A Picture of the Everyday
When the Dutch still life artists of the 17th century painted tables heaving and spilling with fruits, silverware, shellfish, bread and butter, they were attuned to the details of abundance—as well as what they might mean. Curling peels of lemons and oranges could represent time passing as well as the pleasure and luxury of such imports; lobsters symbolized wealth and extravagance but also a warning against the same temptation; oysters were painted to show off their aphrodisiac properties; and dead and strung game fowl revealed the interplay between life and death.
These baroque representations made sense in the time of rapid European colonization around the world, and especially in the Netherlands, and so treasures such as sugar, pearls, spices, damask, and porcelain occurred frequently as symbolic motifs in still life paintings. Naturally, a little sugar needs some bitterness for balance, and so did the abundant, eloquent still lifes. Artists used their varied symbols to create the tension in vanitas paintings: think gap-toothed skulls on tables, toppled goblets, decaying candles, wilting flowers, and rotten fruit all indicating the brevity of life.
An analogous thing is happening currently across social media. Tablescapes and still lifes abound in art via flatlays and colloquial objects—luscious, ripe, and Loewe-esque tomatoes with juicy butts; plates of cold oysters beside wine; cheese plates and peaches; tables laden with bowls of fruit; Bialettis and espresso cups on checkered tablecloths; cakes and flowers; martinis and figs. I’m not exempt from this either; one of the first prints I sold was of summer tomatoes that I grew in my tiny balcony garden. The other was a curling green-yellow savoy cabbage that seemed elusive and poetic.
I drew tomatoes because I thought it captured the zeitgeist of the time, of our undying obsession with the fruit from tomato-mayo sandwiches, the sheer desperation of tomato season, Natoora’s endless tomato thirst traps that extend through early autumn, farmers’ market hauls, heirloom tomato flights, la dolce vita but “tomato girl summer”… Maybe it’s because the grooves, colors, and shapes of heirloom tomatoes beg to be painted. Maybe something as humdrum as an onion possesses a grandeur in its simplicity. Or maybe it’s because ordinary, everyday objects evoke a mystery within us and painting them is a way of making sense of our lives, our worlds, and ourselves.
Many years ago, Pierre-Auguste Renoir noticed this too. In Fruits of the Midi (1881), painted two centuries after the golden age of Dutch still lifes, Renoir depicts peppers, pomegranates, aubergines, lemons, and tomatoes as a tribute on his travels through the south of France (or the Midi). The bounty of the warm Mediterranean climate is the focus, accentuated by the somberness of the plain tablecloth, the small glimpses of the plate, and the simple background. There’s a similar restraint in his Onions (1881), too, which focuses more on the papery skins of the allium and the hairy roots of toppled garlic.
Why has this representation in still lifes not changed much?
Perhaps artists paint the routine and everyday objects again and again as an expression of both skill and personal history. When still life emerged as a distinct genre, it was seen as the lowest form of painting — along with landscapes, as neither involved people as the subject – but it allowed for freedom to experiment with light, subject matter, compositional arrangement, and an artistic vocabulary. Much of this is still true today as well. Not only are still lifes straightforward to work on and affordable to produce, artists don’t have to ask anyone to sit for them. Instead, they can turn to the objects around them for an exploration of pleasure, meaning, and vulnerability.
Whether it is still lifes in the 17th century or at the present moment, there is an intimacy that resonates from finding beauty in the details. But today, the meanings of foods are undergoing a metamorphosis. A tin of sardines in cold pressed extra virgin olive oil is not merely an insignificant component of a meal or a reflection of convenience, but a manufacturing of desire. A Bialetti isn’t just an instrument to make coffee but a ritual that lends itself to a sensual morning routine. A Le Creuset casserole in ‘cerise’ or ‘fig’’ isn’t just a chic utensil to bake bread and cook stews in, but a portal to an aspirational lifestyle.
Tablescapes and still lifes are a commercially judicious choice for the patron, because food has transcended the kitchen as a motif. More and more, lifestyle, fashion, and skincare brands use food to sell goods, exploiting our hunger for things we desire yet cannot consume, whether it’s a hair care brand hiding its goods in butter or a fashion brand that embosses its logo in a matcha shortbread. There are parallels in the art world too. Paintings, such as seasonal pumpkins laid out on a table, striking strawberries among a breakfast scene, espresso martinis and cardamom buns on vivid tablecloths, singular bottles of condiments, sliced tomatoes on a plate, are popular with those of us keen to acquire art that is original and reasonably priced, because they might confer upon us a kind of cultural capital and help us consolidate an identity through dietary choices. Food culture has bled into mass culture, so in tandem with knowing where and what to eat, what we own of food via art can become synonymous to one’s sense of self.
When pop art arrived in the 1960s and 70s, still life transformed into a commodified version of itself (see Andy Warhol and his soup can paintings). Whereas previously it was about pomp and ceremony, as well as the awareness of mortality, pop artists used edible imagery to bring awareness about capitalist consumerism, appetite, and hunger. So even if tablescapes and still life paintings might seem like neutral artworks to show off on white renter walls, there is an undercurrent of a visual political language – that as every day, fresh, nutritious foods are becoming increasingly unaffordable to most of us, it may be easier to own a piece of art depicting it than actually purchasing the food.
Still life paintings and tablescapes reflect what is around us, as our pantries envelop the world and a culture shift towards uniformity becomes inescapable. But even in the throes of heavy curation, I see still life paintings as intimate reflections of personal taste and identity. They are our reminders of morality, desire, and aspiration, just like the Dutch masters intended them to be.
Apoorva Sripathi is a writer, editor, and artist based in London. She is the co-founder of CHEESE, the magazine of culture, as well as the co-founder of chlorophyll, an online literary magazine. Her work has been published in Kinfolk, Vittles, Wellcome Collection, and Feminist Food Journal, and she writes shelf offering, a newsletter weaving together food, art, memory, and history.
