Still Life Photography

Paper Summary:

In any era, the term still life means virtually the same thing: "the depiction of objects that lack the capacity for self-governed motion".
In these days of composites, both of subject matter and technique, the term can probably be expanded to include items that are able to move, but for reasons of aesthetics of concept, are treated artistically as if they were inanimate. This thesis applies nowhere better than to still life photography. In considering the ramifications of the term, this paper investigates the forms of western still life leading up to the present-when form and creative media are so often used in ways that were not possible before-to help to define the genre of the contemporary photographic still life.

Paper Outline:
Still Life Photography Today
Still Life Traditions
Paintings, Origins
Photography
Impact of Postmodern Art on Still Life
Impact of New Technologies
Closing Paragraph
Bibliography

From the Paper:

"This sort of inclusion opened the way for artists such as Robert Therrien, whose work in the 1990s-a weird wooden table-could also be termed a still life (Herrera, 1997, unpaged). In the same show, a painting by Cezanne depicted a platter of pears tipped onto a different plane than the table and rests on what would be, in normal perspective, air. "The table thus continues one of the great themes of still lifes-echoing previous works" (Herrera, 1997, unpaged). The show itself was called Objects of Desire, and included works by Picasso and Matisse as well as other modern masters, all working in still life, and all working at a time when photography could have paralleled their work and, with its obvious genius for depicting what is rather than what might be, could have overshadowed them."

More papers on Still Life Photography:

• Essay # 9207 : "Pieter Claesz: Still Life"
• Essay # 8210 : "Life Magazine"
• Descriptive Essay # 30010 : "Walker Evans"

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