Basket of Fruit (c.1599) is a still life painting by theItalian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio(1571–1610), which hangs in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (AmbrosianLibrary), Milan.
It shows a wicker basket perched on the edge of a ledge. Thebasket contains a selection of summer fruit:
... a good-sized, light-red peach attached to a stem withwormholes in the leaf resembling damage by oriental fruit moth(Orthosia hibisci). Beneath it is a single bicolored apple, shownfrom a stem perspective with two insect entry holes, probablycodling moth, one of which shows secondary rot at the edge; oneblushed yellow pear with insect predations resembling damage byleaf roller (Archips argyospita); four figs, two white and twopurple—the purple ones dead ripe and splitting along the sides,plus a large fig leaf with a prominent fungal scorch lesionresembling anthracnose (Glomerella cingulata); and a singleunblemished quince with a leafy spur showing fungal spots. Thereare four clusters of grapes, black, red, golden, and white; the redcluster on the right shows several mummied fruit, while the twoclusters on the left each show an overripe berry. There are twogrape leaves, one severely desiccated and shriveled while the othercontains spots and evidence of an egg mass. In the right part ofthe basket are two green figs and a ripe black one is nestled inthe rear on the left. On the sides of the basket are twodisembodied shoots: to the right is a grape shoot with two leaves,both showing severe insect predations resembling grasshopperfeeding; to the left is a floating spur of quince or pear.
Much has been made of the worm-eaten, insect-predated, andgenerally less than perfect condition of the fruit. In line withthe culture of the age, the general theme appears to revolve aboutthe fading beauty, and the natural decaying of all things. Scholarsalso describe the basket of fruit as a metaphor of theChurch.
A recent X-ray study revealed that it was painted on analready used canvas painted with grotesques in the style ofCaravaggio’s friend Prospero Orsi, who helped the artist in hisfirst breakthrough into the circles of collectors such as his firstpatron, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, around 1594/1595, andwho remained close to him for many years thereafter.
Scholars have had more than their usual level of disagreementin assigning a date to the painting: John T. Spike places it in1596; Catherine Puglisi believes that 1601 is more probable; andpractically every year in between has been advanced. Puglisi'sreasoning seem solid, (the basket in this painting seems identicalwith the one in the first of Caravaggio's two versions of Supper atEmmaus - even the quince seems to be the same piece of fruit), butno consensus has emerged.
In 1607 it was part of Cardinal Federico Borromeo’scollection, a provenance which raises the plausibility of aconscious reference to the Book of Amos. Borromeo, who wasarchbishop of Milan, was in Rome approximately 1597-1602 and ahouse guest of Del Monte in 1599. He had a special interest in theNorthern European painters such as Paul Bril and Jan Brueghel theElder, who were also in Rome at the time, (indeed, he took Breughelinto his own household), and in the way they did landscapes andflowers in paintings as subjects in their own right, something notknown at the time in Italian art. He would have seen the wayCaravaggio did still life as incidental accessories in paintingssuch as Boy Bitten by a Lizard, Bacchus, in Del Monte's collection,and The Lute Player in the collection of Del Monte's friendVincenzo Giustiniani. The scholarly Giustiniani wrote a treatise onpainting years later, wherein, reflecting the hierarchicalconventions of his day, he placed flowers "and other tiny things"only fifth on a twelve-scale register, but he said also thatCaravaggio once said to him "that it used to take as muchworkmanship for him to do a good picture of flowers as it did to doone of human figures."
Like its doppelganger in Supper at Emmaus, the basket seems toteeter on the edge of the picture-space, in danger of falling outof the painting and into the viewer's space instead. In the Supperthis is a dramatic device, part of the way in which Caravaggiocreates the tension of the scene; here, trompe l'oeil seems to bealmost the whole purpose of the painting, if we subtract thepossible didactic element. But the single element that no doubtattracted its original owner, and still catches attention today, isthe extraordinary quasi-photographic realism of the observationwhich underlies the illusionism. Basket of Fruit can be comparedwith the same artist's Still Life with Fruit (c. 1603), a paintingwhich John Spike identifies as "the source of all subsequent Romanstill-life paintings."
