TWO WALNUTS
Artist Adriaen Coorte
Ijzendijke (Sluis), 1659/1664 – 1707 or later
Date 1702
Object type painting
Medium, technique oil on paper (later mounted on cardboard) Dimensions 10.9 x 15.6 cm
Inventory number 75.9
Collection Old Master Paintings
On view Museum of Fine Arts, First Floor, European Art 1600–1700 and British Painting 1600–1800, Gallery IX
Adriaen Coorte worked as a painter of still lifes in the Dutch city of Middelburg, and was regarded by his contemporaries as a solitary master. The subdued, objective manner of depiction in his small paintings is
substantially different from the lush decorativeness of his other types of fruit and flower still lifes. In his distinctive works he deployed the same compositional solution: on a stone slab, against a dark background, he placed a single type of fruit, vegetable or other crop, or sometimes a seashell. In this picture, after meticulous observation, he painted two walnuts in minute detail using delicate brushstrokes: simplified to the extreme, this composition captures the most intimate and metaphysically profound silence and essence of existence.
Szépmüvészeti Múzeum © 2019 - All rights reserved
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
