Still Life, Trade, and Truthiness

Still Life, Trade, and Truthiness

Dutch still-life painting; Global trade; Seventeenth-century art; Artistic realism; Colonialism in art

Chapter 5 of Caterpillage, titled Still Life, Trade, and Truthiness, explores the intersections of commerce, material culture, and artistic representation in 17th-century Dutch still-life painting. Harry Berger examines how Dutch artists depicted trade goods, exotic objects, and symbols of wealth, questioning the constructed narratives of realism and economic power in visual culture.

Harry Berger

Caterpillage: Reflections on Seventeenth-Century Dutch Still-Life Painting

Fordham University Press

2011

Helen Tartar; Thomas C. Lay; Katie Sweeney; Helen Hill

© 2011 Fordham University Press

Text; PDF

English

Book chapter

ISBN: 9780823231775

Netherlands, 17th century; Global trade networks; Dutch Art

Caterpillage examines 17th-century Dutch still-life painting, building on the author's previous work on portraiture to propose a new way of interpreting the genre. The book critiques traditional iconographic approaches, particularly their emphasis on vanitas symbolism, arguing that such readings overlook the genre’s deeper engagement with death and decay. Berger highlights the presence of insects, snails, and caterpillars—predators of plant life—as a key element of still life, suggesting that the paintings convey not just vanity (vanitas) but also rapacity (rapacitas). He also challenges the conventional term nature morte (“dead nature”), proposing nature mourant (“dying nature”) as a more accurate reflection of still life’s depiction of living and decaying plants rather than fully lifeless subjects.

Printed Book