Vanitas Paintings and their symbol categories

In the last article about Vanitas, I briefly discussed the socio-economic environment prevalent during the birth of this type of painting. Today I will discuss some of the objects and their symbolism.

The term ‘ Vanitas’ comes the opening verse of Ecclesiastes 1:2 in the Latin Bible 'Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas': vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Because their symbolism and allegoric meaning, these were almost religious paintings but presented as still lifes. Vanitas symbols were common in many of the Dutch Golden Age paintings, decaying flowers, hourglasses, watches, etc.

These objects were meant to communicate the Vanitas message which as presented in the Gospel of Matthew 6:18-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Objects in a typical Vanitas painting were representative or symbols. Experts group them into 3 main categories:

About the transience of life and death: bones from humans or animals, time pieces e.g.hourglasses or watches. In this group were the candles and oil lamps with smoke wicks, soap bubbles, decaying flower, broken glasses or sometimes half empty. See first photo at top left as a good example

Our earthly existence: books, scientific, musical or artistic instruments, collectibles or just valuable objects like weapons, armor, shells, globes, precious metal coins or money, pipes, tobacco related articles, dice, cards and plaster sculptures. See photo at top left as an example.

Resurrection: Ivy, wheat or Laurel which are normally shown beneath or crowning the skull.

Quite often vanitas symbols made it to other type of paintings like the still life ‘banquets’, ‘breakfasts’, ‘sumptuous’ or flower bouquets. The photo at the bottom is a good example, note a small insect in the lower left corner and some soap bubbles around the globe.

Next article I will discuss some of the most common written messages in these paintings, like the one shown in the top-right photo

Following Willem Kalf’s lead…

As the Dutch Golden Age reaches its climax one of Still Life masters started a very ornamented, rich, almost ostentatious depictions of the Dutch wealthy. Richly decorated golden goblets, magnificent Chinese porcelain bowls, jars, dishes, highly decorated chalices or tazzas, oriental rugs, wine jugs, etc were neatly arranged with grapes, oranges and other exotic fruits. These paintings are known as “pronkstilleven”or “ostentatious still life” and they were the brainchild of  Willem Kalf . Others like Peter de Ring, Abraham van Beyeren and Davidz de Heem followed his lead and took it to new heights.
Kalf’s pronks seem to challenge the beauty of the original objects, according to Norman Bryson in Looking the Overlooked; Four Essays on Still Life Paintings, it seems like if he wanted to establish painting as a superior form of art above all others. If he could paint these objects in a way that would look better than the original, that meant that painting could outdo all other forms of decorative arts. According to Bryson, Goethe (the man regarded as the pinnacle of German literature) wrote about one of Kalf’s paintings; ”One must see the picture in order to understand in what sense art is superior to nature and what the spirit of man imparts to objects. For me, at least there is no question that should I have the choice of the golden vessels or the picture, I would choose the picture”.
See below some of Kalf paintings and my photographic rendering of them.

Willem Kalf - Still Life with a Chinese Porcelain Jar (oil on canvas, 1669) Indianapolis Museum of Art

You can read more articles about this topic by clicking on Dutch Golden Age Still Life label at right panel.

Finally, Vanitas!

Back in the XVI and XVII century the Dutch republic became the first affluent country in history. Like most of Europe at the time prior to this explosion in abundance, the Dutch were primary an agricultural society. Agriculture is a seasonal activity, therefore, the spring and summer is the time for abundance while autumn and winter are the times for scarcity. A society that is accustomed to save for lean times will easily associate wealth and abundance with waste.
This, combined with their deep Calvinist religious beliefs, were the factors behind a a particular type of paintings that were called “Vanitas”. These were painting with symbolic objects meant to remind the audience of the transience of life and that therefore it should be lived following God’s laws. 
The skulls, hourglasses, extinguished candles, clocks or watches were all symbols of how short our existence is.
Vanitas paintings were popular, Masters like Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz Heda painted many of these pieces. You can see Vanitas symbols in many other of the Dutch Still Life from the Golden Age, decaying flowers, insects nibbling at fruits or flowers, etc. Below is Pieter Claesz classic, "Brass candlestick, writing materials, letter pocket watch and anemone" (1625) and my own photographic version of it, plus variations of it.



