Still Life of Fruit and Flowers

Unknown artist

oil on panel

Rijksmuseum

A still life painting displays a bountiful arrangement of fruits, flowers, and insects on a draped surface against a dark background. A blue and white patterned vase holds a bouquet of tulips and other flowers on the right. This still life invites close examination of all the details and elicits marvel at the richness of God’s creation: the colourful flowers, the exotic shells, but certainly also the beautiful insects. At the same time, decay is spreading. Fruit shows the first rotten spots, leaves are eaten away by caterpillars and snails and ants drag a dead fly. The painting is thus also about impermanence.