Stillleben

Stillleben, commonly translated as still life, is a genre of visual art that depicts inanimate objects arranged deliberately by the artist. Typical subjects include fruit and food, flowers, household items such as dishes and glassware, metalware, books, and other domestic objects. The focus is on form, color, light, texture, and surface rather than narrative action.

Originating in the Low Countries in the 16th and 17th centuries, still life developed within the broader field of genre painting and was shaped by vanitas and memento mori motifs that signaled transience and the contingencies of wealth. Dutch painters such as Pieter Claesz, Willem Claesz. Heda, and Jan Davidsz de Heem refined composition, lighting, and meticulous rendering. Floral still lifes by artists like Rachel Ruysch expanded color and delicacy. The genre spread to France and elsewhere, diversifying into more decorative or morally tinged forms. In the 18th and 19th centuries, realism and domestic subjects appeared in various national schools, with French painters like Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin contributing a quiet, observational approach. In the 20th century, still life fed into modern movements as Cubists such as Picasso and Braque reinterpreted familiar objects through geometric reshaping and new perspectives, while photography developed still-life arrangements as a deliberate compositional practice.

Techniques and motifs commonly associated with still life include controlled lighting, texture rendering, and the use of reflections and shadow to create depth. Symbolic elements such as skulls, clocks, or wilting flowers may appear to invoke mortality or the passage of time, though many works prioritize aesthetic appreciation of materiality and craft.