| | Contents
| This theme includes example sections and will be revised and added to as we proceed. Suggestions for additions, improvements and the correction of factual errors are always appreciated.
Status: Collect > Document > Analyse > Improve |
Introduction
11.01 Still life > Still life: Introduction
Because of the links with commercial photography still life has long tended to be a poor relation of the major themes but this does not do justice to the photographs produced. Since the earliest days of photography in the late 1830's one of the principal uses that it was put to was the recording of everyday objects and the placing of them into artistic settings.
11.02 Still life > Still life: Understanding the term
The origins of still life is firmly routed in ancient art with the carvings and paintings of everyday objects on the walls of Egyptian tombs and recorded on the ash-protected frescos of Pompeii and Herculeneam. Early Roman wall paintings included two dimensional imitations of shelves containing food and artifacts, the generally used term for this is Trompe l'Oeil - a French expression meaning to trick the eye. Art of this type was generally held in low esteem as it was seen as copying from nature and therefore lacking in creativity - a view that was supported by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History of the first century A.D.
The English term for still life may have its origins in the Dutch term still-leven and both terms imply that life is still present even if it is stationary. In Southern Europe the same style of art is called dead nature, as in the Italian natura morta or the French nature morte which has a rather different connotation. Although symbolic inanimate objects were regularly incorporated into paintings from the Renaissance there was a major shift in still life painting in Holland in the early years of the seventeenth century. It may be that Protestant Holland was well suited to a break from the stiffling religious and historical painting traditions that dominated Catholic Europe. When in 1606 Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) painted his Bouquet, now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (Milan), the abundant flowers were the center of attention with little else to diminish the impact. The canvas was painted over an extended period to show flowers from different seasons in a manner that could not be achieved in nature.
11.03 Still life > Early still life photographs
         
In the earliest era of photography the 'stillness' of a still life was essential as the longer time required to create an image necessitated it. The control of the overall composition and lighting also made it a means of experimenting a reduced number of variables. Louis Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot both took still lifes in the late 1830s and it was the obvious subject because of a lack of mobility and the long exposures required by the early daguerreotype and calotype processes. Far later Edward Steichen sometimes used exposures as long as 36 hours to capture the subject to the level of detail he required. The choices of what the early photographers chose to photograph are indicative both of their lifestyles and their need to publicize the process to the influential people of the day. Given this requirement it is perhaps not surprising that they selected sculptures with classical themes and arrangements that appeared to come from painting.
Louis Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in his first surviving 1837 daguerreotype appropriately titled Still Life (now with the Société Française de Photographie, Paris) selected a window setting as bright light was essential. He included a bass relief, several cherub like plaster casts, a rams head, a framed picture and some fabric. Daguerre had an artistic background and his fame prior to photography was in dioramas so it was natural that he should select objects that reflected his interests.
William Henry Fox Talbot likewise used objects that illustrated the everyday life of his estate at Laycock Abbey. His salted paper prints made from calotype negatives sometimes hinted at a life outside the photograph in the way that a composed set of plaster casts does not. For example his photograph The Open Door (1843) shows a broom made from twigs leaning against a doorway as if showing a task soon to be or recently completed. Nobody could pass through the wooden door without removing the broom. A still life can therefore be not only about the objects and people seen but also about those not in the image forcing us to ask questions about the image.
Hermann Krone in his 1853 Still Life of the Washerwoman (Munich, Deutsches Museum) showed the variety of tubs and water containers used with clothes draped over them all set against a dark fabric background. This is not a found moment but a studio shot of the utensils of everyday existence.
11.04 Still life > William Henry Fox Talbot: Bust of Patroclus
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
    
H. Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature, (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1844)
Statues, busts, and other specimens of sculpture, are generally well represented by the Photographic Art; and also very rapidly, in consequence of their whiteness.
These delineations are susceptible of an almost unlimited variety: since in the first place, a statue may be placed in any position with regard to the sun, either directly opposite to it, or at any angle: the directness or obliquity of the illumination causing of course an immense difference in the effect. And when a choice has been made of the direction in which the sun's rays shall fall, the statue may be then turned round on its pedestal, which produces a second set of variations no less considerable than the first. And when to this is added the change of size which is produced in the image by bringing the Camera Obscura nearer to the statue or removing it further off, it becomes evident how very great a number of different effects may be obtained from a single specimen of sculpture.
With regard to many statues, however, a better effect is obtained by delineating them in cloudy weather than in sunshine. For, the sunshine causes such strong shadows as sometimes to confuse the subject. To prevent this, it is a good plan to hold a white cloth on one side of the statue at a little distance to reflect back the sun's rays and cause a faint illumination of the parts which would otherwise be lost in shadow.
Techniques and processes
11.05 Still life > Salt prints: Still life
     
