1.
Antonio de Pereda
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Antonio de Pereda was a Spanish Baroque-era painter, best known for his still lifes. He was the eldest of three brothers from an artistic family and his father, mother and two brothers were all painters. He was educated in Madrid by Pedro de las Cuevas and was taken under the wing of the influential Giovanni Battista Crescenzi. After Crescenzis death in 1635, Pereda was expelled from the court, el Socorro a Génova,1634 Agila,1635, painted for the collection of series of Gothic kings at the Palacio del Buen Retiro, Museo del Prado. Annunciation,1637, Prado Los desposorios de la Virgen con San José,1640 San Jerónimo penitente and San Pedro liberado por el ángel,1643, profesión de la infanta Margarita con San Agustín y la Virgen en gloria,1650, Convento de la Encarnación, Madrid. Curación de Tobías, Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum,1652, San José, Madrid, Royal Palace,1654. El Salvador,1655, now at the Capilla del Cristo and at San Ginés church, santo Domingo en Soriano,1655, Museo Cerralbo. Elías y los profetas de Baal,1659, Madrid, parroquia del Carmen y San Luis The Sacrifice of Isaac, Dallas Museum of Art San Francisco de Asís en la Porciúncula,1664, San jerónimo y la visión del Juicio Final,1668, private collection. San Guillermo de Aquitania,1672, Museum of Fine Arts, several paintings of Bodegon including the Museo dArte Antiga, Lisbon, Helsinki and the Pushkin Museum, Moscow
2.
Still life
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A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made. Still life gives the artist more freedom in the arrangement of elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of such as landscape or portraiture. Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious, some modern still life breaks the two-dimensional barrier and employs three-dimensional mixed media, and uses found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound. Still life emerged from the painting of details in larger compositions with subjects, the term includes the painting of dead animals, especially game. Live ones are considered art, although in practice they were often painted from dead models. The still-life category also shares commonalities with zoological and especially botanical illustration, generally a still life includes a fully depicted background, and puts aesthetic rather than illustrative concerns as primary. Still life occupied the lowest rung of the hierarchy of genres, the trompe-lœil painting, which intends to deceive the viewer into thinking the scene is real, is a specialized type of still life, usually showing inanimate and relatively flat objects. Still-life paintings often adorn the interior of ancient Egyptian tombs and it was believed that food objects and other items depicted there would, in the afterlife, become real and available for use by the deceased. Ancient Greek vase paintings also demonstrate great skill in depicting everyday objects, by the 16th century, food and flowers would again appear as symbols of the seasons and of the five senses. Also starting in Roman times is the tradition of the use of the skull in paintings as a symbol of mortality and earthly remains and these vanitas images have been re-interpreted through the last 400 years of art history, starting with Dutch painters around 1600. As Pliny the Elder recorded in ancient Roman times, Greek artists centuries earlier were already advanced in the arts of painting, genre painting. He singled out Peiraikos, whose artistry is surpassed by only a very few, by 1300, starting with Giotto and his pupils, still-life painting was revived in the form of fictional niches on religious wall paintings which depicted everyday objects. Through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, still life in Western art remained primarily an adjunct to Christian religious subjects, painters like Jan van Eyck often used still-life elements as part of an iconographic program. Petrus Christus’ portrait of a bride and groom visiting a goldsmith is an example of a transitional still life depicting both religious and secular content. Another similar type of painting is the family portrait combining figures with a table of food. Around this time, simple still-life depictions divorced of figures were beginning to be painted on the outside of shutters of private devotional paintings, another step toward the autonomous still life was the painting of symbolic flowers in vases on the back of secular portraits around 1475. This was a development by Pieter Aertsen, whose A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms introduced the type with a painting that still startles. A small religious scene can often be out in the distance
3.
