The History of Still Life Painting: How a Basket of Fruit Revolutionized Art

Still lifes depicting food have served to explain who we are for centuries

Food-related hashtags like #foodporn and #yummy feast the eyes on every corner of the internet. And dozens of pictures of your breakfast, meals, dinners and snacks eat up space in your phone memory. Although the explosion of portraits of the latest style of Eggs Benedict feels new, it’s actually been going on for centuries... in a slightly different format.

But perhaps there’s a better way to explain how we are than what we eat? Religion, pleasure, wealth, and the passage of time: food speaks directly of centuries of culture. And one example of this union between art and gastronomy is found in still life painting and photography.

Find out more about the tasty relationship between food and art in the video.

Frescoes that celebrate the next life

Our understanding of still life a separate genre dates back to the Baroque, but numerous examples of proto-still lifes survive throughout human history.

One of the first examples of how food defined who we are is found in the tombs of Ancient Egypt. The funerary offerings that accompanied the deceased on their voyage to the next life included frescoes painted on tomb walls featuring a range of food: figs, bread, meat and grapes.

Ancient Rome also had its own, very particular food culture. Romans decorated their walls and floors with paintings and mosaics dedicated to food. Xenia still lifes imitated the offerings guests would receive on arrival and were a demonstration of their hosts wealth, while Asàrotos ikos or “unswept floor” mosaics were cleverly designed to look like the remains of a banquet.

Ancient Romans believed that everything that fell on the ground belonged to the kingdom of the dead. They even decorated fast food store displays with still life paintings. (Yes there were fast food joints in Ancient Rome!)

Food painting vanished with the fall of Rome. The Middle Ages were dominated by a Christian perspective that left no artistic room for simple pleasures. But food still occasionally made its way onto the art menu.

Fruit and other comestibles were sometimes used as allegories to explain the Bible. For example, an apple was the metaphor for Adam and Eve’s original sin.

The Renaissance brought with it a period of humanistic thinking and an interest in the natural world, which began to pave the way for still life to become a separate genre.

Moral and religious lessons remained. As in this work by Pieter Aertsen, with a Biblical scene in the background.

While two lovers stand behind innocent cabbages, in an upper class satire of the carnal desires of the peasantry.

Then Caravaggio created a revolution

In 1596, Caravaggio painted a basket of fruit. This apparently simple painting wrote a new page in the History of Art.

For the very first time, still life had been given the same formal and interpretative dignity as a human portrait or a religious story.

But it was in 17th century Holland when still life painting reached its heights. As the Catholic Church lost influence, artists like Clara Peeters and Willem Kalf used their still lifes to portray the power of an empire that became rich on international trade and colonial plunder.

In these works, Chinese porcelain, exotic fruits and imported citruses jostle lobsters on delicate fabrics or form part of mouth-watering banquets.

Still life painting became the perfect means for Dutch society to demonstrate its power.

The luxury of Flemish and Dutch still life paintings contrasted with the more sober style of their Spanish counterparts. Juan Sánchez Cotán’s so-called Lent Still Life paintings feature more humble foodstuffs in less loaded settings, and are said to encourage viewers to fast rather than to indulge in gluttony.

Zurbarán’s cardoons and carrots are another example of Spanish Baroque painting. This artist excelled at revealing the beauty of everyday food.

Decline in the popularity of still life painting

In 1667, André Félibien, a French classical historian, architect and theorist published his genre hierarchy, which classified the various artistic genres by prestige and cultural importance. Still life painting didn’t come out very well, having lost ground to other categories like historical scenes and portraits.

But the artform didn’t disappear. Artists like Francisco de Goya used still life to explain the violence of war. Images showing dead animals now spoke more of the horror of death, than the joys of living.

Then there was photography

In the 19th century, the invention of photography changed the notion of still life for ever. In 1822, Nicéphore Niépce created what is believed to be the first ever photographic still life.

His blurry heliograph is known as The Set Table.

And in 1846 William Henry Fox Talbot portrayed... a basket of fruit! Sound familiar? Its similarity to Caravaggio’s famous work was no coincidence, as the early food photographers found their inspiration in classic Baroque still life paintings.

But like many other things, it all changed with the arrival of color advertising in the 1930s. Food photography was now used to sell, becoming full of color and loaded tables.

Once again, this art form reflected social change, and turned its focus to daily living.

Oysters and lobsters were replaced by cereal packets and processed food, while supermarket produce became a kind of art form, reflecting an increasingly busy society.

Still life now

Now, thanks to social media, we have all unconsciously become still life artists.

Although our work isn’t used to decorate palaces, a simple shot of food still says a lot more about us than we think, albeit on a canvas so simultaneously tiny and vast as our Instagram feed.

English version by @studiogaunt

You may also like:

- History of Interior Design: From The First Chair to The Contemporary Home
- The History of Embroidery: From Tutankhamun to the 21st Century
- The History of Botanical Illustration