Still Life Paintings

Still Life Paintings are very popular with art customers all around the world and also serve as excellent practice and display subjects for artists of different styles. Whilst many artists experiment with still life painting at some stage in their career there are a few artists who have become particularly well known for their contribution to this, with still life paintings taking up many of their best known works of their whole art career.

In this article we shall concentrate on the most famous still life paintings but also discuss the secrets behind how they were created and how to choose good subjects for your work. The setting for your painting requires careful consideration rather than just simply sticking a bowl of fruit on a table, for example. The thought that goes into a good setting for these types of paintings isn't immediately obvious and includes things like lighting, time of the day, constrast between foreground and background, complexity of detail needed and length of time that the subject is available for.

The article will also study some of the best known artists involved with this type of art. Still Life art has been around almost since art itself but most information and study is available on more recent works from around the Renaissance and Baroque periods, up to the present day. Famous still life paintings include works by Vincent Van Gogh, Edouard Manet, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Paul Cezanne is perhaps the best known modern artist to have used still life paintings reguarly and to great effect. We include some of his best in this article.