Still Life with Game and Fowl

In the sixteenth century, scientific interest in reality grew. Everything produced by nature was inventoried. This interest manifested itself, among other things, in the creation of the market and kitchen scene, in which eatables and utensils were depicted with great precision. The most important representative of this genre is Joachim Beuckelaer (ca. 1530-ca. 1574) from Antwerp. He was a cousin and pupil of Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575) from Amsterdam, who lived and worked in Antwerp for many years and who can be considered the creator of the genre. Joachim Beuckelaer's depictions were very popular in both the Northern and Southern Netherlands. The many copies and variants that flooded the art market during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries bear witness to this. The work of Frans Snijders (1579 - 1657), best known as a painter of hunting scenes and hunting still lifes, was widely imitated, including by Antwerp artists such as Pieter Boel (1622-1674), Jan Fyt (1611-1661) and Pieter van den Bemden (c. 1650). Many of these genre paintings and still lifes have a double bottom. They refer to fertility and eroticism and also remind us of the transience of life. The tradition of allegorically depicting the four elements, virtues and vices, the senses or the seasons already existed in the sixteenth century. It was mainly in the seventeenth century, however, that these representations would cause a real furore.