Still Life: its journey from the beginning to the non end
Talbot with his “A fruit Piece” (Plate XXIV) humbly arranges items on a table. It’ not entirely clear even to the maker of the picture. We might also consider other picture as Still life. Essentially we can think of the still life image as a depiction of chosen and placed object. A camera translates tridimensional life into two-dimensional object. What it worth saying is that Still life was regarded as a lower genre compared with portraiture. But as society became more commercialised, as the world also became more industrialised: within art the still life starts to raise. Nowadays it has reached a peak. Whatever the artistic ambition of still life, there always seems to be connections with commerce. Caravaggio in his 1599 "Basket of fruit", depicts the first painted still life. Perhaps he used a sort of lens, due to the extremely beautiful details, but we don’t know. Juan Sanchez Cotan “Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber", 1602, Oil on Canvas is a revisitation of Caravaggio. Jan Davidz de Heem, paints still life of flowers as the commerce of flowers starts to expand. People would pay millions of pounds for tulips. Chardin, Water Glass and Jug, 1760. Paul Cezanne, Stil life with Apples, 1890. All examples of still life.
By the time photography appears, the world becomes seriously commercialised. If you produce some sort of commodity it has to have something that you want. Commodity, indeed, cultivates desire. The advertising image also glosses over and obscures the real circumstances of the labour that produced it. The iPhone is not advertised to you with images of the working day in the Chinese factory where it is made. It floats immaculately on a white background, without history or context. In the 1920s these ideas become significant for the surrealists who explore the cultish value and psychological charge of various everyday objects.
