Floral Still Life of the 17th Century: from the Contemplation to the Studying of Nature
Keywords:
floral still life, botanical illustration, natural science illustration, Reformation, Dutch still life, German still life, baroque, painting of the 17th century, Dutch floral still lifeAbstract
This paper is devoted to some points of interaction between the scientifi c illustrations and easel paintings. Plotless still life genre refl ects a special mode of thinking which is characteristic for the people of a certain epoch. In the 17th century’s flower still lifes Western European artists followed the intellectual impetus of their time, showing interest in the structure of nature and embodying their observations in new pictorial forms. Th e changes in science methodology of that time found their reflection in aesthetic images. In the scientific inquiry at the turn of the 16th–17th cc. we can notice a parallel to the re-thinking of the inherited spiritual background which in religious and social spheres of life gave impulse to the Reformation. The reformation in the scientifi c methods ended in diff erentiation between the science and the art and in the formation of a well-defined structure of disciplines where the nature was allowed to stay objectively natural while painting could progress in perception of the harmony of its own features and limits.
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