Oysters, Fruit and a Wineglass on a Stone Table

About this work

How the German still life painter Abraham Mignon (1640-79), demonstrated his talent for giving form to intangible phenomena in nature on the flat canvas is wonderfully exemplified in Oysters, Fruit and a Wineglass on a Stone Table. Here one sees the transitory character of nature in the smoke that rises from the incandescent fire-lighter, and in the food, as a slimy droplet from the oyster shells is heavy and solid in its fall. Mignon has obviously spent time studying these phenomena by careful observation. The painting technique is crystal clear. In the roemer goblet’s edge, one glimpses tiny dots of precisely deposited white paint. Perhaps Mignon wanted to paint the individual particles of water vapor that catch the light. Mignon thinks in an open and a closed version of all foods so as to emphasize the body's density. When one observes what kind of fruits Mignon has chosen, and in particular how he has chosen to paint them, one is suddenly struck by the extent to which the shape is conceived as geometry. Mignon has painted the fruits as if they were echoes of geometric figures or even echoes of Plato's five solids or polyhedrons. The orange has been peeled so that the cut of…