I may end up creating different galleries for Vanitas, Banketjes, Ontbijtjes and Pronks.
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You can read more articles about this topic by clicking on Dutch Golden Age Still Life label at right panel.

The Golden Era of Dutch Still Life. Objects Used Part II

As promised last week, this post will cover some other objects used by these painters.

Pass Glass – Another very common object in the Dutch Still Life paintings. These were usually octagonal glasses that were used for beer in drinking games. The glass had a blue glass swirl going around that was used to measure the beer in it. The glass was passed on from player to player(hence their name). The player in turn had to drink from measure to measure in one gulp, if he missed (no women were allowed) then he had to do it again. Rembrandt is holding one of these in his well known “Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son in the Tavern” (see at right). Experts believe that the glass was cheap in the XVII Century which explains why you can see it in a Tavern. I found similar replicas made by Czech glass blowers, although circular and not octagonal. I email them about purchasing one, but apparently eCommerce is not well developed there.

Tazza – This is a wide, ornate chalice that was used to drink wine. It appears in many Ontbijt and baketjes pieces from the Claesz; both Pieter and Willem. Sometimes they showed it knocked down, revealing the detail of the base. This was meant to tell you that the meal or occasion was over and a symbol that things/people fall and sometimes break.


Buckelpokal – Also called Nuremberg Cup (see at right). This is very rare, expensive, tall and beautiful goblet apparently for beer (Dutch have always been specially fond of this beverage). The one most often painted by the Dutch Masters were gilded or golden. Willem Kalf, Abraham Van Bayeren and  Jans Davidz de Heem used them profusely in their Pronkstillevens or Pronks. Kalf was an art dealer so he had easy access to this and other ostentatious objects. Today, I could only find these Buckenpokal cups at museums (see one here); I saw one for auction starting about $22,000.00 although apparently you could get them for as low as $2,100.00. So, you won’t see any of these in my photos. If you have one sitting around and are willing to lend it or rent to me it would be wonderful. A very good example is shown in the painting at the bottom by Pieter De Ring (part of the Rijksmuseum collection).
Flute Glass. These were tall flute glasses normally shown with wine or beer. Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz Heda used them quite often as shown in his still life “Breakfast with crab” (at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia) and ”Ham and Silverware”. The one I used in my “Still Life a la Kalf” is made in Sweden according to the traditions of the times.
At the bottom, a classic Ponkstilleven or Ostentatious Still Life that also includes a Wan-Li plate on top of a great salt, lots of exotic foods, lobster, crab all beautifully arranged on a blue velvet table cloth. I thought it would be a good idea to show a painting with some of the objects described in the first and second part of this series. Pieter de Ring combined opposite colors like blue and red to create a sharp contrast and designed a beautiful smooth transition with yellows and oranges. As always, feel free to ‘Share’ or ‘Like’ the article in Facebook or Twitter.

You can read more articles about this topic by clicking on Dutch Golden Age Still Life label at right panel.

