The still life in painting is the representation on the canvas of elements such as cut flowers, fruit of various kinds and vegetables, but also various objects such as: furniture, musical instruments and skulls but also fish and game, the latter accompanied by dogs hunting. The term Natura Morta derives from the Dutch that in the seventeenth century used the term still-leven, which means still or silent life.
Before the fifteenth century this representation was used only as a complement to other compositions, while it is from the sixteenth century that the still life becomes an autonomous and well-defined generates.
There are numerous reasons that led to this typology: a new attention to the concrete reality of things, a changed attitude towards nature, now worthy of being represented in all its aspects. In the following ages, still life has changed its style, even according to the area in which it was designed and transferred to canvas, very interesting are the Dutch still lifes, very rare on the antique market.Latest arrivals