Still Life, Flowers and Insects

On a marble slab, a bouquet of flowers comprising among other flowers of roses, poppies, convolvuli, pinks and honeysuckle. Beetle, butterfly and moth can be spotted in the composition as well. The bouquet is dramatically lit against dark background as it was a typical feature of baroque painting. Ruysch was exceptionally skilled artist. Her composition bursts in mixture of bold and dynamic colours, forms and textures, all captured with a meticulous attention to detail. For Ruysch, leaves are just as important as the flowers. Therefore, work creates such a strong immediate illusion of realism that the viewer could almost reach for the flowers and touch them.

While it is only natural for viewers to admire this painting purely for the artist's skills and appealing arrangement of flowers, there are also some other layers of meaning to consider. As one of the most successful flower painters, Ruysch used flowers not merely as decoration, but as an observation on the fleetingness of life. Beautifully blooming flowers might soon wilt, which reminds us of the vanity of earthly life, and the fact that all beauty fades. Also, it is important to realise that it is highly unlikely that Ruysch would arrange this bouquet on the table and paint it as we see it in this picture, as it was not unusual for her to include in one composition flowers that do not bloom at the same time of year. Thus, we can understand this still life as a sort of synthesis of studies of different flowers and insects imaginatively combined in one harmonious composition. Further, we know that the late 17th and early 18th century was the time of enlightenment that brought the outbreak of scientific discoveries. The invention of microscope among others allowed for detailed study of anatomy of specimen including plants and insects. In fact, Rachel's father Frederick Ruysch (1638 - 1731) was one of the most important Dutch botanists and anatomists of his days, who not only studied, collected and preserved the specimen, but also recorded them in his own paintings and drawings. This would have been a perfect environment for Rachael Ruysch, an artist who spent more than 60 years of her life looking at and painting unbelievably small details of the natural world.

It is remarkable that Ruysch, as a woman, would come to be such a highly regarded artist, with her paintings regularly selling for much more than Rembrandt's. She was considered one of the greatest flower painters of her time and her name shines among the famous Dutch Old Masters. In those days, it was widely believed that women were not capable of artistic genius. It was only considered appropriate for women artists to work in "lesser" genres such still life or landscape (leaving historical and religious themes to men) and only if they came from noble families, or were wives of established artists (Ruysch married portrait painter Juriaen Pool in 1693) and only painted as a hobby.

Flower painting emerged in The Low Countries in the late 17th century as northern Europe saw an influx of many new exotic plants through oversea trade. Particularly the Dutch developed a great interest in and passion for gardening, and the widening wealthy merchant class was especially keen to acquire still life paintings with flowers. Ruysch was the pioneer of this genre paralleled perhaps only by her male artist counterpart Jan van Huysum (1682 - 1749).

Credit: Archibald McLellan Collection, purchased, 1856