Seashells appear in Turner’s myths, Dyce’s fresco for Queen Victoria, twice in Elihu Vedder’s work, and in Odilon Redon’s. And a story from Rubens about seashells and colour.
vanitas
Huge clam shells were a common feature in paintings of the birth of Venus, and other classical myths. They also feature in many ‘vanitas’ paintings.
It flourished and brought commercial success to many artists, and laid the foundations for sub-genres. Still lifes were among the most innovative and exciting paintings of the day.
Between about 1607-21 she painted exclusively still lifes. Highly innovative, she led the way for the many painters who succeeded her.
Curious still lifes and more containing allegories about the emptiness and futility of life on earth, and its brevity. Even seen in Cézanne and Jacek Malczewski.
One of the finest still-life painters of any age, some of her work celebrated the sensual pleasures of food, others the futility of life.
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