The Golden Age of Dutch Still Life. Objects Used Part I

As explained in previous posts, the Dutch Masters of Still Life used very luxurious objects in their paintings. This has been the main deterrent for many years preventing me from trying to reproduce them using a camera. It took a lot of research to find out the names of these objects and what their purpose was at the time. Some of these objects had a special meaning, like the skulls, shells, etc. This post series is not meant to be an exhaustive inventory of all of them, but for those interested in this topic it will provide some light about the paintings or the photographs.
Roemer – This is a glass in several sizes, sometimes real big sometimes smaller. It appears very often in all these paintings, normally with white wine or water. The base could be round or sometimes had small spikes similar to a Berkemeyer (see Berkemeyer). The glass stem is hollow and has prunts on the outside. These prunts could have different shapes, sometimes they looked like berries, sometimes like spikes. At the time, people ate with their hands which were greasy; the prunts helped prevent the glass from slipping. The name Roemer (sometimes seen as rummer) comes from the German word “Roman”.You can see a large roemer in this photo
Wan-Li Kraak Porcelain Dishes – Another widely used object by Dutch painters of the time. These are very thin, blue and white decorated dishes and bowls from the Chinese Ming Dynasty, Wan-li period (hence their name). They were exported to Europe in massive amounts and very appreciated by the wealthy of the times. These dishes were copied in several parts of the world and when they became unavailable, the Dutch made their own, which today are known as Blue Delft (they no longer have Chinese motives). An interesting note, Dutch Blue Delft is not porcelain but earth ware because they are not made from Kaolin, the clay variety needed to produce porcelain. 
Berkemeyer – This German/Dutch glass was definitely popular in Holland at the time and it was included very often in Still Life paintings of the time. It looks very similar to a Roemer, both being hollow with a thick stem; however the Berkemeyer top is a conical bowl whether the Roemer is oval. Berkemeyers are the most commonly found glass from the Seventeenth century, at the time was customary to hold it by the foot. See Frank Hals painting “The Merry Drinker” where is clearly shown how the Berkemeyer should be held. To have a better understanding of the size, you can see next to a flute glass here
 
Next article, I will cover the Pass Glass, Tazza, Buckelpokal and Flute Glass…. stay tuned.
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You can read more articles about this topic by clicking on Dutch Golden Age Still Life label at right panel.

More about the Dutch Masters of Still Life…

The Dutch Masters of Still Life painted about the riches of their patrons. Holland became an affluent country from commerce and their colonies. Dutch merchants and the new rich, indulged commissioning paintings that displayed their newly acquired riches. Willem Claesz Heda was one of those painters. He painted still lifes with subdued, muted almost monochromatic colors. he was also known for his Ontbijt (Dutch) pieces or breakfast paintings, another contemporary painter that profusely used that theme was Pieter Claesz.
They painted the typical wealthy Dutch breakfast of their times and no, there was no coffee then. I have placed a image with the original painting next to my own so that you can compare the composition and lighting.To say that the lighting is challenging is an understatement, but that’s part of the experience and the fun. You can definitely have more control in a painting than a photograph. Regardless, re-creating these wonderful masterpieces have been a lot of fun. Feel free to share this post in Facebook or Twitter.

Copyright.Levin Rodriguez. All Rights Reserved. www.LevinRodriguez.com

The Classics of Still Life. Luis Melendez and his Bodegones

Last article was about the Dutch, this one is about a Spaniard, Luis Melendez who is regarded as one of the Still Life masters of all times. Melendez, unlike the Dutch Masters of the XVII century did not painted about the riches owned by his patrons. He used every day articles that had a practical use. Jars, pans, pots, wine, boxes, drinking vessels, etc. His works were sober although sometimes very colorful. He painted the most intrinsic details of the objects he used, while arranging them in pleasant compositions. He choose objects with different textures which he painted to an excruciating detail as to show off his painting skills.

The first image at left been inspired by one of his masterpieces "Bodegon con caja de jalea, rosca de pan, enfriador con botella, salvilla de plata y vaso" (1770) which can be seen at right.

Another example is the image with watermelons that has been inspired by some of his masterpieces", specifically "Bodegon with watermelon, apples in a landscape" (1771) and "Bodegon with Melon and Pears".

Note that Melendez did not use lemons as often as the Dutch, lemons were used to mix with wine to decrease the alcohol content so they thought, I chose to add the lemon to provide a balancing color point.

Both Melendez paintings can be seen at the El Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. My photos can be seen at my site www.LevinRodriguez.com

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The Classics of Still Life. Luis Melendez and his Bodegones

Last article was about the Dutch, this one is about a Spaniard, Luis Melendez who is regarded as one of the Still Life masters of all times. Melendez, unlike the Dutch Masters of the XVII century did not painted about the riches owned by his patrons. He used every day articles that had a practical use. Jars, pans, pots, wine, boxes, drinking vessels, etc. His works were sober although sometimes very colorful. He painted the most intrinsic details of the objects he used, while arranging them in pleasant compositions. He choose objects with different textures which he painted to an excruciating detail as to show off his painting skills.

The first image at left been inspired by one of his masterpieces "Bodegon con caja de jalea, rosca de pan, enfriador con botella, salvilla de plata y vaso" (1770) which can be seen at right.

