Sheldon’s ‘Poetical Fire’ exhibits culture, personal stories through still lifes

Mention Still Life painting and you may send the average person running for the hills in avoidance of tedious bowls of fruit.

Visitors to the Sheldon Museum of Art's "Poetical Fire" exhibition, however, will find themselves confronted with three centuries of Still Life paintings that represent flashes of culture, personal and national stories. The exhibition opens this Friday with a 5:00 p.m. reception at the Sheldon, featuring a lecture by Randall Griffey, the Curator of American Art at the Mead Art Museum of Amherst College in Massachusetts.

Griffey is an expert on American Modernist painter Marsden Hartley, who will have a handful of pieces featured in "Poetical Fire."

"It (‘Poetical Fire') is a great description for Hartley because he was also a poet," Griffey said. "And I think ‘fire' suggests something very passionate and emotional and my essay (which Griffey is using as a partial basis for his talk) has to do with the intersection of primitivism in modern art."

Hartley certainly pushed the conceptions of Still Life paints could be in the early 20th Century, but also key for the modernist painter was creating art that could be considered authentically American.

"Making ‘American' art was an important goal for American artists up until World War II," Griffey said. "Hartley was still a part of this culture where Americanism in art was important and especially important for Hartley because he'd been known as an ex-patriot."

In the art world Still Lifes have long been marginalized based on the stereotype that they don't fulfill some perceived qualifications of high art.

"There has been this perception that art elevates society and if you're goal is to elevate society, then the artists produces works of art that speak to human kind's highest ideals and aspirations," Griffey said. "Still Lifes have been called non-narrative, which is one reason they've been minimized."

It's an idea that Brandon Ruud, the curator of "Poetical Fire" and of Transnational American Art at the Sheldon can be laid to rest by the work that will appear on Friday.

"I think you can look at many of the paintings and see elements of the narrative whether it's historical or personal," Ruud said. "The 19th century paintings can be put in a context of American nationalism, democracy, republican values, so you can glean many of these morals that appear either wittingly or unwittingly."

From this standpoint that Still Lifes can be expressive and deep comes the name of the exhibition, "Poetical Fire," a phrase coined by the prominent 19th century art critic, James Jackson Jarves.

"By this he meant that rather than just capture the detailed intangible effects of reality in a highly delineated manner, that the painting was able to capture of the essence of Still Life," Ruud explained. "It suggests the challenges that all Still Life painters have been faced with throughout the centuries."

And while this is a brand new exhibition for the Sheldon opening on a First Friday, Ruud suggests a number of reasons for the importance of the showcase.

"The Sheldon's permanent collection is so rich in this genre and it gives people, whether they are new to Lincoln or have lived here for decades, an opportunity to see many works that haven't been on display for a while," he said. "And Randy really is an expert on Hartley; I think it'll be fascinating to hear an academic understanding of the Still Life subject."

Chancesolem-pfeifer@dailynebraskan.com