Danse Macabre
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Dance of Death, also called Danse Macabre, is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death, no matter ones station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer. They were produced as mementos mori, to people of the fragility of their lives. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts, the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now-lost mural in the Saints Innocents Cemetery in Paris dating from 1424 to 1425, the earliest recorded visual example is from the cemetery of the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris. Marija na Škrilinama in the Istrian town of Beram, painted by Vincent of Kastav, there was also a Dance of Death painted in the 1540s on the walls of the cloister of St Pauls Cathedral, London with texts by John Lydgate, which was destroyed in 1549. The deathly horrors of the 14th century—such as recurring famines, the Hundred Years War in France, and, most of all, the Black Death—were culturally assimilated throughout Europe. Short verse dialogues between Death and each of its victims, which could have performed as plays, can be found in the direct aftermath of the Black Death in Germany. The French term danse macabre may derive from the Latin Chorea Machabæorum, in 2 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, the grim martyrdom of a mother and her seven sons is described, and was a well-known mediaeval subject. An alternative explanation is that the term entered France via Spain, both the dialogues and the evolving paintings were ostensive penitential lessons that even illiterate people could understand. Numerous mural versions of that legend from the 13th century onwards have survived, since they showed pictorial sequences of men and corpses covered with shrouds, those paintings are sometimes regarded as cultural precursors of the new genre. A danse macabre painting may show a round dance headed by Death or a chain of alternating dead, from the highest ranks of the mediaeval hierarchy descending to its lowest, each mortals hand is taken by a skeleton or an extremely decayed body. The apparent class distinction in almost all of these paintings is completely neutralized by Death as the ultimate equalizer, the Totentanz of Metnitz, for example, shows how a pope crowned with his mitre is being led into Hell by the dancing Death. Usually, a dialogue is attached to each victim, in which Death is summoning him to dance. Who the beggar or the Emperor, ob arm, ob reich, im Tode gleich. Whether rich or poor, equal in death, the famous designs by Hans Holbein the Younger for his Dance of Death series were drawn in 1526 while he was in Basel. They were cut in wood by the accomplished Formschneider Hans Lützelburger and these woodcuts soon appeared in proofs with titles in German. The first book edition, containing forty-one woodcuts, was published at Lyons by the Treschsel brothers in 1538, ten further designs were added in later editions. The Dance of Death refashions the late-medieval allegory of the danse macabre as a reformist satire, most importantly, it was The pictures and the Bible quotations above them were the main attractions
4.
Memento mori
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It is related to the ars moriendi and related literature. In art, memento mori are artistic or symbolic reminders of mortality, in the European Christian art context, the expression developed with the growth of Christianity, which emphasized Heaven, Hell, and salvation of the soul in the afterlife. In English, the phrase is pronounced /məˈmɛnˌtoʊ ˈmɔːriː/, mə-MEN-toh MOR-ee, memento is the 2nd person singular future active imperative of meminī to remember, to bear in mind, usually serving as a warning, remember. Mori is the present active infinitive of morior, literally to die, in other words, ‘remember death’ or ‘remember that you will die’. Platos Phaedo, where the death of Socrates is recounted, introduces the idea that the practice of philosophy is about nothing else. The Stoics were particularly prominent in their use of this discipline, though in modern times this has become a standard trope, in fact, no ancient authors attest to this, and it seems to be tendentious Christian moralizing rather than an accurate historical report. The thought was then utilized in Christianity, whose emphasis on divine judgment, Heaven, Hell. Many memento mori works are products of Christian art, although there are equivalents in Buddhist art, in the Christian context, the memento mori acquires a moralizing purpose quite opposed to the Nunc est bibendum theme of Classical antiquity. The most obvious places to look for memento mori meditations are in funeral art, perhaps the most striking to contemporary minds is the transi, or cadaver tomb, a tomb that depicts the decayed corpse of the deceased. This became a fashion in the tombs of the wealthy in the fifteenth century, later, Puritan tomb stones in the colonial United States frequently depicted winged skulls, skeletons, or angels snuffing out candles. These are among the themes associated with skull imagery. Another example of memento mori is provided by the chapels of bones and these are chapels where the walls are totally or partially covered by human remains, mostly bones. The entrance to the Capela dos Ossos has the sentence, We bones, lying here bare. The famous danse macabre is another example of the memento mori theme, with its dancing depiction of the Grim Reaper carrying off rich. This and similar depictions of Death decorated many European churches, danse Macabre, Op.40, is a tone poem for orchestra written in 1874 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. Timepieces were formerly an apt reminder that time on Earth grows shorter with each passing minute. Public clocks would be decorated with such as ultima forsan or vulnerant omnes. Even today, clocks often carry the motto tempus fugit, time flees, old striking clocks often sported automata who would appear and strike the hour, some of the celebrated automaton clocks from Augsburg, Germany had Death striking the hour
5.
