The Object as Subject

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Summary: Still Life as a Forum for Scholars
Review: Editor Anne Lowenthal has gathered five contemporary scholar colleagues to share her volume of essays exploring the meanings of Still Life painting and photography. Now if this sounds like a session of a convention of art educators, you've been there. But don't let the heavily footnoted and bibliographed addenda to these six essays turn you away from exploring the message within. These are six intriguing and illuminating treatises on the concept that Still Life paintings through time have been not the table arrangements of random favorite items of the artists - meaningful to them or just available, studio props - but are icons /social commentary/spiritual statements/economic explorations that open for study the periods of time when the paintings were made. Having absorbed all this information will allow the reader of this volume to really look at Still Life art as guideposts to history. A pear or apple will never be just that again; the Garden of Eden is invoked, or the import and culinary habits of the Netherlands are referenced. van Gogh's arrangements knock on the door of 19th century literature. Peto and Harnett painted "racks" of momentos to entice collectors to buy their art product. None of this breaks the magic of contemplation of this century's old genre of painting. If anything these essays feed our imagination and make our senses more keen for the next visit to a galery or museum to view the timeless little masterpieces that are finding new significance in the world of art appreciation.