Still Life

For many years now, I've been wanting to do some photographs of still life. Still Life paintings are one of my favorite genre of paintings as I am always drawn to any of them when I visit a museum or leaf though an art book. The still life tradition dates to ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans (see frescoes from Pompeii and Herculaneum) and stays throughout the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Classical to Modern and Contemporary Art. Each period has its prevalent painters, but it seems that the 16th century is when it explodes and becomes a major force in art. More and more painters become interested in the "natural" world around them and hence try to record it. Most popular and well known schools of still life painting are the Dutch and Spanish ones with Caravaggio and Bruegel being the better known names of the period. I personally favor the Spanish style, which is more austere, simpler and more mystical in comparison to the more opulent and baroque style of the Dutch. So, a few weeks ago while looking though some art books, I discovered a Spanish painter of the 16th century named Juan Sanchez Cotan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Sánchez_Cotán The few paintings that I saw of his in the book, plus the ones I discovered on Wikipedia, blew me way. I instantly knew that I found my inspiration and I decided to use his paintings as my starting point. Here is my first examples.