| 释义 |
still life
[f. still a. + life n., after Du. stilleven (in the 17th c. also stilstaand leven, stilliggend leven). Cf. G. stillleben, in the 18th c. stillliegende sachen (Zedler 1744).
The Du. expressions have been found only in the sense explained below, but it is presumed that they were originally applied to representations not of inanimate objects but of living things portrayed in a state of rest.]
a. Inanimate objects, such as fruits, flowers, dead game, vessels, etc., as represented in painting. (For other uses see still a. 5 b.) Also fig.
1695[R. Graham] Short Acc. Painters in Dryden's Dufresnoy's Art Paint. 277 His peculiar happiness in expressing all sorts of Animals, Fruit, Flowers, and the Still-life. 1701Wanley in Phil. Trans. XXV. 2004 In the Still life indeed, the Eye is quickly deceiv'd. 1706tr. De Piles' Art Paint. 440 Kneller..did also several Pieces in Still-Life exceedingly well. 1762–71H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) III. 19 He painted still-life, oranges and lemons, plate, damask curtains, cloths of gold, and that medley of familiar objects that strike the ignorant vulgar. a1784G. A. Stevens Let. in T. Wilkinson Mem. (1790) IV. 196 My existence now cannot properly be called living, but what painters term still life; having since February 13, been confined in this town gaol for a London debt. 1859Gullick & Timbs Paint. 51 Still-life is the exact imitation of immobile objects, such as fruit, flowers, and eatables.
attrib.1821P. Egan Life in London ii. i. 156 It was not the still-life Beauty of the Sculptor and the Artist. 1831F. Reynolds Playwright's Adventures vii. 112 This still-life personage, devoting the whole of her mind and time to her pianoforte. 1867Contemp. Rev. VI. 387 Landscapists and still-life painters ought to go through a course of real drawing. 1887W. P. Frith Autobiog. I. iv. 52 He still insisted that I should paint a composition of still-life objects. 1898Gosse Short Hist. Mod. Engl. Lit. vii. 236 But these pedestrian studies of nature had no passion in them; they were but passages of an inventory or a still-life painting.
b. A painting of such objects. Pl. still lifes.
1957Encycl. Brit. XXI. 408/1 The first signed and dated pure still life..was painted in 1504. 1961R. B. Long Sentence & its Parts ix. 206 Sometimes regular plurals replace even firmly established native irregular plurals: for example, in she does still lifes. 1970Oxf. Compan. Art 1097/1 The development of the typical still life took place mainly in the Netherlands. 1981Daily Tel. 30 Dec. 10/3 After the war, the artist returned to his delicate, vague, surrealist landscapes and little still-lifes. |