National Museum, Warsaw
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The National Museum in Warsaw, popularly abbreviated as MNW, is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. The museum is home to numismatic collections, a gallery of applied arts. The National Museum in Warsaw was established on 20 May 1862, as the Museum of Fine Arts, Warsaw, the collection, on Jerusalem Avenue, is housed in a building designed by Tadeusz Tolwiński, developed between 1927 and 1938. In 1932 an exhibition of decorative art opened in the two earlier erected wings of the building, the new building was inaugurated on 18 June 1938. The purpose-built modernistic edifice, was situated on the edge of Na Książęcem Park established between 1776–79 for Prince Kazimierz Poniatowski, from 1935 the museum director was Stanisław Lorentz, who directed an effort to save the most valuable works of art during World War II. The Gestapo headquarters presented Rembrandts portrait of Maerten Soolmans as a gift to Hans Frank in occupied Kraków, after the war the Polish Government, under the supervision of Professor Lorentz, retrieved many of the works seized by the Germans. More than 5,000 artifacts are still missing, in 2008 the Polish Archaeological Mission Tyritake of National Museum in Warsaw commenced works at Tyritake, Crimea. It is headed by Alfred Twardecki curator of the Ancient Art Gallery, in 2010 the National Museum, as one of the first state institutions in the world, held an exhibition entirely consecrated to homoerotic art - Ars Homo Erotica. Since the 2011–12 renovation, the museum is considered as one of the most modern in Europe with a computer-led LED lighting allowing to enhance unique qualities of every painting. In 2012 the permanent galleries underwent revolutionary changes, the curators of the museum re-arranged it and supplemented it with new works from the museums warehouses. Paintings were not hung chronologically, but thematically, genre painting, still lifes, landscapes, cityscapes, biblical, mythological, works by Italian, Flemish, Dutch, German and Polish artists were hung together, making it easy to observe and compare similarities and differences. The Gallery of Medieval Art mainly presents objects from the late Middle Ages, originating from different regions of todays Poland and these works were originally designed almost exclusively for churches. The exhibition was designed to allow the audience to understand the role of art in the life of the Middle Ages. The new techniques implemented in the gallery allow the presentation of large polyptychs, such as the famous Grudziądz Polyptych. The new arrangement of the exhibition was designed by WWAA, the Gallery of Old Masters on the second floor was conceived from the former Gallery of Decorative Art, Gallery of Old European Painting and the Gallery of Old Polish and European Portrait in 2016. It combines species of pictorial art - painting, sculpture, drawings and these social spaces have provided the key to the division of the gallery,1. Church, chapel and domestic altar,3, in the redesigned gallery, the works are presented not according to national schools, but as a confrontation of artistic circles of the South and North. The new system reflects the hierarchy of the created by Renaissance art theory
6.
Jan Sanders van Hemessen
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Jan Sanders van Hemessen was a leading Flemish Renaissance painter, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Hemessen played an important role in the development of painting, through his large scenes with religious or worldly subjects, set in towns with contemporary dress. These focused on human failings such as greed and vanity, one of his best known works, the Parable of the Prodigal Son now in Brussels, was also a key forerunner of the later merry company tradition, and he painted a pure genre painting set in tavern. He also painted a number of portraits, some of exceptional quality. He was based in Antwerp between 1519 and 1550, joining the artists Guild of Saint Luke there in 1524, after 1550 he may have moved to Haarlem. He painted several subjects, and many others may have been destroyed in the Beeldenstorm that swept through Antwerp in the year of his death. Jan Sanders van Hemessen was born in Hemiksem, then called Hemessen or Heymissen and he was an apprentice of Hendrick van Cleve I in Antwerp. He traveled to Italy early in his career, around 1520, here he studied both models from classical antiquity, such as the Laocoön as well as the contemporary works of Michelangelo and Raphael. He returned to Antwerp where he entered the local Guild of Saint Luke as a master in 1524, van Hemessen is believed to have worked early in his career at the royal court in Mechelen. Here he may have first encountered Jan Gossaert, a court painter, although the early biographer Karel van Mander wrote that van Hemessen spent time in Haarlem, there is no evidence for this statement. Van Hemessen was married to Barbara de Fevre with whom he had two daughters, after his wifes death, he had an illegitimate son called Peeter with his maid Betteken. After the death of Jan Sanders van Hemessen and Betteken, Peeter was legitimised in 1579, Jan Sanders van Hemessen trained his daughter Catharina van Hemessen who became a successful portrait painter. It is not known where van Hemessen died, van Hemessen was one of the earliest Netherlandish artists to exploit the genre character of biblical subjects often for a moralizing purpose. Van Hemessen specialized in scenes of human character flaws such as vanity and his pictures often have a religious subject. His style helped found the Flemish traditions of genre painting, van Hemessen was also a portrait painter. His Mannerist style is characterised by muscular and palpably three-dimensional figures, a densely packed foreground of abruptly cropped forms, Jan Sanders van Hemessen is associated with the development of the tavern scene or merry company in Flemish genre painting. He commenced his compositions on this theme with a 1536 painting on a religious subject, the foreground of the composition shows the prodigal son during his days of high living in the company of prostitutes, music, wine and gambling. Van Hemessen produced more tavern scenes that stress the theme of unbridled living where drinking causes more sinfulness such as the Loose Company, the subject matter provided van Hemessen with another occasion to use a religious subject to convey a moral message
7.
