Bodegón
Bodegón describes a historical genre in painting in which everyday objects and food are depicted or are the focus of the depiction. While in Spanish the bodegones are equated with still lifes in general, i.e. those from all epochs and artistic landscapes, in international art-historical parlance the term focuses on the specific characteristics of this genre in Spanish painting since 1600.
history
The term (derived from Spanish bodegón , wine cellar, simple inn) was already used by the Spanish art writers Francisco Pacheco del Río (1564–1654) and Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco (1653–1726) to early pictures by Diego Velázquez , in which this, probably inspired by the Dutch so-called kitchen pieces, reproduced everyday scenes in which still life-like arranged dishes, storage items and food played a clear role. Joachim Beuckelaer and Pieter Aertsen were important representatives of this genre, which was cultivated in the southern Netherlands , which at that time belonged to Spain . These new pictorial ideas could also have reached Spain via a detour via Naples (also Spanish at the time) or works by Vincenzo Campi or Annibale Carracci . In terms of cultural history, this turn to simple things and everyday folk life is related to a turning away from mannerist artificiality, a closer observation of reality, i.e. a realism that can also be observed in other genres of European painting. Soon after the beginning of the 17th century, these models were adopted in Spain. In the early bodegones of Velázquez , the still life-like elements are already pushed to the fore, but still part of figurative situations (eggs frying Old, 1618) or even make use of the Dutch model a biblical background scene to justify the "lower" choice of subject.
At the same time, if not a few years earlier, the first pure still lifes, that is, without any personal staffage , were created in Spain , which today are also counted among the bodegones . Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560–1627) from Toledo has been creating painted arrangements of unprocessed natural products since 1602 at the latest, which seem to stand out in the sharp light, placed artlessly next to each other against a dark background. Although the individual painted objects presumably lack a direct emblematic (symbolic) meaning, the simplicity and ingenuity of the method of representation and choice of motifs cannot be understood without a religious-moral background. This corresponds to the fact that Sánchez Cotán retired to a Carthusian monastery in 1603 , who led an extremely ascetic life. The most important representative of the next generation of still life painters is Juan van der Hamen y León (1596–1631), a child of Flemish parents. Although influenced by Sánchez Cotán, with van der Hamen (and his contemporaries) the palette became more colorful, the subjects more precious, the pictorial space deeper. With him the flower still life is added as a genre. He worked for the court and belonged to a group of intellectuals. In the work of Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), who was only two years his junior , still lifes play an important but not a central role. In their strict arrangement and sparse appearance, they are more closely related to the work of the older Cotan.
Even in the 18th century the boom for bodegones with the Spanish public was unbroken. The pictures of Luis Eugenio Meléndez also show dark backgrounds, the objects bring close to the eye of the beholder, but the light is more even and the image array composed, "academic". In any case, all allegorical and metaphysical meanings have disappeared during this period.
Clear peculiarities differentiate the courtly-ceremonial world of the Spanish bodegón in a remarkable way from the bourgeois-practical world of the citizen in the northern still life: the Flemish and Dutch meal pictures offer lavish motifs placed in a context (preparation, eating), while in the Spanish representations there is no indication of consumption. "There is no artistic randomness in the composition of the objects ... which suggests the practical handling of things" (Held).
literature
- Jutta Held : Renunciation and ceremonial. To the still lifes by Sanchez-Cotán and van der Hamen. In: Still life in Europe. Exhibition catalog Münster 1997, pp. 382–390 (with further observations on the social and religious-historical context)
- Norbert Schneider: Still life. Reality and symbolism of things. Taschen, Cologne 1989, pp. 45-47.
- Claus Grimm : Still life. Stuttgart 1995, pp. 137-150, 162-165.
proof
- ^ Schneider: Still life. Reality and symbolism of things. P. 46
- ↑ Grimm: Still life. P. 153
- ^ Schneider: Still life. Reality and symbolism of things. P. 46 f.
- ↑ Hero: Renunciation and Ceremonial. To the still lifes by Sanchez-Cotán and van der Hamen. Pp. 382-390.
- ↑ Grimm: Still life. P. 150.
- ↑ Hero: Renunciation and Ceremonial. To the still lifes by Sanchez-Cotán and van der Hamen. P. 392.