Paintings by Molly Lamb Bobak, Stanley Cosgrove, Jean Phillipe Dallaire, Mark Gertler, Jack Humphrey, Michael Khoury, David Milne, JW Morrice, William Nicholson, Alfred Pellan, Joseph Plaskett, Mary Pratt, Cathy Ross, and William Scott.
There were five categories or genres in the traditional hierarchy of painting, with the now all-but-defunct category of history painting as the highest, and still life as the lowest. Such divisions are little noted today, of course, but for hundreds of years since the Renaissance, the rigid categories of history painting, portraiture, genre painting, landscape, and still life dominated the education of and the conversation about painting in the Western world. And while history painting was renowned for its scale, theatricality, and political, religious and moral messaging, the still life was a much more modest genre, depicting the humble objects that make up the fabric of our daily lives.
For painters, the still life also served a practical purpose. A collection of objects didn’t complain when painted for hours or days and expressed no opinions about the painter’s skill or approach. Practice makes perfect, and mute objects were always available for practice. With the advent of Modernism, the still life took on new importance. “No ideas but in things,” was a modernist mantra famously espoused by the American poet William Carlos Williams. Williams understood the depth of meaning, the range of emotion, and the expressive possibilities of the seemingly banal. “So much depends,” he wrote in 1923’s Red Wheelbarrow, “upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.” The nature of that “much” is at the heart of the poem, and perhaps of the modernist project.
Still lifes were also dependable for experimentation. The distortions and wild colour of much early modernism did not appear so shocking when practiced on inanimate objects rather than on one’s friends, loved ones, or clients. It is no accident that the most common subject in Cubist painting, for example, was the still life.
Categories may seem of little importance in painting today, though it is interesting that such long-abandoned categories as history and genre painting are making a comeback. Portraiture too is a more vibrant area of contemporary art than it has been for decades. With modernism, still lifes made it to the top of the hierarchical pile, however, and as the fourteen artists in this show attest, so much still depends on artists capturing the simple objects of the world, and in so doing enlivening, enriching, and nurturing the internal worlds that sustain our imaginations.
Artwork: Glassy Apples, Mary Pratt, 1994, 46 cm x 61 cm, oil on canvas / huile sur toile, Bequest of Harrison McCain, c./v. c./v. / Legs de Harrison McCain, c./v. c./v.
Ray Cronin
Director of Exhibitions, Collections and Curatorial Initiatives