Robert Schumann
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Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing. Works such as Carnaval, Symphonic Studies, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and his writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded. In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wiecks daughter Clara, against the wishes of her father, following a long and acrimonious legal battle, which found in favor of Clara and Robert. Clara also composed music and had a concert career as a pianist. After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted to an asylum, at his own request. Diagnosed with psychotic melancholia, Schumann died two years later in 1856 without having recovered from his mental illness, Schumann was born in Zwickau, in the Kingdom of Saxony, the fifth and last child of Johanna Christiane and August Schumann. Schumann began receiving general musical and piano instruction at the age of seven from Johann Gottfried Kuntzsch, the boy immediately developed a love of music and worked at creating musical compositions himself, without the aid of Kuntzsch. Even though he often disregarded the principles of composition, he created works regarded as admirable for his age. At age 14, Schumann wrote an essay on the aesthetics of music and also contributed to a volume, edited by his father, titled Portraits of Famous Men. While still at school in Zwickau, he read the works of the German poet-philosophers Schiller and Goethe, as well as Byron and the Greek tragedians. His most powerful and permanent literary inspiration was Jean Paul, a German writer whose influence is seen in Schumanns youthful novels Juniusabende, completed in 1826, and Selene. Schumanns interest in music was sparked by seeing a performance of Ignaz Moscheles playing at Karlsbad and his father, who had encouraged the boys musical aspirations, died in 1826 when Schumann was 16. Neither his mother nor his guardian thereafter encouraged a career in music, in 1828 Schumann left school, and after a tour during which he met Heinrich Heine in Munich, he went to Leipzig to study law. In 1829 his law studies continued in Heidelberg, where he became a member of Corps Saxo-Borussia Heidelberg. During Eastertide 1830 he heard the Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, in July he wrote to his mother, My whole life has been a struggle between Poetry and Prose, or call it Music and Law. During his studies with Wieck, it has claimed that Schumann permanently injured a finger on his right hand
8.
Damien Hirst
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Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the known as the Young British Artists. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly the United Kingdoms richest living artist, during the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended. Death is a theme in Hirsts works. He became famous for a series of artworks in which animals are preserved—sometimes having been dissected—in formaldehyde. The best known of these was The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and he has also made spin paintings, created on a spinning circular surface, and spot paintings, which are rows of randomly coloured circles created by his assistants. In September 2008, he took a move for a living artist by selling a complete show, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sothebys by auction. Hirst was born Damien Steven Brennan in Bristol and grew up in Leeds and he never met his father, with his mother marrying his stepfather when he was 2 and divorcing 10 years later. His stepfather was reportedly a motor mechanic, Hirsts mother who was from an Irish Catholic background worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau, and has stated that she lost control of her son when he was young. He was arrested on two occasions for shoplifting, however, Hirst sees her as someone who would not tolerate rebellion, she cut up his bondage trousers and heated one of his Sex Pistols vinyl records on the cooker to turn it into a fruit bowl. He says, If she didnt like how I was dressed and she did, though, encourage his liking for drawing, which was his only successful educational subject. His art teacher at Allerton Grange School pleaded for Hirst to be allowed to enter the sixth form and he was refused admission to Jacob Kramer School of Art when he first applied, but attended the college after a subsequent successful application to the Foundation Diploma course. He went to an exhibition of work by Francis Davison, staged by Julian Spalding at the Hayward Gallery in 1983. Davison created abstract collages from torn and cut coloured paper which, Hirst said, blew me away, and which he modelled his own work on for the next two years. He worked for two years on London building sites, then studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, although again he was refused a place the first time he applied. In 2007, Hirst was quoted as saying of An Oak Tree by Goldsmiths senior tutor, Michael Craig-Martin, That piece is, I think, I still cant get it out of my head. While a student, Hirst had a placement at a mortuary and he gained sponsorship from the London Docklands Development Corporation. The show was visited by Charles Saatchi, Norman Rosenthal and Nicholas Serota, Hirsts own contribution to the show consisted of a cluster of cardboard boxes painted with household paint
9.
