Unlike other still life paintings, Dutch 17th and 18th Century still life paintings differentiate themselves by the message of mortality. The apparent similarity lays at the common subject matters that often appear in any still life paintings such as fruits and flowers which embody for the beauty and delicacy of the privileged class. However, the main difference is that instead of focusing on the material value of the beauty image of those objects, Dutch still life paintings show the nature of things being decay and fade throughout time. In the Rachel Ruysch painting Fruit and Insects, among the seemingly luxurious and delightful image of colorful peaches and grapes, we see the leaves are dying and the insects are eating the fruits. The decay of those organic matters speaks to the core of nature and materialism: In the shortness of life, all of the desire of beauty and material things are vanity.

In the series Hegemony or Survival of Hector Rene Membreno-Canales, his use of Dutch still life painting approach along with rather opposite other subjects is meant to reveal the irony of how humanity or to be exact, a group of people with power, is destroying other people’s life and the world for meaningless motives. In the blindness of power and the desire of domination, people are drawn themselves into the devastating and brutal conflicts and forget about the nature of life and the rather important needs of their situations and their countries’ destiny.

I agree when it says in article that theres a different interpretation between the times of the 1930’s and the twentieth century. Because during those times the picture of cindy crawford would have been seen as very offensive because a woman back then would have dress more modest and covered her body a lot more, however nowadays its over looked and seen as sexy and part of the “sex sells” marketing strategy.

companies promote their product and glamour it up. but do not show the stress and labor of it being done because people are more focused on buying the product and not its process.

Describe in your own words Liz Wells’ thesis in the Case Study: The Commodification of Human Relations and Experience – ‘Omega and Cindy: Time together’. In the first paragraph she describes the meaning of the components in this specific ad campaign. In the second paragraph, her analysis broadens to a critique of advertising photography.

After stating Wells’ opinion both about this specific ad and advertising photography in general, write about your opinion to her statements. Do you agree or disagree and most importantly, why?

In this style of painting it uses vibrant colored objects like fresh fruits nice and shiny to show life. then you have decaying plants and other objects to show the process of death. For example insects normally are associated with the process of decay so by him adding them to the painting the help get the message across. Its not too heavy handed because for the most part the image is bright and vibrant and there is still nice fruits in it the bugs and decay is pretty subtle. – Randall

In “she being Brand”  the poet is using the “brand new car” he is driving to refer to the woman he is sleeping with. he uses terms like “oiled the universal joints” and “tested my gas and felt her radiator” to refer to them getting ready for sex. Then you have “Coming Home” where the poet is speaking about fire bodies and everything harmful and disgusting. He says ” one brown child stares and stares into your frozen eyes until the lights change and you go forward to work” showing they thing he has to go to daily on his drive pretty much comparing his drive to almost a walk in a warren

In the poem “she being brand” by e.e. cummings is more a pleasure/ sex poem between the writer and the car and in the poem “coming home, Detroit, 1968” by Phillip Levine, show more of a dark, gloomy poem. While both writers are in the car driving, both writers are having  different experiences in their day.

“Just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touch the accelerator and give

her the juice, good”

In this part of the poem it shows that the writer is really enjoying his ride in his car. Rather than in “coming home, Detroit,1968”  “We burn this city everyday.”

The poem by e.e. comings brings a sexual connotation in the use of his words. In his poem he speaks about gears and car parts as doing love to a virgin woman and lets the reader feel the urge or thrill that comes with it. while Phillip Levine’s poem concentrates in the industrial dark side of looking through the window of an expensive car. As people pass by working and getting dirty with charred faces staring at the person inside the vehicle.

I have to say while really observing Rachel Ruysch Fruits and Insects I was reminded of many things one of them has to be the cycle of life. I love how she uses color and textures to show life and death in the flowers and fruit. Including insects really brought the paintings to life by showing movement and how their drawn to the fruits and dark shadows cast by fruits and flowers’. I really enjoy how Ruysch shows both life and death, by adding fresh ripped fruit vibrant colors and new life such as the eggs and small butterflies she shows the beginning of life as well as life as its peek I say that because the fruit is just right one more week and it will end up like the dead flowers. The way she displays death is very beautiful and sudden she used earth tones and soft strokes to paint the dead flowers to cast dark areas the style reminds me of romanticism using neoclassical colors .

Rene Membreno-Canales art I must say is very heavy handed and in your face. I never got the feeling that he was glorifying the food and showing life and death Canales wants to discus war and make you uncomfortable at the dinner table. I almost get the feeling of like how dare you be enjoying this wine and cheese while people are dying .the use of weapons of mass destruction shows that this is in no way suddel he wasn’t to make were aware of the hell hole he has gone through and it almost show to me that he used religion to get by with the use of wine, grapes, bread and brass cups in some of his pieces.

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.

The painting creates a metaphor by using metaphorical objects that was easily translated by the audience in which she painted for. In the pieces displayed, the background are often very vague, and not important. They all have very concentrated palettes.

Hector uses the style by adding his own twist with it. Since his story was very similar to the style it was a very was adaption of the two. The work made by hector does have some links to the style in a very modern day relation and he uses the style correctly. For the image about “the creation” i believe that the photo was not heavy handed, but very slick in its execution.