Another example is the image with watermelons that has been inspired by some of his masterpieces", specifically "Bodegon with watermelon, apples in a landscape" (1771) and "Bodegon with Melon and Pears".

Note that Melendez did not use lemons as often as the Dutch, lemons were used to mix with wine to decrease the alcohol content so they thought, I chose to add the lemon to provide a balancing color point.

Both Melendez paintings can be seen at the El Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. My photos can be seen at my site www.LevinRodriguez.com

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The Classics of Still Life. Vanitas, Ontbijt, Pronkstilleven

Back in mid 2009, I started experimenting using tricky lighting and my own household objects to produce Still Lifes. I was very encouraged by the aesthetic quality of the images which have produced lots of praise (See the comments section in my Fine Art America site or go straight to the Still Life, Vanitas, Ontbijt, Pronkstilleven Gallery).
By early 2010 I was then experimenting with textures to give these images a more painting like look. They also got lots of praise both online and in a couple of exhibitions I attended.
Now in 2011, I wanted to take it to the next level: images that more closely resemble the classic Ontbijt (breakfast) of Willem Cleasz Heda, Pietr Claesz, Willem Kalf (pronkstilleven or ostentatious still life) or Luis Melendez’ Bodegones.This is not particularly easy because the Dutch Masters painted about the riches of their patrons, therefore, the objects they use were very luxurious and rare even at that time.
Holland was burgeoning from international commerce and their Asian colonies in the XVII century. Dutch merchants and the new rich, indulged commissioning paintings that displayed their newly acquired riches from exotic far away places.e,g Ming plates from China, Turkish rugs, Japanese katanas, Salt, Pepper, expensive glasses, gild goblets, purple silk,etc. Now you can understand why producing images with similar objects is difficult. However, with some creativity and some key pieces I think I got close enough. Here are some of my early attempts at this.

There will be more articles about this fascinating subject and a lot more images. The next will be about Luis Melendez and his famous ‘Bodegones’. So stay tuned. Feel free to comment and/or to ‘Like’ it.

You can read more articles about this topic by clicking on Dutch Golden Age Still Life label at right panel.

Death Valley National Park. My Experience

As soon as I decided to go to Yosemite National Park, I knew that I had to somehow include Death Valley in the same trip. Getting to Death Valley is a lot easier from Las Vegas but we were flying to Los Angeles so it had to be the other way around

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Death Valley National Park is the US largest outside Alaska, the Valley itself is narrow and surrounded by the Amargosa, Black Mountains and Panamint Ranges, these mountains are completely bare with no vegetation whatsoever which exposes their colorful rocks. Within Death Valley you will find very diverse landscapes from sand dunes, pure salt basins, badlands and even a full blown resort with golf course included at Furnace Creek.

Consider these before you go

In my humble opinion this should be a minimum two-days trip, there is a lot to see and explore and distances are long even by car.
This place is the hottest in North America, if you read the Park’s recommendations for safety and travel you will get scared, I know because we did. Bring a gallon of water per person per day, don’t do this, don’t do that, rattle snakes, cell phone does not work, etc. They should say plainly that if you are coming in a van, car or vehicle with AC you will be more than ok and that there is really no need to carry a swimming pool full of water with you. That would have been nice to know. However, I supposed that there are plenty of the adventurous type out there and if you get lost without water, it won’t be fun.
I strongly suggest downloading the map from the Park’s site so that you plan your trip in advance, especially, if you are planning to be there for only one day. Obtaining accommodation here is very difficult, so if you want to stay there in a bed with AC (highly, strongly, super recommended), make your reservation way in advance. We stayed in Lone Pine which is 2 1/2 hrs away at German speed.

