Still Life

Still life became a genre of its own in the Low Countries in the late sixteenth century; the English name comes from the Dutch stilleven. The French Academy in the seventeenth century promoted a ranking of genres that put still life at the bottom, though buyers always liked it. The American painter Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021) painted the pies, cakes, and ice cream of diners and cafeterias, as well as lipsticks and paint cans, almost always with the crisp shadows of advertising. Because his subjects came from mass culture he is often mentioned alongside Pop art, but he disliked Warhol's flat, mechanical paintings, did not consider himself a Pop artist, and called himself “just an old-fashioned painter.”

Look closely at the thickness of the paint and the edges of things, then step back and see where the shadows fall.

When the same things stand in a row, do you notice first what is alike, or what differs?