Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Jacob Foppens van Es
Netherlandish; 17th-century
Omaha, NE: Joslyn Art Museum
77%
Still Life. 1630. Oil on panel
The way these items are strewn across the table with so much distance between them reminds me of Wayne Thiebaud’s pictures of pastries and candies, as well as well as Wes Anderson’s frequent use of knolling to arrange objects in dollhouse-like tableaux. In all three cases, the space between the objects functions as a way of giving the individual items an independent value and significance. Instead of a vanitas, the painting serves as an inventory of the breakfast table, nothing more. But it doesn’t need to be anything more than that — I’ve always felt the vanitas interpretation was a distraction from a hedonistic revelry in the lusciousness of grapes and cheese and the shine of silver. Why can’t those qualities be worthy of celebration; why are we required to contemplate our own death instead? Van Es, here, has succeeded in getting us out of our gloom. (WC, 2025)