A Focused Look Into How Abraham van Beyeren’s Banquet Still Life Elicited Moral Meanings for a Seventeenth-Century Viewer
Abraham van Beyeren’s Banquet Still Life (c. 1650s, oil on canvas, 118.2 x 167.6 cm) would have elicited the moral reminder of memento mori for a seventeenth-century viewer through the formal and material qualities of the work of art. Van Beyeren has painted a still life by utilizing and naturalizing the depiction through details on objects to believe upon the fictive and stilled world. Van Beyeren incorporates the transience of life in Banquet Still Life through reflexy-const, tone-setting elements evident through the symbolical objects presented with a collection of other objects manipulated by their conspicuous appearance.
Banquet Still Life by Van Beyeren consists of a large rectangular table that displays objects, which almost covers the entire canvas but leaves a little space for the window behind on the left side. On the table’s sinister side, a large pot on the floor has two dark-coloured bottles with two rotten branches of tree leaves; one is shaped diagonally, and the other is placed between the bottles. The work of art is set in a house dwelling with dark-coloured walls with a column towards the canvas’s left side. Besides the light-coloured column, there is a window that projects the outside world. The Emerald curtain with a golden-coloured lace bottom covers half of the window, making a curve in the centre, suggesting the curtain has been just pulled back towards the left side of the canvas.
Turkish rug is laid on the table is meticulously painted by Van Beyeren consists of organic shapes in various colours of orange, olive green, black, red and yellow ochre. Celeste Brusati cites the observations of Roland Barthes, who writes in his essay “The World As Object” that their conspicuous appearance manipulates objects in Dutch still-life. All the objects depicted on the table have a significant relationship with the objects painted beside them. In a tray on the table’s left side, the dangling lemon peel interacts with the knife beside the lemon. Another point noted by Barthes is that objects are manipulated in a way that reflects their uses and their visible aspects, such as the appearance of lemon slices cut into slices is placed in two different positions and at two different places on the right side of the canvas. Facet is evident in how Van Beyeren, besides painting the whole peach, also paints a half-cut peach on the table. The pocket watch’s mechanical aspect is also portrayed in the work of art where the watch’s emerald strap is dangling beside the red-orange lobster.
Brusati uses the influential study of Eddy de Jongh, who argues that objects in still-life paintings should consist of hidden meanings or represent as symbolic elements. The metaphorical and symbolic objects symbolize the meaning in the still-life. Banquet Still Life by Van Beyeren draws upon the term “tone-setting elements,” which is termed by De Jongh, where elements provide the meaning of the still-life. Objects representing material wealth and life serve the moral meaning of impermanence, a vanitas aspect in the painting, which would evoke the moral meanings for seventeenth-century viewers. The transience of life is represented in the work of art through the display of Turkish rug, delicious fruits, rotten tree branches/leaves, the depiction of meat and lobster, and the pocket watch’s representation. The symbolical objects serve the meanings through the art of reflection in depicting lustre on fruits, goblets, silverware and glass jar. Reflexy-const a term essential to Karel van Mander who enables reflection on the reflective surfaces of glass, is displayed in how the natural artifice of the art of reflection provides descriptive effects on the objects in Banquet Still Life draws the viewer’s attention to the objects not only as the appreciation for Van Beyeren’s skills but as a reminder of temporality of life and pleasure.
Celeste Brusati argues on the idea of utilizing and naturalizing the depiction in Dutch still-life paintings. Van Beyeren, in Banquet Still Life, has skillfully emphasized the details in the work of art, such as reflection where the light hits the surfaces of goblets, silverware and glass jar. The skillfulness in the depiction of wax covering on peach and especially on grapes. Details are also evident in the veins of the leaves. This fictive depiction in Banquet Still Life would invite seventeenth-century viewers to imagine the natural aspect to view the world stilled, and this assembling of objects presents the objectification in the work of art.
Hence, the visual analysis of Banquet Still Life by Van Beyeren represents the moral meanings of the transience of life to convey the idea of vanitas as the moral message would be elicited for a seventeenth-century viewer. Reflexy-const on the symbolic elements represent the meaning behind the work and the depiction of natural artifice by manipulating the Dutch still-life objects.
Bibliography
Brusati, Celeste. “Natural Artifice and Material Values in Dutch Still Life.” In Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered, edited by Wayne Franits, 144–57, 233–34. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
