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Still Life with Thistle and Snake
Otto Marseus van Schrieck (Dutch, 1619–1678)
1663
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- height 60.5 cm, width 50.5 cm, height 72.5 cm, width 61 cm
- Culture
- Dutch
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
Observers must exercise their imagination in order to understand the artistic and aesthetic mode of expression that the Dutch artist Otto Marseus van Schrieck painted into his peculiar paintings, for what remains today is merely a torso. Time has been unkind to van Schrieck’s paintings. Still Life with Thistle and Snake, signed and dated ”OTTO. Marseus 1663”, is no exception. Originally, the picture, especially the butterflies, would have shone brightly with its myriad colours. All that is left now is a limited palette of mossy greens, ochre yellows, and bluish greens and a meek, unassuming red used for the cyclamen and daisies in the forest floor. With this work Otto Marseus van Schrieck created a special type of painting because he “stole” wings from real-life butterflies and because of his skill at imitating the special structures found in the forest’s soft covering of mosses and lichen. Even though the butterfly dust and glorious colours are now gone, the work remains intact as a narrative. The artist’s ability to introduce a dramatic story is as evident today as when the work was made. The drama in the foreground is about the battle between good and evil; an ever-recurring…
