 Bacchus
Caravaggio
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Still Life Painting
• Part Three
Caravaggio
Caravaggio (1571 - 1610) is an artist who actually fits into two of the categories of Still-Life that I mentioned in Part Two of this series, in that he painted the most beautiful still-lifes as details in larger compositions, as in that mouth-watering feast for the eyes in “The Supper at Emmaus,” but he also painted the most beautiful “one-off” I know, which had a great influence on my work. Caravaggio might only have strayed once from Composition on one occasion to paint a still-life, but I have always found “Basket of Fruit,” to be one of the most stunning and perfect still-lifes ever painted. Its beauty certainly influenced my way of looking at still-life as a genre. As for his details in larger compositions, one of the most beautiful appears in “Bacchus” - look at that fruit basket! - which excited me so much I eventually created my own version, changing the gender of the sitter and using the fruits of Bali, where I was living at the time of painting that work; My own style is actually very close to that of Caravaggio, especially, it seems, when we paint figs! I always believed Caravaggio to be the painter to whom I was the closest in style - until much later I discovered Melendez, who painted several works that I look at sometimes with a smile and wonder if he really painted them - or if I did. Our way of seeing and then painting that seeing are really that close.
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 Bacchus
Christian
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 Scrumptuous Basket
Christian |
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Basket of Fruit
Caravaggio |
 The Milkmaid
Vermeer
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Jan Vermeer
Jan Vermeer is another artist who has had a great influence on my work, and although he fits into that “scenes of everyday life” branch of art known as Genre Painting, it is worth looking at the little gems of still-life painting that pop up frequently in his work, as in “The Milkmaid”. The basket and the bread in it and out of it, the bowls on the table, and the terracotta pot from which the lady is pouring the milk, how exquisitely it is all painted. The little brass object hanging next to the basket on the wall in the background reminds me of the first time I incorporated still-life into a larger composition. The inspiration for that however was definitely more Chardin than Vermeer. |
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I was in India, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and found a fascinating model in this old peasant with his hookah. Touched by a few of the objects I found on the farm where I was staying, I put them together in the foreground, causing this painting, with that amazing character and the bizarre little scene outside the door of a building being precariously supported by the branch of a tree - as indeed it was! - to be a favourite of mine for several years, but particularly because it was the first time I had actually incorporated a still life into another work.
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 The Hookah
Christian
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The second painting in which I incorporated still-life very much as details hardly to be noticed, but which details I happen to love personally, is “Bathsheba”. I painted it in Bali, in the 90’s, and the background is my living room. The day-bed on which Bathsheba is sitting was actually in the middle of that room, and some of the pieces of jewellery from my quite large collection are draped on the bed and the seat; that seat is a carved elephant, an African marvel that I found in New York and determined to paint from the moment it caught my eye, some five years before I actually painted it. Beside the bed I painted a small basket of some of my favourite Balinese fruits, and also placed a small piece of coral by the basket. I had been beach-combing and collecting these beautiful corals for some time, and called them “lace-stones.” We now have a collection of several hundred thousand lace-stones, including a huge one I found once on the beach outside my house. It was so large that I had to run to the local village and find three strong lads to come and lift it, carrying it to my home. Later, on the way to India, it broke in two, this miraculous coral, and now each of its two parts sit side by side outside the door of my office in India. I mention that as an example of the countless stories that lie behind the many objects I have acquired in my life with the express purpose of painting them.
 Still Life Paintings, Part Four
Anthony Christian
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