As one walks through the dimly lit rooms housing the “Natura Morta” Medici “still life” collections at the Chazen Museum of Art, it becomes easy to see how the Italian term for still life developed from the word for “death.” The botanical subjects of the paintings emerge vividly from an eerie and intense darkness as if they decorated the gates of the Underworld—the meticulousness of their creation at once fantastic and frighteningly realistic.
The selection of works represents the shift in focus from the religious and classical themes of earlier Renaissance paintings to depictions of nature. While the scientific approach taken by the artists often makes itself apparent, as in the paintings of Bartolomeo Bimbi—where the types of fruits pictured are painstakingly numbered and labeled—there remains a sacred quality to the representations.
Two sculptured heads lurk ghostlike in the shadows of Bimbi’s otherwise technical “Espalier of Citrus Fruits” for mysterious reasons. In Giacomo Fardella di Calvello’s “Flowers, Vegetables, Game and Fish with Figures,” one person holds a crown of blossoms over another figure’s head like a halo, contrasting with the matter-of-fact display of dead animals and ripe fruits beside them.
The works also illustrate the natural processes of death and decay. The fruits are decorated with flies and bruises. Guiseppe Recco’s “Fish” shows a limp pile of the creatures so rancid looking it almost seems possible to smell the rot through the canvas. Other paintings depict the gruesome images of a 17th century kitchen, replete with struggling animals tied up for the slaughter.
The most eye-catching and stunning pieces in the exhibit, however, are those by artist Margherita Caffi. Caffi’s paintings begin with a deep black background from which murky green stems materialize, eventually exploding into brilliantly detailed blossoms of white, pink and red. In her “Vines of Flowers,” the vines weave in and out of each other asymmetrically across the broad canvas, producing a loose network of flowers that gradually fades into darkness as it extends to the edges of the frame.
When still lifes first began being painted in the 16th century, they were seen as less noble than the other figure-based works of the period. Eventually, however, with the help of the Medicis, they came to be respected as more than simple pictures of fruit. The “Natura Morta” collection displays the powerful beauty and depth that can be achieved in still lifes. The theme of ephemerality seeping throughout the works gives them a melancholy quality and yet also makes them seem holy—an aspect that allowed them to thrive in religious times despite their scientific qualities.
