ARS VIVENDI. Frans Snyders and Seventeenth-Century Flemish Still Lifes

Frans Snyders (1579–1657) was a leading exponent of the still life genre and animal painter in 17th-century Flanders. Snyders was born in Antwerp. His parents, Jan Snyders and Maria Gijsbrechts, were the owners of a popular inn and one of the largest and best-known restaurants in the city, which was frequently visited by artists. In 1593, at the age of 14, Frans began his professional training as a painter, joining the studio of Pieter Brueghel the Younger (“Hell Brueghel”). By some accounts, he also trained under Hendrick van Balen the Elder. In 1602, the young artist was made a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. Neither of his mentors, Brueghel and van Balen, had any real connection with the still life. From his adolescence, Snyders was friendly with his first teacher’s younger brother – Jan Brueghel the Elder (“Velvet Brueghel”) and it was evidently his influence that shaped the young painter’s choice of creative direction. With the assistance of Velvet Brueghel, who recommended Snyders to the Milanese Archbishop Federico Borromeo (1564–1631), in 1608–09 the artist spent time in Italy, living first in Rome and then in Milan. Sometime after returning to his homeland, Snyders made the acquaintance of Peter Paul Rubens, the head of the Flemish school of painting, and around the year 1612 the two artists began a collaboration that lasted over a quarter of a century. The exhibition features the painting Statue of Ceres (circa 1615) from the Hermitage collection, one of the earliest examples of the pair’s creative cooperation, where the garland of freshly picked fruit adorning the niche containing the statue of the Roman goddess was painted by Frans Snyders.

The curators of the major exhibition project in the Nicholas Hall set themselves the primary goal of acquainting visitors with the art of Frans Snyders. The State Hermitage collection provides an exceptional and striking idea of the celebrated Flemish artist’s oeuvre. In the New Hermitage’s Hall of 17th-century Flemish Painting, four tremendous pictures by Snyders can be seen, making up the Stalls series, which the artist produced specially to a commission from the wealthy burgher Jacques van Ophem. They reveal a sumptuous world to us, glowing with a panoply of colours and a staggering diversity of shapes. On display in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace are works less well known to the general public – the artist’s animal paintings and “cabinet” still lifes showing well-laid tables, where in the elegant brilliance and harmony of the compositions it is possible to detect not only the vitality of the Flemish Baroque and the significance of the tradition established by Rubens, with whom Snyders collaborated, but also the influence of Italian painting, which appeared after the artist travelled to Italy in 1608–09. The works on display include Fruit in a Bowl on a Red Tablecloth, Bowl of Fruit with a Sliced Melon, Cook at the Table with Game and Birds Concert (Hermitage), Still Life with Swan and Fish Stall (Pushkin Museum).

Frans Snyders’s time was the “Golden Age” of decorative art in Flanders. The exhibition shows his influence on the work of his contemporaries, pupils and followers. On display in the hall are paintings by Pauwel (Paul) de Vos (ca. 1596–1678), the most devoted follower and pupil of Snyders – and also his brother-in-law. They include Still Life with Dead Game and Lobster, Dogs with a Bull's Head and Still Life with a Boar's Head. After embarking on his own artistic course in the 1640s, Snyders’s pupil Jan (Johannes) Fyt (1611–1661) was a leading exponent of animal painting and the still life. Among the still-life artists of Flanders, Fyt was unequalled for the elegance and refined beauty of his painting. The exhibition includes his Still Life with Flowers, Fruit and Parrot, Still Life with Ceps and Parrot, Dead Game and a Gun Dog and more.

The display also contains works by Adriaen van Utrecht (1599–1652), Frans Ykens (1601–1693) and other well-known 17th-century Flemish masters of decorative painting, who absorbed the Snyders tradition and spread it far beyond the bounds of their native Antwerp. In the second half of the 17th century the Flemish still life, while inheriting the Snyders tradition, also followed fresh stylistic tendencies, changing its look and transforming itself. This art no longer pours out a hymn to the beauty and fertility of the earthly world, but creates a Baroque theatre, in which tempting viands, brightly coloured fruits and flowers just barely touched by the marks of decay are a reminder of the frailty of human life, the fleeting nature of its joys and pleasures.

An important factor for the evolution of the Flemish still life was the arrival in Antwerp towards the mid-1600s of an artist from Utrecht – Jan Davidsz. de Heem (1606–1683/84). The uniqueness of De Heem’s creative approach lay in the combination of two regional manners, Flemish and Dutch. In his magnificent still lifes, De Heem takes as his foundation Frans Snyders’s well-laid tables, transforming them along Dutch lines, which manifest themselves both in the selection of objects depicted and in the choice of a palette with calmer tones. The exhibition features a Still Life with Lobster (Pushkin Museum) by De Heem himself, as well as works by a whole group of painters who were greatly influenced by him: Joris van Son, Jan van den Hecke and Nicolaes van Verendael.

The 16th and 17th centuries were a time that saw rapid advances in the study of plants and the creation of botanic gardens in many European countries. An interest in the achievements of scholarship and varieties of flowers new to Europeans was one of the stimuli that led to the emergence of the floral still life as a genre. Two large-scale paintings stand out in the hall, joint works of the Flemish artists Abraham Brueghel (1631–1697) and David de Coninck (ca. 1644 – after 1701), demonstrating the abundance of a garden filled with tulips, roses, anemones and other blooms – Flowers among Architecture (Spring) and Flowers and Fruit (Summer).

