Still Life with Figs and Bread, Luis Meléndez
The link is to a zoomable version on the Google Art Project; there is a downloadable high resolution file on Wikimedia Commons; the original is in the National Gallery of Art, DC. (The latter also offers a downloadable high resolution file, but I couldn’t access it this morning — hopefully a temporary glitch.)
Spanish still life master Luis Meléndez gives us a tour-de-force of texture and value relationships. I’m struck by the contrast between the nuanced rendering of the bread, wood and figs and the economical simplicity of the bottle.
It’s obvious who Salvador Dalí studied when he learned to paint bread.