11.06 Still life > Carte de visite: Objects
                      
11.07 Still life > Cabinet cards: Objects
         
Arms and armour
11.08 Still life > Juan Laurent: Arms and armour
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
    
11.09 Still life > Charles and Jane Clifford: Armour
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
     
Flowers
11.10 Still life > Adolphe Braun: Flower studies
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
      
Fruit and vegetables
11.11 Still life > Apples
                 
"“First I shake the whole [Apple] tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf."
Martin Luther (German priest and scholar. 1483-1546)
11.12 Still life > Pears
           
"It is commonly said by farmers, that a good pear or apple costs no more time or pains to rear, than a poor one; so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. “Nominalist and Realist,” Essays, Second Series (1844).
11.13 Still life > Edward Weston: Vegetables
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
     
Objects
11.14 Still life > Still life: Chairs
                                           
11.15 Still life > Still life: Kitchen
                          
11.16 Still life > Still life: Eggs
                                          
11.17 Still life > Still life: Textiles and lace
                
Still lifes taken using different processes
11.18 Still life > Gelatin silver prints: Still life
           
alan@luminous-lint.com |
General reading
Auer, Michele & Streff, Jean, 1999, Histoires d'Oeufs: A travers 300 Photographies de 1840 a Nos Jours, (Ides et calendes) isbn-10: 2825801410 [Δ]
Martineau, Paul, 2010, Still Life in Photography, (J. Paul Getty Museum) isbn-10: 1606060333 isbn-13: 978-1606060339 [Δ]
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Irving Penn
Penn, Irving, 2001, Still Life: By Irving Penn, (Boston: Bulfinch Press) [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
Resources
Walker Evans (1903-1975) • Claus Goedicke (1966-) • Jan Groover (1943-2012) • Ernst Haas (1921-1986) • David C. Halliday (1958-) • Charles Jones (1866-1959) • André Kertész (1894-1985) • Kon Michiko (1955-) • Rolf Koppel (1937-) • Chema Madoz (1958-) • Man Ray (1890-1976) • Sergei Osmachkin (1961-) • Olivia Parker (1941-) • Laurie Simmons (1949-) • Aaron Siskind (1903-1991) • Frederick Sommer (1905-1999) • Emmanuel Sougez (1889-1972) • Edward Steichen (1879-1973) • Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) • Christian Vogt (1946-) • Ion Zupcu (1960-) | Home > Themes > Still life
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People
 | Thomas Smillie: Museum objects
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Photographer
 | Alice Delarue: Still lifes
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | SAFARA: Fabrication des casques de soldats
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Connections
| Henry Fox Talbot - Linneaus Tripe - Giorgio Sommer - Sam Hood
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|  | Linneaus Tripe - Thomas Rodger (attributed) - Giorgio Sommer
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| | Sam Hood - Paul Strand - Heinrich Koch - Josef Sudek
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Themes
 | Nature: Fauna: Hung game
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| | Still life: Arms and armour
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| | Still life: Books
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|  | Still life: Cutlery: Forks
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|  | Still life: Cutlery: Knives
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| | Still life: Cutlery: Spoons
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| | Still life: Eggs
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| | Still life: Examples
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|  | Still life: Flowers
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|  | Still life: Food
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| | Still life: Food: Eggs
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| | Still life: Fruit and vegetables
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| | Still life: Glassware
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|  | Still life: Keys
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|  | Still life: Memorials
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|  | Still life: Models
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|  | Still life: Objects
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| | Still life: Pottery, china, porcelain and ceramics
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Techniques
 | Albumen prints: Themes: Still life
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|  | Autochromes: Themes: Still life
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|  | Cyanotypes: Themes: Objects
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| | Cyanotypes: Themes: Textiles
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|  | Daguerreotypes: Themes: Objects
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| | Daguerreotypes: Themes: Still life
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| | Gelatin silver prints: Themes: Still life
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|  | Photogravures: Themes: Still-life
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| | Salt prints: Themes: Still life
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|  | Tintypes: Themes: Still life
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Still thinking about these...
| Furniture: Chairs
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| | Textiles and lace
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Refreshed: 19 May 2013, 16:52 |
