I never really though of myself as a still life painter, but that’s what I’ve been doing lately. That’s largely because I realized that I’m not very good at working from photographs. I don’t have the equipment for painting outdoors, and besides I tend to like to work in more detail than outdoor painting easily allows for. And I’m not currently attending life painting classes. I do hope to start hiring models at some point, because painting live people is a wonderful challenge. But for now, I’m painting still lifes because they fit into my current working approach, and because I’ve found that I like them.
I have now painted enough still lifes that I’m starting to think about what kind of still life painter I am (and want to be). The big advantage to this kind of paintings is that you have excellent control over composition, lighting, and so on. When some objects, like plants, change over time, in general you can work at whatever pace you like.
- I like simplicity. I have always disliked “kitchen sink” still lifes in which the artist appears to be showing off by painting a big pile of stuff.
- I like cast shadows. I love to use cast shadows as compositional devices and to define the dimensional structure of the picture space.
- I hate kitsch. I dislike still lifes full of ugly plastic toys or pretentious references. It just doesn’t work for me. Likewise, I dislike folksy objects that are in the picture only to bring forth a sense of sentimentality for a perfect past that never really existed (can you tell that I’m not a Thomas Kincaid fan?).
- So far, I’ve avoided surreal still lifes and scenes that are impossible or improbable, such as a ship battling a storm in a teacup. I don’t hate that kind of work, but so far it doesn’t seem to fit the aesthetic that works for me.
- I don’t like still lifes that are about prosperity or plentifulness, such as pictures of expensive wine bottles, sophisticated foods, and other objects that are there because they symbolize old money. I have no problem with money (old or otherwise) but painting tokens of it is uninteresting to me.
*I like simple objects that are challenging to render, such as rumpled cloth and crumpled paper. - I don’t feel the need to delineate a complex three-dimensional space. Most of the time, I paint objects on a wall or objects that I’m looking down on.
So far, I’m not interested in trompe l’oel.
For me, setting up a still life is an intuitive process in which I try to make it interesting without going over line into folksy, kitschy, or just plain dumb. So far, I like the pieces I’ve done, although I’ve rejected a number of planned ideas that, upon reflection, didn’t work.
I’d love to get comments on how you think about the topic of still life.
I like a still life that makes me make up a story. For example, your still life that you are currently working on makes me think of how the kids will leave just a few berries so they don’t get blamed for eating them “all”. The one outside the bowl is the one my youngest will do a drive by and eat when no one is looking.
I like a still life with toys, but I don’t like the ones that are of “that perfect world”. I like the dolls with messed up (but not ugly) hair, or the trucks with chips of paint missing or some sense that these were used by real people. I like combinations of old and new items together that have that sense of “handed down”. Old and new dishes, toys, tools, utensils etc.
I agree that the kitchen sink thing is annoying. A small collection of a theme can be nice.
My favorite still life, no matter what the subject matter, is one that looks like it’s rightful owner is going to come back any minute and continue doing whatever it was they were doing before they left. The ones that look overly staged are always a turn off.
Great thinking material. Thanks for this post.
It’s extremely difficult to create a still-life that is not self conscious. As a genre they seem to be about THINGs. Yet they aren’t the things but only a portrait of the things which is pretty hard to justify. It better be a pretty special thing to have its portrait painted. The crumpled paper bag has merit in being about skillful painting or student practice or as an ANTI–thing statement, sort of an anti-still life. But its value as a painting beyond that is negligible. It adds little other than a breath of fresh air to the catalog of expression of the human experience which arguably good art always contributes to. A lot of people hate still lifes as vapid in content, but I believe the problem lies in the genre itself. Why make a painting of a group of objects that just as easily could be sitting on a shelf in the same location as the painting unless the objects themselves are a symbol of something else? And indeed as I remember in a foggy way some art historian saying once, still lifes are about possession of the objects painted. And thus one must wrassel with this salient and historical aspect of the genre every time one decides to paint one. The whole genre is sullied with that most Christian sin of desire for and pleasure in the material world.
Cementgirl,
I agree that unselfconscious still lifes are hard to do. I tend to like work that is simple and unpretentious, such Duane Keiser’s wonderful small paintings.
And, yes, historically some still lifes were mainly about abundance and prosperity. I suspect that your professor’s aversion to pleasure in the material world came less from a deep and ascetic religious faith than from the usual leftist academic opposition to bourgeois values. I don’t find the genre to be sullied by that, as any kind of painting has a broad history that allows the artist to reference in many different ways.