Photographing

For the photographer, this place is amazing, it is bare, desolated, very hot but also very colorful. It is anything but boring. Expect NO clouds, sky will be very blue, sun will be strong and shadows harsh. Using a polarizer may be good idea to enrich the color. Also, an UV filter would get rid of some of the haze in the air, that being said, I did not use one because I wanted the contrast between the deep blue of the background Mountains and the foreground rocks or landscape. See at right.
Photographing speaking, your main problem here will be to provide sense of scale. Remember, you will have no trees, cows, houses or anything to give the viewer of your photos a reference, so the challenge is to wait for some whack-job to walk through the mountains at 45-48 Celcius to embellish your capture. Not to worry, they are plenty of those around, just be patient. I have similar photos with and without people and they do make a difference.   If you have some panoramic gear, make sure to take it with you, it will be worthwhile the inconvenience.
In terms of lenses, I used only my 70-200 mm and my 17-85 mm, now this is not a place where you want to be changing your lenses a lot, there is lots of dust and sand (I know it sounds strange but the desert is like that)

Best Places

I did not go to the Racetrack

which is where you can find those stones with a mysterious track behind them (nobody really knows how this happens), it is really far away and we were worried that the 16 gallons of water we carried were not going to be enough, so we cut the trip there. This is the main reason why I think it should be a two days trip, if you are going all the way there, may as well do it. It will also give you a couple of times to shoot at dawn and sunset where you will be able to get the best light.
We took the 190 from Lone Pine all the way to Stovepipe Wells village, right there you will find the Mesquite Sand Dunes which are fantastic (see photo at top). I also regret not spending more time there; it is difficult when your kids are reminding you that it is already about 40 Celsius and only 8:00 am.
The next best place is Badwater basin, this is a great experience, walking over pure salt is not something you do very often (at right). The extension of the basin is absolutely huge and the fact that is white against the black mountains makes it quite beautiful, see at right (again without the people walking it would have been very difficult to get a sense of scale). The basing as flat as it gets, I found it very difficult to come up with a creative way to showcase the landscape, so I settle for some family photos bragging about our descending to the lowest point in North America.
My absolutely favorite spot was Zabriskie Point, right after Furnace Creek Resort. You get a superb view of these golden badlands which are absolutely beautiful . I did not know about this in advance so I did not carry my panoramic gear with me. Basically, I had to wing it, this panorama was from handheld photos. This is by far my favorite photo from Death Valley and it will make it on canvas to some wall of my house.
Dante’s View. At 5,475 ft (1,802 m) this is one of the highest places where you can drive to in Death Valley. The view is spectacular and definitely worth the loop. You will see the Badwater basin just below you and the length of the valley.

Neck relief from camera weight, nice and easy.

If you are carrying a DSLR a couple of lenses, extra battery, some filters, etc.  it won’t take long before you start feeling like you are carrying a cement bag on your neck and shoulders.

I purchase a camera strap that allows me to insert a hiking hook in the back. This way, I can hook my camera bag to it and counter weight each other producing a significant relief to my neck and shoulders.

It is really easier to see it in the photo at right. My camera bag has a strap for the waist which also distributes the weight better. so the weight of my camera-lens combination is supported by my waist strap all the way through my shoulders and neck.

If I want to place the camera on a tripod, all I have to do is unhook it, which I can do easily without help from anybody.

Try this, you won’t regret it.

Yosemite National Park. My Experiences.

The beauty of this landscape can never be described or captured in photos. In my humble opinion Ansel Adams who did more than anybody else to get this place noticed could not do it. I have seen many photos of the so called Tunnel View, which is the view you get right when you come out of the route 41 tunnel coming from Mariposas Grove, however, none has been able to capture the grandeur and beauty of the actual view. I am actually guilty of this too, see here at right … well, this is not going to prepare you for the real thing. I can confidently predict that your jaw will drop when you see this view with your own eyes.

This will easily explain why is so difficult to find accommodation in Yosemite or even the supporting towns like Mariposa or Oakhurst. Google estimate the global searches for hotels in Yosemite at about 226 million per month. In a nutshell, if you want to sleep in a bed make your reservation way in advanced. We made ours about 4 months before and we could not find anything within Yosemite or Mariposa. So we settle for Oakhurst, which turned out to be best, because it is closer to Mariposa Grove than if you are coming from Mariposa. Mariposa Grove is where the Giant Sequoias are and they are a must see if you are going to Yosemite.

