Autumn Still-life

Autumn Still-life
11 x 14"
$900

I was looking more at Dutch Still-lifes and tried to figure out what it was that gave them their atmosphere. Its not just values, its a very limited palette - almost monotone in the case of Pieter Claesz. So for this I desaturated the colors and then put an overall tone of warm oranges throughout the composition. I hope it worked!

ode to Dutch Still-life

Also for my birthday, I received two books on Dutch Still-life:

Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age
By: Julie Berger Hochstrasser
&
Pieter Claesz 1596/97 - 1660
By: Pieter Biesboer (Author)

Pieter Claesz has always been my favorite of the Dutch still-life artists. The second book I listed there which is titled simply Pieter Claesz 1596/97-1660, features a very nice grouping of his work that was recently shown together at the Washington National Gallery of Art. Although not much is known about Pieter Claesz himself, (they don't even have a record of his birth) being able to look at so many pieces of his, along with the dates he did them, shows how remarkable he was as an artist. If I could be as good at the end of my career as his work was in his early twenties, I would be a happy person.

This still-life has taken some cues from his work: the overall shape of the grouping of objects, the cup which tilts on the edge of the tray, the platter hanging off the edge etc etc. It was loads of fun to try & I may be doing more!