Pieter Claesz
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Pieter Claesz was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes. He was born in Berchem, Belgium, near Antwerp, where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1620 and he moved to Haarlem in 1620, where his son, the landscape painter Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem was born. He and Willem Claeszoon Heda, who worked in Haarlem, were the most important exponents of the ontbijt or dinner piece. They painted with subdued, virtually monochromatic palettes, the handling of light. Claesz generally chose objects of a homely kind than Heda, although his later work became more colourful. Claeszs still lifes often suggest allegorical purpose, with skulls serving as reminders of human mortality, the two men founded a distinguished tradition of still life painting in Haarlem. Pieter Claesz was influenced by the artist movement Vanitas, Claesz had, in addition to his son, the pupils Evert van Aelst, Floris van Dyck, Christian Berentz, Floris van Schooten, and Jan Jansz Treck
10.
Clara Peeters
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Many aspects of her life and work remain very unclear, especially outside the period 1607 to 1621 from which period dated paintings are known. As Seymour Slive puts it Not a single uncontested document has surfaced about her life, most female Dutch painters also specialized in still lifes, which did not require knowledge of anatomy, among other advantages for women. More than any other artist, her works often include depictions of different types of cheese. Little is known about the life of Clara Peeters and it is generally agreed by scholars that her work points to her being a native of Antwerp. The city of Antwerps archives hold a record of a Clara Peeters, daughter of Jean Peeters, a second document indicates a marriage between a Clara Peeters and Henricus Joosen on 31 May 1639, in the same church. However, both Clara and especially Peeters were common names in Antwerp, a baptism in 1594 would imply that her 1607-dated paintings were done when she was 12 or 13. Some scholars doubt that early works could have been done by one so young and have posited that she was born in the 1580s. Peeters was established in Amsterdam by 1611 and is documented in The Hague in 1617, some have suggested that in light of there not being any evident work by Peeters after 1621, she ceased painting after getting married, as for example Judith Leyster effectively did. Because of the number of apparent copies of her work by various hands, two 1630s paintings of nearly the same still life, in her style and signed CP, are currently considered anonymous and not from her hand. A painting supposedly by her and dated 1657 was recorded but is now lost and this is much later than the dating given to her surviving works. No record indicating Peeters date of death has been found, however, scholars speculate various dates, in or after 1621, after 1654 and her work suggests training in Antwerp, a city where artists stressed detail and careful finish in painting. No record of her apprenticeship has been found, most artists as well as apprentices were included in the records of the local Guild of Saint Luke. However, her name is not found in any of the Guilds records in Antwerp nor those of Amsterdam, Haarlem, Delft, scholars speculate that she may have been the daughter of a painter, and thus not required to be included in the apprenticeship records. Or, perhaps the answer may be in the fact that the Antwerp Guild records were lost for the years 1607 to 1628, many scholars believe her work closely resembles that of Osias Beert and suppose a relationship between the two. Some suggest she was his pupil, Beert began his career as a still-life painter when he became a master of the Antwerp guild in 1602. However none of his works are dated, although some of the plates were stamped with dates from 1606 to 1609 by their supplier. She has also linked to Antwerp artists Hans van Essen. Jan Bruegel the elder has also suggested as a possible teacher
11.
