Timeless and fragrant, the bouquets are
composed of flowers that do not bloom at the same time. In a mixed arrangement
we find late-winter hollyhocks, spring daffodils and tulips, May lilies, lilies
of the valley, peonies, June roses, carnations, dahlias and jasmine. In the
bouquet on the left of the painting there are some flowers that achieved the
depicted look with the help of the painter's imagination.
The type of bouquets, the shaping of the
flowers, the presence of insects and birds all point to an inspiration from
Italian floral still-lifes of the first quarter of the 17th century. Despite
the Italian source, the overall impression of the painting and some of the
details suggest the Spanish school. Although the painter is unknown and the
style is not sufficiently distinctive to be associated with any known painter,
it can be seen that it is in many ways reminiscent of the still lifes of Juan
van der Hamen y Léon (1596–1631) and Pedro de Camprobín (1605–1674). The still
life stands out for its dramatic lighting and the detailed subjects painted.
The artist's confident use of chiaroscuro allows for powerful contrasts of
light and dark, with darkness becoming the dominant feature of the painting,
revealing the direct influence of the Tenebrist Baroque. The technique was
developed to add drama and is common in Spanish Baroque paintings, and this
still life presents formal characteristics that still correspond to the
transition between the naturalism of the early 17th century and the full-blown
Baroque of the second half of this century.
The
still life itself did not become an important genre of painting until the late
16th and early 17th centuries, when it appeared more or less simultaneously in
the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. Particularly with the revolutionary works of
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), painted objects became imbued
with meaning, and their representation and arrangement the subject of serious
artistic judgement. Caravaggio declared that it was as difficult to paint a
still life as to paint figures. His famous still-life from the late 16th
century, in which he depicted fruit in a wicker basket in a naturalistic
manner, aroused such admiration and imitation that at least one element, namely
the wicker basket, appears regularly in his imitators from the Roman and
Neapolitan schools of painting. Caravaggio is rightly considered the father of
Roman still life, a genre in its infancy at the beginning of the 17th century, but
far-reaching in its influence on the Neapolitan school. In the early 17th
century, Caravaggio lived and worked briefly in Naples, then the second largest
city in Europe after Paris. The Kingdom of Naples was at that time a Spanish
colony, which allowed a direct exchange of the latest developments in painting.
In Spain, Juan Sánchez Cotán
(1560–1627), a contemporary of Caravaggio, painted naturalistically detailed
images of fruit, vegetables and a few flowers in front of a completely black
background in stone frames, with a surrealist touch to the whole composition.
In a slightly different vein, the great artist Juan van der Hamen y Léon
favoured subjects that suited the taste of his cosmopolitan clientele in the
court circles of Madrid. He filled his compositions with exotic flowers, cakes
and imported ceramic vessels and Venetian glass. His work is characterised by
brilliant clarity of execution, purity of design and refined attention to
detail. The painter's greatest contribution to Spanish Baroque art was his
departure from the established symmetrical still-lifes in window frames to a
new, asymmetrical format in which objects are painted on stone steps and
pedestals of varying lengths and heights.
Spain was still the leading
power in Europe at this time and, because of its political and economic
importance, was in constant contact with other European powers such as the
Italian states, France and the Netherlands, resulting in direct exchange of
contemporary trends in painting.
In this environment,
politically neutral still lifes developed rapidly in style and subject matter,
as they were often commissioned by wealthy clients for the interior decoration
of their mansions. Still lifes also made for excellent gifts.