The Dilemma. Early and clear or Later and overcrowded
Nobody like crowds, well, this place is crowded, you will hear just about all languages you can recognize and many other that will leave you wondering. Yosemite Valley is in a remote place, that doesn’t stop millions to get there, smart people who want to avoid the hordes get real early to avoid them, photographers do it because early light is warm. So if you are there early, this is what you get, (see at right) the waterfall is hidden by shadows and no HDR will save it. HDR cannot produce details when there is no detail. So, either you settle for this or you must fight your way through the hordes and get the one shown above after 1:00 pm or so. The best time will definitely be late in the afternoon ( I was not there so I have no examples). But I hope that this help you to plan your trip there. If you enjoy photography and want to have an idea of what you are going to see, follow this link Yosemite, Death Valley and other California Photos. 
Glacier and Washburn Point
This is the ultimate lookout place in the Park for an almost aerial view, you will get an undisturbed view of the valley below you, the Half Dome and Yosemite falls all before you in one panoramic view, however, in my humble opinion the Washburn vista point provides a more spectacular view than from Glacier point, maybe because it also less viewed in photos or magazines. When I was there, few guys were admiring the valley as you can see below, I would not dare to do this, but hey that`s the stuff you do when you are very young and you believe to have some superman DNA in you.
In case you did not know, you can actually drive all the way up there. Some other climbing and hiking types enjoy the breathing and puffing, but that's not definitely for me. I took my van loaded with kids, wife and all our belongings all the way up. Pretty impressive feat to maintain those roads as good as they are. If you are going to Yosemite, DO NOT miss this view point, you can thank me later by 'like' this post or buying one of my photos. Have fun!

Calibrating your Monitor screen. The most important step in color management.

In order to ensure that colors in an image or photo faithfully represent the original object, landscape or art, colors must be managed throughout your entire workflow. That is, from capture, display and editing in a computer all the way to produce prints. This is critical to print your photos’ colors accurately

This is due to the differences in color definitions between all the different devices and media involved in this process. The color map or bucket used by the camera may not be the same as the monitor and will definitely be different than the combination of chosen paper and printer inks on it.

The easiest way to understand this is to compare crayons from 3 different brands or companies, it is almost certain the colors will NOT be exactly the same. They use different pigments and therefore what is red in one brand, is not exactly the same red in the next. They will all be “red”, but not exactly the same one. They will have different hues or saturation, the same applies to the yellow, cyan greens, etc.

To avoid this annoying issue, a color profile of the monitor must be created. This is normally done with a colorimeter (see images at right) which is a device that reads, evaluates and record the values in RGB of the colors emitted by the monitor screen; it will then, create the color profile that will be set as the monitor default. The images are showing the colorimeter reading red, blue, and green shades.

From this point on, the Operating System will make this color profile to all computer applications that need to use it, Photoshop, Corel Draw, Paint Shop Pro, etc. This way, applications can map the red from the image to the red in the screen, giving you a more faithful color of the original object.

The colorimeter I use must be attached to the screen as shown in the photo at right. The cord is plugged into a USB port and the software guides you through the process. There are fancier colorimeters that will take into account the lighting conditions of the room, but they are also more expensive. The one I have has served me well and I produce prints that faithfully represent the colors I see on the screen.

Create your own iPad Wallpapers

I love to place some of my photos as iPad Wallpapers, however depending on the photo and its detail, it may make the icons look awfully busy. So, I got them into my favorite photo editing program a.k.a Adobe Photoshop CS4 and blurred them using the Gaussian Blur filter.  The difference is stunning, icons pop out and become easy to see. See image at right.

Making your own

Size: If you want to create your own iPad Wallpapers make sure that the center or main subject of the image is 1024 x 1024 so whenever you switch your iPad the center of the image remains visible.

Blurring: If you have PS CS4 go under Filters>Gaussian Blur. Use a stronger or weaker effect according to your own preference.

The trick is to set the crisp image as your lock   screen and the blurred image as your home screen.

If you don’t want to do any of this, it may be just easier to buy 5 of them ready to go for $1.59 (same as a Tim Horton’s coffee these days) right here, this way you are also stimulating the Arts, creative work and entrepreneurship.