Still Life With Peaches

Unlike previous artistic styles, the ancient Romans were concerned with depictions of inanimate objects as well as depictions of the living. The painting above is an example of the beautiful still life pieces that began appearing in Italy in the early A.D. years. This specific wall painting, which was created between the years of 62 to 79 A.D., was found in Herucaneum, Italy. Though the artist’s identity is unknown, art historians are still able to appreciate the method that they used. The artist used light and shadows to add incredibly realistic detail to the scene. The collection and placement of the objects, a branch of peaches and a carafe sitting on a shelf, draw attention to the simple, everyday beauty that the Romans experienced.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the Roman depictions of inanimate objects were unheard of in ancient art. Though these paintings were indeed beautiful, artists would not come to embrace this still life style until the Dutch artists did in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Though the Dutch canvases were painted with more detail and perfection, their methods of enhancing the light and shadows of the object was extracted from the ancient Roman method of still life murals.