Notes

Marion Arnold has described Irma Stern’s still-life paintings as some of her most “sumptuous and sensual images”.¹ She explains how, in her depictions of objects, “she fuses form and content, Modernist preoccupations with visual language, and social commentary on nature and material culture”.²

Still life painting is the depiction of inanimate objects for the sake of their qualities of form, colour, texture, and composition. Historically, the objects in a still life were likely to have been selected for their symbolic meaning. Cut flowers, as in this example, are believed to symbolise mortality and the cycle of nature; while roses are ancient symbols of love, beauty and passion. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, associated roses with Aphrodite and Venus, goddesses of love.

With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Graeco-Roman art, still-life painting emerged as a distinct genre and professional specialisation in Western painting around the late 16th century, and has remained significant since then. Caravaggio's Still Life of Basket of Fruit, painted in 1596, is recognised as the first major still life in Western art.

Though still life occupied the lowest rung in the hierarchy of painting genres, it remains extremely popular with collectors. Arnold argues that Modernism’s emphasis on formal structure and pictorial autonomy allowed still life to develop into a significant arena of expression and removed the historical stigma of the genre being appropriate for female painters who were considered less talented than their male counterparts.³ Stern, a staunch proponent of Modernism, assertively dismantles these antiquated notions. She was, by all accounts, the most highly regarded South African painter of her era and still lifes comprise a significant aspect of her oeuvre.

In 1952, the year this still life was painted, Stern exhibited at the Cape Tercentenary celebrations and was awarded the Molteno Grant for outstanding work. All the aspects of her painting for which she was most venerated are present in this work – the thick, impasto paint, the masterful use of colour and tone, the strong compositional elements, and her characteristic Expressionist gestural mark-making that positioned her firmly at the helm of the South African avant-garde of the mid-20th century.

1 Marion Arnold. (1995) Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye, Vlaeberg: Fernwood Press. Page 125.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.