Still life, that genre of painting with a name that seems a contradiction in terms, is, in itself, quiet.

Still life never receives the attention paid to more prominent types of paintings. Dramatic interpretations of Biblical, history or literary scenes, genre painting, portraits and even landscapes, overshadow it easily.

Still life is the Rodney Dangerfield of painting genres, liked, but not often respected, and the masters of the art are seldom the most celebrated names.

But still life, even more than other forms of painting, can often embody what I feel is one of the most important and valuable properties of art — the revelation that the ordinary can be extraordinary, if we only stop to see it as extraordinary.

A master of this message, and of still life painting in general, was the 18th Century French painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin.

His is hardly a household name, though his influence on other painters has been considerable. His contribution is, I think, particularly relevant to the new generation of still life painters working today, whether they are aware of his influence or not.

His work is important not only in its mastery and quality, but in the approach he took in the application of paint and the character of the painted surface.

In a letter to his brother Theo in 1888, Vincent van Gogh wrote:

“The best pictures, and, from a technical point of view the most complete, seen from near by, are but patches of colour side by side, and only make an effect at a certain distance.

In that respect Chardin is as great as Rembrandt.”

Still life was not highly regarded in the time of Chardin’s early career, though he himself helped elevate the subject matter as his stature in the French art establishment grew over time.

In the middle of his career he took to painting portraits and genre pictures, focusing on aspects of French society as humble as the plain kitchen utensils of his still life paintings, another area not in keeping with the then accepted standards of Academic art. His style could hardly have been further form the flamboyant Rococo manner that was dominant at the time.

Chardin returned to still life later in his career; and even later, when his eyesight was failing, took up pastels and used them brilliantly.

The Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, Italy is currently hosting an exhibition, Chardin: Il pittore del silenzio, that is on view until 30 January 2011. The exhibition was curated in cooperation with the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, where it will be on display from 1 March to 28 May 2011.

The Palazzo dei Diamanti has a selection of works from the exhibit on their site, and a catalog has been published.

There is also a selection of works online from an exhibition at the Met back in 2000 that I’m sorry to say I missed.

One of the best online resources for Chardin’s works is the Web Gallery of Art (second page and bio); I’ve assembled some others below.

For more, see my previous post about Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin.

Like Vermeer, Chardin dwelled in the quiet suspension of time, where the sublime qualities of light reveal the magic in commonplace objects.

19th/20th Century novelist Marcel Proust wrote of Chardin:

“We have learned from Chardin that a pear is as living as a woman, that an ordinary piece of pottery is as beautiful as a precious stone.”

and:

“Everyday life will charm you once you have absorbed Chardin’s painting for a few days like a lesson. Then, having understood the life of his painting, you will have discovered the beauty of life.”

So what to you do in the winter when the ground is covered in snow and the rivers are frozen over? Get out and enjoy of course.

Though we have other, more familiar names associated with 17th Century scenes of gatherings on the ice of frozen rivers and streams in Dutch towns (notably Bruegel), Avercamp was the first to specialize in the subject, effectively making it into a genre.

Avercamp was born in Amsterdam but grew up in Kampen, on the river IJssel. He returned to Amsterdam to study and apprentice to the portrait painter Pieter Isacqs. He also apparently absorbed influence from Flemish landscape painters who were present in Amsterdam at the time, but overall his style was unique and somewhat idiosyncratic.

Historical records indicate that Avercamp was deaf and could not speak. After his time in Amsterdam he returned to Kampen and specialized in his winter ice scenes.

This was at a time, sometimes dubbed the “Little Ice Age” when the winters were so severe that the creeks, canals and even rivers in Europe and North America froze solidly enough to support walking, skating and winter festivals. The waterways became, in effect, a different kind of town square.

I love these scenes, they seem to give us a glimpse of everyday life and people from the time. Avercamp made a point of portraying the mix of classes and levels of society that mingled on the ice, with their accordingly different modes of dress, parading in their finery, skating, working or indulging in winter sports.

In the painting above, bottom, with detail (larger version here), he has emphasized the difference between the upperclass gentleman playing colf, a predecessor of golf in which the object was to hit a ball to a pole in as few strokes as possible, and a fisherman and (presumably) his son, who look on with interest.

This was pointed out in an excellent online feature from the National Gallery in Washington, which had a show of Avercamp’s work titled Hendrick Avercamp: The Little Ice Age, back in the summer of this year (sorry I missed it) and at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam before that. The online features are still accessible, however.

There are other sources for Avercamp’s work. notably Wikimedia Commons, which has reproductions large enough to see some of the fascinating details Avercamp has worked into his scenes.

His renditions of the towns buildings and bridges, sometimes specific, sometimes imaginary, are also interesting, as is his atmospheric evocation of the winter season in the “Little Ice Age”.

Jake Baddeley gives little information about himself on his website, save to call himself a symbolist painter and artist.

Looking through his work, I see classical training, influences from the Surrealists and Magic Realists, and a fascination with the art and invention of the Renaissance.

He uses a muted, controlled palette, with passages of restrained but rich color, and his compositions often have feeling of deliberately arranged tableaux, with questions posed and hints of meaning scattered through the subjects. Often there are objects floating, either in frozen motion or defiance of gravity, and repeated themes of masks, blindfolds and curtains, suggesting subliminal meaning.

The paintings on his website are arranged by year, the sections for which provide a click-through navigation of Next and Previous, though there are no thumbnails. In addition there is a gallery of drawings in the “Other work” section.

You can also find a selection of his paintings on the Ten Dreams Gallery in an arrangement that more readily gives an overview of his work. There are also galleries of his paintings on the beinArt Surreal Art Collective and the imaginary realism art print site.

Prints of his work are also available directly through his web shop. Editions of a book called Dreamscapes, that feature a number of artists, including Baddeley in the 2009 and 2010 volumes, are available from both his shop and the imaginary realism site.