The Fertile Ground of Painting

17th-Century Still Lives and Nature Pieces

By (author) Karin Leonhard

Book cover: The Fertile Ground of Painting

Extent: 304 pages

Publisher: Harvey Miller

Subjects: Art & Art History, Early Modern & Renaissance Studies

Series: Studies in Baroque Art

Series volume number: 12

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(March 2021)

ISBN: 9781912554065

Price: $188.00

In stock

Still Life painting thematizes the ability of Nature and Art to produce similarities and is therefore predestined for a theorization of mimetic strcutures of Art in general.


17th-Century Netherlandish Still Life painting actively participated in the intellectual discourse of natural philosophy and the natural sciences, even though art history until recently described it, somewhat simplifying, as realistic-representative painting. We urgently need a rehabilitation of the notion of Mimesis. The author restarts the discussion, by putting more emphasis on the historical notions of Nature and Image. She examines how mimetic structures acquired a biotic reproductive capacity in the 17th century. Still Life painting thematizes the ability of Nature and Art to produce similarities and is therefore predestined for a theorization of mimetic strcutures of Art in general.

  • By (author) Karin Leonhard