Sunday, December 6, 2020

Beguilements of Inanimate Life

Girolamo dai Libri
Virgin and Child enthroned, with St Joseph, the Archangel Raphael, and Tobias (detail)
1530
oil on panel
Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona

Odilon Redon
Pepper and Lemon
1901
oil on canvas
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

Édouard Manet
Lemon
1880
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Dorothy Mead
Vase of Flowers
1957
oil on canvas
London South Bank University

Auguste Renoir
Bouquet on a Sofa
ca. 1878-80
oil on canvas
Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris

John Houston
Yellow Flowers in a Black Jug
ca. 1975
oil on canvas
Glasgow Museums, Scotland

The Yellow Bowl

If light pours like water
into the kitchen where I sway
with my tired children,

if the rug beneath us
is woven with tough flowers,
and the yellow bowl on the table

rests with the sweet heft
of fruit, the sun-warmed plums,
if my body curves over the babies,

and if I am singing,
then loneliness has lost its shape,
and this quiet is only quiet.

– Rachel Contreni Flynn (2009)

Archibald McGlashan
Still Life
1948
oil on canvas
Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland

Paul Cézanne
Curtain, Jug and Fruit
ca. 1893-94
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum, New York

Bernard Meninsky
Still Life
1921
oil on canvas
Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, Yorkshire

François Bonvin
Still Life with Apples and Silver Goblet
1876
oil on canvas
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Roland Delaporte
Still Life with Fruit and Bread
ca. 1775-85
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Jan Davidsz de Heem
Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Marble Plinth
ca. 1670
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

William Somerville Shanks
Pipes of Pan
ca. 1919
oil on canvas
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland

Andrew Law
Chrysanthemums
1944
oil on canvas
Dick Institute, Kilmarnock, Scotland

Willem van Aelst
Flowers and Butterflies
ca. 1670
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome