Overview

Focusing on three celebrated northern European still life painters”Jan Brueghel, Daniel Seghers, and Jan Davidsz. de Heem”this book examines the emergence of the first garland painting in 1607-1608, and its subsequent transformation into a widely collected type of devotional image, curiosity, and decorative form. The first sustained study of the garland paintings, the book uses contextual and formal analysis to achieve two goals. One, it demonstrates how and why the paintings flourished in a number of contexts, ranging from an ecclesiastical center in Milan, to a Jesuit chapter house and private collections in Antwerp, to the Habsburg court in Vienna. Two, the book shows that when viewed over the course of the century, the images produced by Brueghel, Seghers and de Heem share important similarities, including an interest in self-referentiality and the exploration of pictorial form and materials. Using a range of evidence (inventories, period response, the paintings themselves), Susan Merriam shows how the pictures reconfigured the terms in which the devotional image was understood, and asked the viewer to consider in new ways how pictures are made and experienced.

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9781138250222

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Reviews

'A thoughtful, well-researched, foundational contribution to the literature on still-life painting. Its treatment of the garland pictures in general, and three central artists in this genre more particularly, addresses a major lacuna in the scholarship.' Julie Hochstrasser, University of Iowa. Author of Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age 'Merriam's monograph offers an exemplary analysis of Flemish garland paintings, a perfect period case study of self-conscious illusion and representation itself during the 17th century. She also attends closely to how such pictures were received by their owners (Chapter 3), including their presence in local Antwerp inventories and their prominence in contemporary local gallery pictures of collection ensembles. Ashgate complement her insights with abundant colour images of these virtuoso pictures. Like 17th-century viewers, modern readers are encouraged to delight in both artistry and the visual world while using such hybrid imagery to contemplate greater matters.' Cassone '... thorough, thoughtful account of these fascinating pictures...' Renaissance Quarterly

'A thoughtful, well-researched, foundational contribution to the literature on still-life painting. Its treatment of the garland pictures in general, and three central artists in this genre more particularly, addresses a major lacuna in the scholarship.' Julie Hochstrasser, University of Iowa. Author of Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age 'Merriam's monograph offers an exemplary analysis of Flemish garland paintings, a perfect period case study of self-conscious illusion and representation itself during the 17th century. She also attends closely to how such pictures were received by their owners (Chapter 3), including their presence in local Antwerp inventories and their prominence in contemporary local gallery pictures of collection ensembles. Ashgate complement her insights with abundant colour images of these virtuoso pictures. Like 17th-century viewers, modern readers are encouraged to delight in both artistry and the visual world while using such hybrid imagery to contemplate greater matters.' Cassone '... thorough, thoughtful account of these fascinating pictures...' Renaissance Quarterly

Author Information

Susan Merriam is Assistant Professor in the Division of the Arts at Bard College, USA.

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