Ars Brevis, Vita Brevis

Video essay

05:30 min
2022

        Up to this day, dead animal bodies remain popular motifs as well as materials in art, often linked to the concept of reminding us of our own mortality. The depiction of excessively accumulated animal carcasses found particular expression in the 17th-century Dutch and Flemish gamepiece, an iconographic genre of still life referring to the taste for opulence in the Dutch Golden Age.
        Centering around the monumental painting Dead Swan (1716) by Jan Weenix and its analysis, this video essay guides the viewer into the world of aristocratic trophy hunting and affluence while contemplating on ephemerality and the idea of vanitas. Whereas the depicted animals constitute trophies, artworks are explored as trophies themselves, being part of the art depot as a dead zone striving for the preservation of works in their pristine state while cutting them off from the natural laws of life, time, transience, and decay.
        This project was created as part of a collaboration between Design Academy Eindhoven and the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, using the displayed collection as the starting point for the research.

Sources + Credits

Sources cited:


    Berger, John (1977): Why Look at Animals? from About Looking. Penguin Books Ltd.
    Lee, Hyejin (2020): Dutch Still Life Paintings: Pleasures of Not Knowing, YouTube (ArtStoryLab) [retrieved 03/2022].
    Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen: Dead Swan, boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks/3147/dead-swan [retrieved 03/2022].
    Palmeri, Frank (2016): A Profusion of Dead Animals: Autocritique in Seventeenth-Century Flemish Gamepieces, in: Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 50–77, doi:10.1353/jem.2016.0006.
    Wolloch, Nathaniel (1999): Dead Animals and the Beast-Machine: seventeenth-century Netherlandish paintings of dead animals, as anti-Cartesian statements, in: Art History, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 705–727, doi:10.1111/1467-8365.00183.

Paintings shown (in order of appearance, via boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks):

    Weenix, Jan (1716): Dead Swan.
    Boel, Peeter (ca. 1645): Hunting Still Life with a Swan.
    Verster, Floris (1886): Dead Swan.
    Pletser, George (ca. 1900–1940): Still Life with Dead Swan.
    Fijt, Joannes (ca. 1644): A Lobster in a Porcelain Dish.
    van Beijeren, Abraham (1654): Sumptuous Still Life.
    Anonymous (1640–1660): Dead Snipes and Other Birds.
    Boel, Peeter (1655–1660): Hunting Trophy with a Dead Peacock, Fruit and a Cat.
    Anonymous (1650–1675): Dead Hare and Birds.
    Snijders, Frans (ca. 1614): Kitchen Still Life.
    d’ Hondecoeter, Melchior (ca. 1665): Dead Birds and Hunting Appurtenances.
    Lelienbergh, Cornelis (1650–1675): Dead Hare and Birds.

3D model credits:


    “Painting” by Daniel Cheng (PKY_studio) on Sketchfab.com licensed under CC BY 4.0 / frame modified.
    “Garden Urn” by Lyskilde on Sketchfab.com licensed under CC BY 4.0 / modified.
    “Mute Swan V1” by printable_models on free3d.com.
    “Peacock” by César Vonc on Sketchfab.com.
    “Phasianus colchicus” by The State Darwin Museum (darwinmuseum.ru) on Sketchfab.com licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
    “Grape ‘King Delaware’” and “Peach ‘Akatsuki’” by masanaga on Sketchfab.com licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
    “Lowpoly pear” by Zack Ciminera (Zacxophone) on Sketchfab.com.
    “Cherry tree” by Mike Batchelor/MAXON Computer GmbH.
    “Roses – Pink” by VrayC4D Group.