Dutch still life painting shows a meaning of life with animals or plants or the state it is currently in. Most paintings show a dead animal or dead plant next to a live organism. For example, in Rachel Ruysch painting Fruit and Insects, 1711, there are lively pants and animals and there’s a few dead leaves behind the grapes. The eggs at the bottom depicts life and the slowly dead leaves represents death.

He wants to show it because it shows life and death. In his first photo, he is shown and a table full of grapes, a tusk, a wine cup and strawberries. The tusk represents death and a bowl of grapes and strawberries depicts life.