Floral garlands became a particularly common feature in Flanders, encircling some Gospel scene or sacred image. Compositions of this sort had a deep symbolic meaning, the flowers and fruits being chosen in accordance with the subject placed in the centre of the composition. The exhibition features one of the finest works by Daniel Seghers (1590–1661), the greatest painter of flowers in Flanders after Velvet Brueghel – The Infant Christ and John the Baptist within a Garland of Flowers, as well as garlands painted by Andries Daniels (ca. 1580 – after 1640) – Virgin and Child in a Garland of Flowers (with a central medallion painted by the leading 17th-century Flemish Baroque artist Jacob Jordaens) and Jan van den Hecke (1620–1684) – Bust of the Virgin Framed with a Garland of Flowers.

The 17th-century interest in botany is also demonstrated by drawings made by the Dutch-based German artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), which are meticulous in their technique, yet enchanting in their vitality and freshness. The 15 astonishingly bright and eye-catching parchment sheets are botanical illustrations. In order to produce them, the artist made a number of journeys, voyaging even as far as the shores of Surinam. The drawings found their way to Russia at the time of Peter the Great, enriching the stocks of the Kunstkammer in 1717. They are now kept in the Saint Petersburg branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The tremendous panel Flowers among Architecture (Spring) was restored specially for the exhibition in the Laboratory for the Scientific Restoration of Easel Paintings (headed by Victor Korobov). The artist-restorers were Valery Brovkin, Sergei Bogdanov, Andrei Krupenko, Maxim Lapshin, Andrei Nikolsky and Andrei Tsvetkov. The scientific research was performed by Kamilla Kalinina, Maxim Lapshin and Andrei Tsvetkov.

Another large-format (278 × 559 cm) work – Hunting Trophies, a cartoon for a tapestry by the Flemish artists Abraham van Diepenbeek (1596–1675) and Pieter Boel (1622–1674) – also underwent complex, painstaking restoration in the Laboratory for the Scientific Restoration of Easel Paintings. The artist-restorers were Victor Korobov, Andrei Andreyev, Alexander Vinogradov, Pavel Davydov and Yelizaveta Pazova. The structure samples were examined by Kamilla Kalinina.

Works of applied art produced by European and Oriental craftspeople form an integral part of the display in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace.

In the 17th century applied art was flourishing in Flanders. A striking individuality manifested itself above all in traditional Flemish crafts: artistic textiles, articles made of ivory and decorated leather. At the same time, Flemish artists had an influence on the development of applied art in other countries as well. Artistic textile work included tapestry-making, embroidery and the production of linen cloth, as well as lace-making. Visitors to the exhibition can see splendid tapestries from the Seven Liberal Arts series; an embroidered panel depicting The Judgement of Paris framed by garlands of flowers; a picture of a bouquet of flowers in a vase made with silks of various colours in the “gimped” or “pictorial embroidery” technique. Embroideries adorned Flemish cabinets – a distinctive form of furniture consisting of a small cupboard raised on table-like legs. The hall contains a unique example, where a small cabinet with embroidered decoration is mounted into a regular-sized one with painted insets. Lacemaking was a prominent phenomenon within Flemish applied art. Showcases contain some astonishingly beautiful pieces, including the extremely fine, almost weightless, lace made in the Flemish town of Binche. The ivory articles on display speak of the talent and skills of the carvers (figurines of putti and Mercury, a tankard depicting allegorical figures and more). Flemings were also skilled at decorating leather. This artistic craft was in high demand in the 17th century. Furniture was upholstered in leather with single- or multi-coloured embossed patterns. The material was used to create special modules that went to form wall linings for interior decoration. Such a module with a Bacchus and Ceres pattern, one of the motifs most widely used for wallpaper in the 17th century, can be seen in the exhibition. Attention is also caught by the silver goblets and trays made by German craftsmen with decoration in which it is possible to detect the influence of Flemish artists, as well as the finely decorated beakers and wineglasses.

A special place is allotted in the display to Chinese porcelain and other creations of Oriental craftspeople. Many pictures by 17th-century Flemish artists depicted articles imported to Europe: porcelain and lacquer objects from China, carpets from Iran and even silver filigree from South-East Asia. The heyday of the Flemish still-life coincides with the time when the particular variety of Chinese export porcelain with dark blue painted decoration on a white ground known as Kraak ware became quite common in Flanders. It is believed to have got its name from the Portuguese ships – carracks – on which it was transported. Dishes and bowls with a blue-and-white colour scheme often appear in the paintings of celebrated masters. They catch the eye in Pauwel de Vos’s Still Life with Dead Game and Lobster and Jan Fyt’s Fruit and Parrot among others. Flemish painters also depicted rare Chinese lacquerware articles. In Frans Snyders’s Fruit in a Bowl on a Red Tablecloth from the Hermitage collection, for example, the large Chinese porcelain bowl is flanked by two smaller ones, probably intended for drinking. They are splendid examples of the lacquer tableware produced in China towards the end of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), in the late 16th century and first half of the 17th. Exhibition-goers have the opportunity to examine similar items made by Oriental craftspeople that are now in the stocks of the Hermitage.

The works of applied art plunge the viewers into the atmosphere of 17th-century Flanders. “Still-life” compositions formed from them bring alive the images of a long-gone era. A special thematic zone has been created within the display that presents a room in the home of a 17th-century connoisseur containing rare works of applied art, fine furniture and Baroque painting.

The design devised for the display by the artists Emil Kapelush and Yury Suchkov allows visitors to immerse themselves in a sort of Baroque theatre filled with images and symbols from the 1600s constructed around illusory effects and complex juxtapositions of the intellectual and the sensual.

Specially for the opening of the exhibition “ARS VIVENDI. Frans Snyders and Seventeenth-Century Flemish Still Lifes”, a new Russian-language edition of Vladimir Levinson-Lessing’s book Snyders and the Flemish Still Life has been brought out by ARCA publishers in 2024.The foreword and commentaries are by Vladislav Statkevich, Keeper of 17th-Century Flemish Painting, a junior researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Fine Art.