《水果篮》(1599年)是意大利巴洛克大师米开朗基罗梅里西达卡拉瓦乔(1571-1610)的静物画,藏于意大利米兰安布罗画廊(PinacotecaAmbrosiana)。
它显示了一个栖息在壁架边缘的柳条筐。篮子里有各种夏季水果:
...一种大小的,浅红色的桃子附着在茎上,虫子在叶子上类似东方水果蛾(Orthosiahibisci)的损害。在它下面是一个单一的双色苹果,从茎的角度显示有两个昆虫入口孔,可能是苹果蠹蛾,其中一个在边缘处显示出二次腐烂;一片沾满黄色的梨,带有类似于叶轮损伤的昆虫捕食(Archips argyospita); 四个无花果,两个白色和两个紫色 -紫色的成熟和沿着两侧分裂,加上一个巨大的无花果叶,具有类似炭疽病(Glomerella cingulata)的突出的真菌焦化病变;还有一片无叶的木瓜,枝叶茂盛,有真菌斑点。有四个葡萄串,黑色,红色,金色和白色;右边的红色簇显示了几个木乃伊的水果,而左边的两个群集都显示出过熟的浆果。有两个葡萄叶,一个严重干燥和萎缩,而另一个包含斑点和鸡蛋质量的证据。在篮子的右侧是两个绿色无花果,成熟的黑色无花果位于左侧后方。在篮子的两侧有两个无形的枝条:右边是一片有两片叶子的葡萄枝条,两条叶子都显示出类似蚱蜢喂食的严重昆虫捕食;左边是木瓜或梨的浮动枝条。右边是一片有两片叶子的葡萄枝条,两条叶子都显示出类似蚱蜢喂食的严重昆虫捕食;左边是木瓜或梨的浮动枝条。右边是一片有两片叶子的葡萄枝条,两条叶子都显示出类似蚱蜢喂食的严重昆虫捕食;左边是木瓜或梨的浮动枝条。
已经有很多吃了虫子,吃昆虫的,并且通常不完美的水果条件。与时代文化相一致,一般主题似乎围绕着褪色的美,以及所有事物的自然腐朽。学者们还将一篮子水果描述为教会的隐喻。
最近的一项X射线研究显示,它是在卡拉瓦乔的朋友普罗斯佩罗·奥尔西(ProsperoOrsi)的风格上绘制的一块已经用过的画布上画的,他帮助这位艺术家首次突破收藏家的圈子,如他的第一位赞助人,红衣主教弗朗西斯科·玛丽亚德尔蒙特,大约在1594/1595年,并在此后与他保持了多年的关系。[2]
在为这幅画指定日期时,学者们已经超出了他们通常的分歧程度:John T. Spike将其置于1596年; CatherinePuglisi认为1601更有可能;几乎每年都在推进。Puglisi的推理看起来很稳固(这幅画中的篮子似乎与卡拉瓦乔在Emmaus的两个版本的晚餐中的第一个相同-甚至木瓜似乎也是同一块水果),但没有达成共识。
在1607年,它是红衣主教费德里科博罗梅奥的收藏品的一部分,这种出处提高了有意识地提及阿莫斯之书的合理性。Borromeo是米兰的大主教,大约在1597年至1602年在罗马,1599年成为DelMonte的家庭客人。他对北欧画家特别感兴趣,如Paul Bril和Jan Brueghel theElder,他们也在罗马当时,(事实上,他把布鲁盖尔带入了他自己的家庭),并且他们将绘画中的风景和花作为自己的主题,这在意大利艺术中当时并不为人所知。他本可以看到Caravaggio作为偶像配件的方式,如蜥蜴的男孩咬伤,DelMonte的收藏中的Bacchus,以及Del Monte的朋友Vincenzo Giustiniani收藏的The LutePlayer。几年后,学者朱斯蒂尼安写了一篇关于绘画的论文,其中,反映了他那个时代的等级惯例,他将鲜花“和其他微小的东西”放在12级登记册中仅排在第五位,但他也说卡拉瓦乔曾对他说过“它过去需要花费尽可能多的工艺来做一个好的花朵图片,就像做一个人类人物一样。“
就像它在艾玛斯的晚餐中的分身一样,篮子似乎在画面的边缘摇摇欲坠,有可能从画面掉落到观众的空间而不是。在晚餐中,这是一个戏剧性的装置,是卡拉瓦乔创造场景张力的方式的一部分;在这里,如果我们减去可能的教学元素,那么trompel'Oeil似乎几乎就是这幅画的全部目的。但毫无疑问吸引其原主人并且今天仍然引起关注的单一元素是观察的非凡的准摄影现实主义,这是幻觉的基础。一篮子水果可以与同一位艺术家的静物与水果相提并论(约1603年),约翰斯派克认为“所有后来罗马静物画的来源”。
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