Still Life - Clara Peeters
Our art piece for the week are Clara Peeters’ still life paintings.
Although it is not clearly known, Clara is thought to have been born around the 1580’s in Antwerp, Holland. Her earliest works were recorded as having sold in the years 1607 and 1608. At the time, there were four major genres that dominated the artistic landscape: history painting, portraiture, genre painting (scenes of everyday life) and landscape. Of these, still life and landscape were particularly low regarded as they did not contain human subject matters, considered hierarchically inferior. For women, the options were even more restricted - women were not allowed to study or paint the nude, discarding history painting as a viable option for them to pursue.
During this period, symbolic still life paintings were particularly popular. These were known as ‘vanitas’ paintings that served as a kind of ‘memento mori’. This translates from Latin as “remember you must die”. The still life paintings often featured a skull or extinguishing candles that served as a reminder to the viewer of the fleetingness of life and the inevitability of their own mortal fate. A lot of these were stylised in trompe l’oeil, which means “deceiving of the eye” in French. This was the term for paintings that were worked with such intense realism they were like windows or openings that spilled out unto the walls they were displayed on.
Clara incorporated this technique into her own paintings, mostly depicting lavish flower and Dutch Futontbijtjes, "breakfast pieces," scenes of food, and banketjes, "banquet pieces" with cups and vessels, themes that would later be made popularised by her work. Delving more into the style what would characterise 17th century Flemish realism (rather than the exuberance of Classical Rennaissance stylistic references that were more popular at the time) Clara moved away from the high idealism of artists like Ruben to depict an intricate simplicity in her pieces.
Clara exacted her paintings with a didactic attention, portraying her scenes with a delicate calculation while also providing a visceral, sensuous experience to the viewer. While at first glance the placement of the objects could seem random, they are arranged in a way that the viewer is awarded a full view of every single one of them - a glorious banquet for the eyes. At the same time, her paintings maintain an air of authenticity and natural composition through her intentional details. A half-eaten pretzel, sliced through cheese, insect bitten petals, and a knife hanging from the table all provide a sense to the viewer that this is a scene that have just simply walked upon. In a number of these, Clara painted herself unto the surfaces of glit cups and goblets as kind of miniature self-portraits, which has been interpreted as her showing her dignity not only as the painter of the piece, but as a woman.
Her delectable banquets might not serve as a reminder of the futility of life, but evoke another kind of reaction in the viewer, perhaps a more primal one – a healthy appetite.
Sources
https://www.museodelprado.es/en/whats-on/exhibition/the-art-of-clara-peeters/e4628dea-9ffd-4632-85c9-449367e86959
https://nmwa.org/art/artists/clara-peeters/
https://artherstory.net/clara-peeters/
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/827660
https://womennart.com/2018/06/27/who-was-clara-peeters/
https://www.wikiart.org/en/clara-peeters
https://mydailyartdisplay.uk/2022/03/19/clara-peeters-the-queen-of-still-life-paintings/
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161019-the-great-women-artists-that-history-forgot
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-obsessed-clara-peeterss-still-life-cheeses-almonds-pretzels
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clara-Peeters