on wood panel. Courtesy of Koller Zürich
Despite the fact that Galizia received less attention after transitioning into the genre, 63 works have been attributed to her, 44 of which are still lifes. This has given her enough of a foothold to be referenced as an inspiration to Flemish women who later worked in the genre, like the famed Clara Peeters, one of the first food still life painters in the Netherlands — a key sign of influence given the Flemish and Dutch affinity for flowers and Galizia’s attachment to fruit, a far less common choice but one more suitable subject for a hyper-realist forgoing vanities. Peeters would go on to influence Ruysch, in many ways an intermediary between the two women’s styles. Nonetheless, Galizia’s exposure as a still life pioneer and associations with other artists in the early stages of the genre inevitably influenced the work of the Dutch Golden Age, indicating that the genre’s rise in Europe was not the product of isolated movements, but of an interconnected one.
Nota. - Ebenfalls älter als Rachel Ruysch, aber jünger als Fede Galizia, war der Spanier Zurbarán. Der war ein Meister des Stilllebens, aber nur nebenbei. Er war ein künstlerischer Gefolgsmann Caravaggios und bediente dessen ganzes Bildprogramm. Er war freilich ein Mann und passt nicht unters Label old mistresses; das macht ihn an dieser Stelle weniger erwähnenswert.
Der Blumenbrueghel Jan der Ältere war übrigens kein Stilllebenmaler. Er war ein Meister darin, Szenen mit Blumen auszustatten - in die andere Meister die handelnden Figuren eintrugen. Diese Arbeitsteilung war in den Niederlanden des 17. Jahrhunderts gang und gäbe, seine berühmtesten Stücke verfertigte er mit Rubens und dessen Schülern. Als er in Mailand ankam, mag man ihn als Meister der Blumen geschätzt haben. Doch hat er Still-leben i. e. S. wohl nicht hinterlassen.
JE
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