Born, Wolfgang: Still-life painting in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947)

known to us in the art of Europe is by Hans

Memling: a bunch of wild flowers in a majolica
pitcher placed on a table. The table is covered with
an oriental rug of geometric design, and the whole is
seen in a strictly frontal view. No accessories divert
attention from the main motif. It is a Painter's paint-
ing, quite unique in its period—the late fifteenth cen-
tury—and Memling evidently did it for himself, for
it is on the back of a portrait. Earlier in the century
the Van Eycks had developed a naturalism that in-
cluded stilllife effects, but the still-life motifs were
subordinated to the function of the picture, which
was either a portrait or a religious representation.
When Memling painted his bunch of flowers, he set
a precedent, not only in type but also in style. The
rigidly frontal composition, the concentration on a
purely representational problem, and the precision of
the treatment produce an effect which can be best
characterized by the term ‘objectivism.’

Objectivism aims at the detached illustration of an
object. This springs from an interest in the thing itself.
Since the relation of the object to its surroundings
tends to confuse the eye, an objectivist painter isolates
it as much as possible. The subject of a truly objecti-
vist painting takes on the semblance of something
absolute.

Memling also applied the principle demonstrated
in his flower piece in a Vanitas still life, the first ex-
ample of its kind known to us. It pictures a human
skull in a niche. On the wall below the sill of the
niche is an inscription of the memento mori type. The
skull is seen objectively isolated by the niche, and its
volume is emphasized by precise modeling.

It is not accidental that Memling's still lifes date
from a time when the principles of the Italian Renais-
sance were beginning to spread to the north, for a
representation of reality presupposes a familiarity with

! {HE. EARLIEST example of stilllife painting

perspective, and the laws of perspective were developed
during the Renaissance.

Albrecht Diirer, who heralded the victory of the
Renaissance in Germany, applied to close-ups of plants
the same principle as that found earlier in Memling’s
Flowers. He isolated ‘foreground motifs and thus cre-
ated a new subject in modern Western art. Although
in the strictest sense a landscape, the close-up is so
near the still life in spirit that it is by general consent
considered as such.

In an endeavor to depict reality as convincingly as
possible, the Renaissance developed the peep show.
This optical toy was invented by the architect Leon
Battista Alberti, who contributed to the development
of perspective. The peep show is a box with a magnify-
ing lens on one side and a lighted picture on the other.
Figures and other properties are often placed in tiers
before the backdrop. Viewed through the lens, their
image appears in relief, enlarged and sharpened, or
‘super-real’ (fig. 4). If objects in a painting are de-
picted on a single plane or in tiers parallel to the pic-
ture plane, and if each part is painted with extreme
attention to detail and texture, a similar effect is
achieved. The French call this type of painting trompe
œil, because it ‘deceives the eye.

The Dead Partridge by Jacopo de’ Barbari, Diirer’s
teacher in perspective, is the earliest known example


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partridge, together with the bolt of a crossbow and a
pair of gauntlets, is suspended from a hook in a wall
that extends across the picture. A slip of paper, casually
attached to the wall, bears the signature of the artist.
Jacopo de’ Barbari’s painting differs from the still life
of Memling in its studied informality—it has nothing
to set the painted objects apart from the rest of the
world as the niche in the painting by Memling; on
the contrary, it makes us forget we are looking at a
painting.