The drama in a still life is the
drama found in a juxtaposition, a placing, an encounter, within a protected
space. Every still life is about safety, just as every landscape is about risk
and adventure. Still lifes tell about how certain things have come together
and, despite their evident ephemerality, will stay together. They are images of
residence, in every sense of the term. And so the painter is forced to study
the neighbourliness of the things in front of him, how they adjust and live
together, how they intersect, overlap and keep separate, and how they coexist.
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