A Still Life Of A Vase Of Carnations To The Left Of A Basket Of Fruit by Jacob van Hulsdonck

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A simple basket filled with fruits and carnations could be so attractive. That’s a fact, I wouldn’t believe on before I saw this painting. It’s like, in the art-world, you have to see and feel the painting. Otherwise, you just can’t get the real beauty of the art. The possibilities are you would be deprived from enjoying such kind of masterpiece.

The painter who made it possible was Jacob van Hulsodnck. He was a still life painter, means he had the mastery to draw paintings of any still object with great details and realism. Maybe we could call still-life paintings are the part of realism form of the art.

This distinguished painter was born in Antwerp, France in late 16^th century. There is no further details are available on his life. Least we can say about him is the fact that he was a member of Guild of Saint Luke and became father of another famous painter Gillis van Hulsdonck.

His mastery on still life paintings appears strongly in this particular art-piece. The accurate illustration of fruits, flowers, branches and the tiny drops of the fresh water on the leaves make the whole image more substantial. There is a hidden surrealism in the painting, as I can sense the painting is a little too flat to be realistic. But then again, you can’t be so confident about its appearance when you can see the detailed depths of the basket and the background. Maybe Hulsodnck intended to make it mystical or it is me getting unnecessarily suspicious.

And what the little insect and butterfly are doing in the painting? They are there maybe because their presence adds the illusionary effect of the freshness to the fruits and flower, as if they have been picked from the garden very recently.

At the end, no reason to doubt about the fact, that this oil-on-canvas is one of the finest example of still-life portraits from the early 17^th century.