This paper applies Roland Barthes's theorizing of word-image relations and the operation of systems of signs to Netherlandish art.
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Paper Summary:
This paper explains that Roland Barthes relates that the knowledge a viewer needs to understand the meaning of the image is bound up with perception and association, intangible and fluid cultural products, rather than with the stable carriers of meaning that constitute language. The author explores two Netherlandish paintings using this theory: "Still Life with Fruits and Flowers" by Balthasar van der Ast (late 1620s), which is in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California, and "Banquet Still Life" by Abraham van Beyeren (1667), which is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California. The paper concludes that these still life paintings immediately present the viewer with two layers of potential meaning: The decorative and the symbolic, with the latter very often embodying religious messages.
From the Paper:
"Van der Ast's painting has as its focal point a large shallow bowl filled with fruit, partially encircled by a ring of fruit, shells, insects and other objects, while on the left of the picture is a glass jar containing flowers. Flowers and fruit possessed a particularly wide range of significance, as well as being regarded as attractive objects in their own right, and accordingly they are often found in still life paintings of this period. On an aesthetic level the image is an appealing one, with a balanced but lively composition, depicting attractive objects, and providing the eye with a variety of textures and colours. This aesthetic level of appeal is itself a carrier of meanings - that such an image, of such content, was seen as appealing in the society of its time itself tells us something about the symbolic as well as the directly artistic nature of this image. It is a painting of goods rather than people, produced in a commercial society, and as Richard Leppert has observed, "still life's attention to goods - possessions, things one could 'have' and by having in part define oneself -guaranteed its popularity with and significance for an audience of principally rich buyers". The nature of this type of art, the "time-consuming, meticulous work" that such elaborate pictures demanded, was expensive and thus in itself symbolized wealth. The physical nature and appearance of the painting is thus tied to the layers of meaning that can be excavated below its surface."
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