Art and Eye

  Even today the genre of still life is considered to be of lesser status and de Heem is one of many practitioners who disappears behind history painters or portraitists, because of the works he created. Yet he was a key painter of the Dutch Golden Age and gained valuable commissions beyond Utrecht, where he was born. According to Sam Segal, his portrait of William III of England, for instance, was sold for 2000 guilders which was among the highest price ever paid for a seventeenth century Dutch work of art. In this painting for royalty, de Heem combined the genres of portrait and still life to create an original, successful artwork steeped in symbolism and befitting of a monarchical representation. The works he produced later in life from the 1650s onward then extended his reputation, where he depicted a variety of flora, fauna, fruits and utensils against minimalist backgrounds to reflect the market trends of his day. Broadly speaking, de Heem’s works can be divided into two categori

  An outdoor setting with two figures confronts the viewer in Frederick Carl Frieseke's Impressionistic work of 1912. Yet, as the title suggests, the protagonist is in fact the orange and purple parasol that shades the seated figure. Almost like the sun itself, it encompasses the top third of the painting, allowing Frieseke to exploit the quick brushwork of Impressionism further, now in reds, oranges and purples. The detail on the parasol is indistinguishable – perhaps dancing figures, or flora and fauna motifs – engaging the eye to piece together an image of their liking. Its thin material is illuminated by the sun above, heightening its yellow glow to evoke a divine aura, almost halo-like above the seated figure. The parasol also gives the slightest hint at three-dimensionality in a broadly flat canvas, its circularity curving over the top of the figures to push the woman back who stands ‘behind’ its huge diameter. She seems to be preparing to put her own parasol up, however the