Still Life
Kitchen Still Life with a Scene of the Supper at Emmaus Beyond by Pieter Aertsen, Ball State University Museum of Art, Muncie
The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck, National Gallery, London
Kitchen Still Life with a Scene of the Supper at Emmaus Beyond by Pieter Aertson, 1551/1553, is a Northern Renaissance painting displaying a still life table with a biblical scene in the background. The second painting, Arnolfini Wedding, is not technically a still life, but is one of the best examples of Northern Renaissance still life technique. Still life artwork features inanimate objects as the focus of the work of art. While the Arnolfini Wedding by Jan Van Eyck, 1434, does indeed focus on two human figures, the detail and attention to the rest of the room and the objects in it are just as likely to draw the viewer’s attention as the couple.
Humanism affected the Northern countries just as it affected Italy. According to Carol Strickland and John Boswell, along with humanist views came a renewed interest in the physical form and the natural world, in an attempt to visually record and reproduce nature through art. Artists took great care in depicting animals, plants, people, and objects. They used light and shadow, as seen in Arnolfini Wedding, to give the objects of a painting three dimensions. Northern artists specialized in perspective techniques such as intuitive perspective where artists painted distant objects smaller and closer together, and aerial perspective, which made distant objects blurry and less colorful (Strickland and Boswell 32). Both of these techniques gave depth and dimension to Northern Renaissance paintings. For example, in the Kitchen Still Life with a Scene of the Supper at Emmaus Beyond,the figures in the background are smaller, close together, and not depicted as sharply as the objects on the table. This gives the viewer the impression that the objects are further away from the viewer than the table.
These new methods in painting were influenced by the subject matter that was in demand at this time. As cities became more populous, the public became interested in secular art. Merchant and middle class patrons wanted to express personal and civic pride, but this did not mean that the Church was forgotten. Christianity still had a strong presence in Northern Renaissance Europe. The Church commissioned art to encourage renewed faith in their members and others.
Pieter Aertson, considered by many the “father of still life,” painted Kitchen Still Life with a Scene of the Supper of Emmaus Beyond and other similar scenes where the influence of the Church is very evident. According to Ball State University Museum documents, the scene in the background is when Christ blesses the bread of his two apostles, Simon and Cleopas, after his resurrection. This scene is a re-enactment of the events of the Last Supper, which was famously painted by Leonardo da Vinci. The objects on the table in the foreground also hold a religious significance. The lamb head represents Christ, the “Lamb of God.” Loaves of bread and fish recall how Christ fed many with only a few loaves of bread and some fish. Fruit, used to represent fertility in secular paintings, is shown here to represent the apple from the Garden of Eden and the subsequent need for Christ’s sacrifice for humanity’s sins. The rose, with its prominent thorns, also harkens to the Garden of Eden where roses did not have thorns until after man sinned. Onions and peas are staple foods of peasants, most often eaten during Lent, right before Christ’s resurrection, and lavender grew in the field where Christ was crucified. Every object in this painting was carefully chosen by the painter to further represent the story, seen in the background, of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection (Grimm 87).
As with the Italian Renaissance, individuality was very important. Artists began signing their work much more frequently. In fact, according to Susie Nash, because more artists signed their work during the Renaissance, more artists were recognized in this artistic period than any since the Greek and Roman periods. As seen in Arnolfini Wedding, which is described in detail in Northern Renaissance Art, Jan van Eyck’s signature appears on the wall over the mirror in the background. Van Eyck did not simply sign his name, but worked the signature into the painting and made it part of the art (Nash 143).
As Marilyn Stokstad explains in Art History, a famous Dutch Northern Renaissance painter, Jan van Eyck is well-known for his technique with oil paint, so much so that his patrons called it a science. Van Eyck’s sharp and colorful images are built with many thin layers of oil glaze on a wooden panel. The brushstrokes are nearly invisible. This is most famously seen in the Arnolfini Wedding. The portrait is of an Italian merchant couple celebrating either their wedding or betrothal. Members of the wealthy merchant class were often the subject of non-still life paintings of the Northern Renaissance. Artists such as Van Eyck celebrated individuality and focused on the everyday world to render their subjects as realistically as possible.
Here Van Eyck uses ordinary objects as symbols, but unlike Aertson’s work, the symbolism in the painting is both religious and secular. The positions of the figures, with the man near the window and the woman near the bed, denote their positions in society. The mirror in the background shows the couple’s wealth, but also acts as the eye of God. Prayer beads on the wall, the image of St. Margaret carved into the chair, and the single burning candle all represent the couple’s piety. The fruit is both fertility and the sin of man, and the dog represents both fidelity and wealth. All of these seemingly random objects have one, if not several, meanings and were intentionally placed there by the artist (Stokstad 599-601).
Both of these paintings are characteristic of the artists who made them. Pieter Aertson was well-known and praised for his still lifes that focused on religious symbolism to retell the stories of the Bible. Jan van Eyck was revolutionary in his use of oil paint and realistic depiction of figures. Both artists rely heavily on symbolism to give their paintings deeper meaning, and look to nature as well as common objects to give their figures depth, perspective, and realistic qualities. Aertson, Van Eyck, and many other artists of the Northern Renaissance were invaluable in developing still life as a genre and respected art form that focused on inanimate and nonhuman objects.
