| Paintings and mosaics in Pompeii and Ercolano: |
Still-lifes
|
This type of artistic genre is modern and, as is well-known, was
born around the middle of the 17th century in Holland to indicate
stationary subjects and objects which were the sole theme of the
picture in question. Ancient art is not completely lacking in
examples of still-life, however, even if their meaning and the
motivation for their existence is quite different from today,
although more often than not, a conspicuous silence on the part of
literary sources leaves us uninformed on these questions. Archaic
and classical producers ignored the reproduction of objects that
were isolated from the human figure and, if these do appear, for
example in funerary contexts where we might find arms, shields, the
kalathos or offertory vases, they are so imbued with symbolic
significance such as the memory of the life, the personality or the
duties of the deceased, that there would be no reason for them to
exist alone.
It was not until the Aristotelian period, that is to say at the end
of the 4th century B.C., that we find any motivated representation
of humble or even disgusting things and animals, which brought
delight to those who were thus able to appreciate at close hand the
artist's skill and industry. Pliny's commemoration of Peirakòs, is
well-known; he was a painter at the end of the 4th century B.C. and
achieved fame by painting the shops of barbers and cobblers, food
and donkeys, and for this reason he is defined as a rhyparogràphos
that is to say "a painter of dirty things". Around the middle of the
Third century B.C. we start finding pieces of still-life inserted
into pictures or works from the Pergamon area, such as the model
which later served for the Herculaneum picture showing the finding
of Telephos by Heracles, where we can see a splendid basket of fruit
next to the matronly figure of Arcadia, or the basin crowned with
doves, by Sosos which was originally to be found in a asaraton oikos,
that is to say an "unswept" mosaic floor, showing the leftovers of a
meal, such as bones, sea-shells and nut-shells.
Typical of the Roman world, or rather better-documented in that
world because of the state of conservation, are the small pictures
with xenia, that is to say the fresh foodstuffs and drinks that a
guest or visitor would always find in his room, as a gesture of
courtesy on the part of the host. With the Second Style, however,
which was the first that was completely figured, we find pictures
with side-wings situated on the upper part of the wall, standing on
shelves or ledges, and portraying fruit, foodstuffs and recipients
with drinks, alongside living or dead animals. But in these
illusionist architectural scenes, we can also find basketfuls of
fruit, animals hanging on the walls, birds perched on transennas,
metal vases and glass recipients, all of which are shown in their
proper environment, and all of which are masterpieces of realism and
artistic technique. A taste for this type of subject-matter lasted
on into the so-called Third Style, in which the wall was a flat
painted surface and pictures were not made with side-wings or
standing on architectural projections but rather in smaller scale
and generally rectangular, in the middle of panels at the centre of
the wall or on a predella between this and the skirting-board, or
hanging from parts of the vertical partitioning. As a result, the
still-life subjects in this style became miniaturist decorative
elements which were inserted into candelabra and vertical or
horizontal bands which divide the wall into three parts.
Subsequently, subjects began to be portrayed on shelves or on
window-sills which opened out onto undefined backgrounds, and this
custom lasted on into the Fourth Style in which the pictures became
almost square and where even still-life pictures could be painted in
the centre of wall, where earlier it had been the custom to portray
mythological subjects only. Sometimes, depending on the functional
properties of the room, the still-life painting could assume
enormous proportions, as in the Macellum at Pompeii where it serves
to remind us of the presence of food, meat and animals on sale there.
Further vibrant examples of still-life can be found in shop-signs on
the facades of Tabernae and shops, and in houses in order to
complete the kitchen lararia. Apart from those already mentioned,
other subjects represented in the Fourth Style included instrumenta
scriptoria whose presence was sometimes intended to suggest the
erudite world of learning, but other times was aimed at the display
of economic stability, based on contracts ratified in documents on
waxed tablets, or represented by sacks of coins, which were
identical to those reproduced in the painting.
Bibliography: H,G. Beyen, Über Stilleben aus Pompeji un Herculaneum,
Gravenhage 1928, F. Eckstein, Natura morta, in EAA 1963, V p. 355;
S. De Caro, Due "generi" nella pittura pompeiana: la natura morta e
la pittura di giardino, in AA.VV. La Pittura di Pompei.
Testimonianze dell'arte romana nella zona sepolta dal Vesuvio nel 79
d.C., 1991, pp. 257-262
|
Fonte: MANN
All rights reserved
|