Spanish still-life painter. Following the lead of Juan Fernandez El Labrador, Juan de Espinosa, who belonged to the same generation as Antonio Ponce, earned a reputation as a specialist in still-life paintings with grapes. An inventive master, he surprised his admirers with a wide variety of types of picture.
In this unusual painting, the artist has represented an octagonal framed painting of a still-life with flowers within a rustic garland of fruit and flowers. The picture is a witty trompe-l’oeil that delights the viewer with its play on the idea of the “imitation of nature”, an idea that in the 17th century constituted the very raison d’etre of still-life painting. In the well-known story of the ancient painter Zeuxis - whose painted grapes were so realistic that birds tried to eat them - the pictorial values of illusionism and naturalism were linked together from the very beginnings of the genre in classical antiquity. This painting was also probably directly inspired by the precedent of Zeuxis’s grapes.
The painting within the painting represents one of Espinosa’s own small still-lifes. This is the painting that is signed by the artist, who painted a number of other still-lifes in which a shell acts as a vase for flowers.
Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 7 minutes):
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, ballet suite, op. 71, Waltz of the Flowers
This painting represents a shell fountain in which the large conch shell filled with water acts as a vase for a floral arrangement of peonies, carnations, tulips and other blooms.Each petal has been carefully drawn with the brush and their sharply defined contours picked out in thin lines of light pigment. The foreshortening of the flowers is adequately handled, but in terms of skill falls short of the best flower painters of the time, who made a virtue of presenting a wide variety of blooms from different angles.
The painting offers the viewer the refreshing sight of flowers and water, and appeals to the senses not only through the imaginary scent of the flowers, but also through the delightful sound of falling water.
This painting represents a fantastic fountain whose basins are constructed from different shells. This capricious arrangement also acts as a vase for a vine branch with white grapes, branches of plums and a climbing rose with light mauve flowers.
