Image of the Week: Still Life with Familiar Objects
© 2020 D. Yael Bernhard
We are living in a time of internal environments. Ensconced in our separate homes in an effort to quell a nationwide pandemic, we dwell among familiar objects. These objects may be decorative or utilitarian, purposeful or random, alive or inanimate. They may remind us of something, please our eye, or simply stand for a task yet to be done.
Like many people, I find myself both more and less busy in my new quarantined life. Less time driving this week translated into a small windfall of time for painting. These three objects have been on my work table for weeks, where they have spatially cozied up to each other, begging to be painted as a still life. I could not resist.
Still lifes act as equalizers in art. The great medium of oil painting was once reserved for portraits of noblemen and kings, religious subjects and historic scenes. Not until the 1800s did painting candlesticks, fruit, or a common water jug become more than just an exercise in rendering objects in space. For the first time, the Impressionists made ordinary people, scenes of daily life, and mundane objects into worthy subjects for art. Cézanne, who lived a reclusive life, took this further as he held that "objects enter each other" and sought to "astonish Paris with an apple."
Still lifes also equalize inanimate objects with living ones. Pictured here is a potted plant, flowering and alive; a mask from Ivory Coast, carved from ebony wood that once lived and grew on a faraway continent; and an antler shed from a living buck last winter, now mounted on a piece of finished oak. Rendered in paint, these objects become equally alive – for that is my job as an artist: to bring objects to life and into relation with each other, in a moment of time captured in an image. Even the space between them came alive, as energy raced along the arc of a bony tine, the scalloped edge of a leaf, and the curve of that lovely blue plate I found in my garage.
My dear familiar objects held court and conversation through the whole week as troubling news and household clutter came and went. As you can see, they're in good company with each other, and in this painting, become part of a new whole.
We are all equally part of a new whole, separately and together. Here in my shelter, I find that comforting.
This painting will be for sale, once the paint dries. It measures 18"x14". Please inquire if you're interested.
A good and healthy week to all my fellow hermits! May you find something creative to do with your time at home.
D Yael Bernhard