Still-life of the mind

October 4th, 2006

The typical Painting a Day picture will be a still life. If it is, you can be more or less certain that it will be painted “from life,” as opposed to from the mind. Are the members of the Painting a Day movement inherently unimaginative, or is working from the real objects a fundamental aspect of the genre of still-life painting?

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A successful contemporary Dutch still-life painter once told me, “I have no imagination, I’m only a pair of eyeballs.” Indeed, still-life and painting “from life” are so closely linked, it is reasonable to ask, why would you even want to make a still-life from your mind?

Hanneke van Oosterhout recently drew this imaginary still-life while in a smoky cafe. She was dreaming of her studio. Later she tried to construct a real still-life like it (see Follow the Painting.) Hanneke found that her imaginary still-life had aspects that were difficult to recreate with a real still-life. I find this not at all surprising.

Drawing from imagination is a great way to study your feelings about a topic. It makes sense that the still-life of the mind would be something special, something difficult to recreate in the world. Have you ever made an imaginary still-life? Did you find it had something that made it different from any real-world still-life?

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3 Responses to “Still-life of the mind”

  1. Jon Conkey Says:

    Hi Karl, Nice article! I sometimes work from memory to see what I really know about a subject, then, I like to critic it next to the real deal (sometimes embarrassing to bear). Still, I have learned a lot from this practice. One artist in particular, Francois Boucher, worked tirelessly with models for many years (over 10,000 conte’ drawings catalogued). He eventually got away from working live, his work began to suffer from the lack of subtle details that only “life in the light” can present to the viewer. I still have great respect for “freehand” artists that work from imagination, but their works will always have an idealized look. JLC

  2. Karl Zipser Says:

    I agree that working from memory will always have an idealized quality. In a sense, this is the interest. However, Hanneke van Oosterhout wants to see how she can combine the two modes of working — designing from memory, for example, and then executing the painting from life. How well this will work is an open question. I find it an exciting approach to try.

  3. Angela Ferreira Says:

    Hey this is so interesting! The world of my own head would definitely be impossible to recreate.
    This still life still has a lot of real making it believably possible… I think maybe the experience of an artist can be told by the imaginary drawings.

    By the way, I have a question for you, what do you think about painting the sides of the canvas. I just posted a topic on this thread and I would love to hear your opinion…