Still life - awesome universe of imagination

There are painters who make yellow spot from the sun, but there are others who - thanks to their art and creativity - make the sun from the yellow spot.

P. Picasso

Art is not a copy of the real world. One of the damn things is enough.

From the Nelson Goodman's book Languages of art

Michal Splho - Still life, oil painting

I was discussing a lot that topic with friends and people drawn in art. What is art? What is good painting? What is good still life painting particularly? Is the main criterium for the "good still life painting" to reflect perfectly the reality? To be an exact copy of the real things used in the composition (as can be found in flemish historic and contemporary still life paintings)? Shall the painting surface be perfectly flat and the painting be "superreal"?

So many questions for the problem which seems to be so simple and easily answered. The answers can be many - and for different people the different statements - even contradictory - could be the solution. It is not easy with art at all. I have been facing these questions when intensively dealing with still life paintings. I painted a lot of still lives at that time, and actually I sold a lot of them too. People like them for many reasons.

I visited many shows featuring still lives too. The flemish painters seemed to me to put their focus on producing photographic paintings. That is one point of view, one approach to the problem. It can be accepted.

Of course, there is another realm of understanding art and painting the still life. I am not sure if I can define it better than the quotes at the beginning of that text. They talk for hundred words. That is what I believe in. That is my faith. Art as creating of the universe on it's own, independent from the reality and generating objects known to us - in other words the reality - from the red and blue and green spots of paint.

I believe Giorgio Morandi was one of the painters. Picasso and many others too - just search the web and see. Creating an universe on it's own is what I try to accomplish when holding a brush in my fingers.

I am listing here on the eBay auction one of the pieces - they sell well and not many left in my workshop. You can view it among my listings. It can be part of your collection. Feel free to comment and ask. It will be appreciated and answered.