Maria van Oosterwijck
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Maria van Oosterwijck, also spelled Oosterwyck, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, specializing in richly detailed flower paintings and other still lifes. Maria van Oosterwijck was born in 1630 in Nootdorp, a located near Delft in South Holland. Her date of birth is listed as 20 August. Her father was a Dutch Reformed Church minister, as was her grandfather and her father took her, when she was quite young, to masterful still life painter Jan Davidsz. de Heems studio. With de Heems influence, van Oosterwijck developed her interest in floral painting and she became his student, and she showed herself to have a talent for vividly painting realistic creations. Van Oosterwijck initially worked in Delft and later moved to Utrecht and she worked with de Heem, and years later she produced her first professional piece which had been created independently. When de Heem moved to Antwerp, van Oosterwijck had ample opportunity for independent painting, sometime in the early- to mid-1670s, she moved to Amsterdam, where her studio was opposite the workshop of fellow flower painter Willem van Aelst. Van Aelst courted her, but she refused his hand, van Oosterwijck remained single throughout her life, but she raised her nephew, who had been orphaned. In addition to being a painter, she was also a savvy businesswoman. Among her patrons were Louis XIV of France, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, Augustus II the Strong, very few women were professional artists during the 1600s. In a 2004 book on Dutch Golden Age paintings by art historian Christopher Lloyd, early writers tended to depict female artists by correlating virtues which were traditionally held by women with similar values gleaned from interpretation of their paintings. The more personal aspects of her paintings were largely unexplored. This is in contrast to Rachel Ruysch, who was married and had ten children, as an homage to van Oosterwijcks skill as a floral painter – considered an acceptable vocation for a woman of the time – Wallerant Vaillant painted a portrait of her holding a palette. This 1671 portrait, in Amsterdams Rijksmuseum, shows her holding a Bible in her other hand, another portrait of her, attributed to Gerard de Lairesse, features her posing with poet Dirk Schelte. In 1673, Schelte had written a poem in tribute to the beauty of van Oosterwijcks paintings, the portrait appears to reference the poem, picturing van Oosterwijck, with palette and brushes, as a painter-muse, serving as an inspiration to Schelte the poet. She taught her servant Geertgen Wyntges, also known as Geertje Pieters, to mix her paints, after van Oosterwijck died, Wyntges lived independently, supporting herself as a painter. In 1689, van Oosterwijck created her last known painting, a life which is in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Londons Kensington Palace. This painting, Still Life with Flowers, Insects and a Shell, was acquired by the Royal Collection during Queen Annes reign and she died at her home in Uitdam, North Holland, about 12 kilometres northeast of Amsterdam, in 1693
12.
Carstian Luyckx
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He also painted animals and a few genre scenes. After starting his career in Antwerp he is believed to have worked later in France, Carstian Luyckx was born in Antwerp in 1623 as the son of David Luycx en Margriet Cloot. He was baptized on 17 August 1623 and he studied painting under Philips de Marlier, a still life specialist, in 1642 and under Frans Francken III, a history painter, in 1645. In 1645 he became a master of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke and he is documented in Antwerp up to August 1653. It is believed that he left Antwerp and worked in France as many of his later works carry French inscriptions, during his residence in France, Luyckx influenced other vanitas painters, including Simon Renard de St. André. It is not clear when and where Luyckx died but his date is assumed to fall between the years 1657 and 1677. Luyckx was a successful artist who worked in many still life genres and also painted animals and he fell into oblivion after his death. Only two dated works are known to exist, making it difficult to establish a chronology for his oeuvre, Luyckx is known to have collaborated with other Antwerp painters. The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden holds a painting referred to as Kitchen still life with vase of flowers, dead birds, fish and a cat. It is a collaboration of Luyckx with David Teniers the Younger who painted the architectural elements, Luyckx painted the game still life, bird cage, dead fish and the cat. A large portion of his consists of pronkstillevens, the sumptuous still lifes that were popular in Flanders. Luyckx’ work in this genre was influenced by the artist Jan Davidsz. de Heem who was active in both Antwerp and the Dutch Republic. A representative example in this genre is the Opulent Still Life with Silver and Gilt Metal Objects, Nautilus Shell, Porcelain, Food and this work dates from about 1650 and is painted on copper. He had followers in France such as Simon Renard de St. André and this composition shows a musical score, which contains a single vocal part of a religious Latin choral composition, the text of which specifically relates to death. The inscription on the musical score refers to the 16th-century composer Orlande de Lassus. Another vanitas still life is the Allegory of Charles I of England, the subject here refers to the troubled life of Charles I of England and is a reflection on the suddenness of death and the vanity of early power and glory. The bubbles in the composition symbolize the brevity of the life of Charles I who was beheaded at the age of 44, the broken skull conveys the fragility of human beings and the globe symbolizes the transience of power and possessions. His hunting pieces were influenced by the Flemish specialists in this genre Frans Snyders, an example of his hunting pieces is A hunting still life of partridges with four Springer spaniels, a hawk, a game-bag and belt and other hunting gear in a landscape
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