Rachel Ruysch’s Still Life is both sensory and scientific

At the Toledo Art Museum, Rachel Ruysch is filled with pure pleasure in his paintings by Rachel Ruysch, the first major exhibition dedicated to the extraordinary artist, organized with Alte Pinakothek in Munich and next to the Boston MFA. The visual brilliance of the Dutch Golden Age painter’s work features exquisite fruits and flowers of buzzing insect animations, enjoying joy in Tableau after Tableau. The dark background enhances the effects of each possible color dark saturated tone and is drawn in such a delicate touch that it can entice people to reach for and wipe off a drop of gathering dew.

The canvas is pleasant, but also as ambitious as Ruiz himself. She combines a large number of flowers in the overflowing arrangement, including tulips, marigolds, roses, iridescents, lilies, wool, and even corn ears, all seemingly stretching beyond the frame.

Is it insignificant to think of flowers in such an era? Writer Elaine Scarry claims that “the flowers are the most beautiful of all objects in the world.” Beauty, for horror, has a direct relationship with justice: it reminds us of our vulnerability, our sensitivity to things outside ourselves. Beauty is a key element of our interests. Just like life itself, the beauty of Ruiz’s arrangement is released and makes the certainty of death more precious. The stem is broken. The leaves are yellow and wilted. The lizard is ready to rush over a pile of fresh light eggs.

Different from symbolic Souvenirs Mori In many still lifes, Ruysch’s investment in the cycle of life seems to come from her involvement in ongoing scientific research. Ruysch’s father was a scholar who collected a series of natural history specimens that Peter the Great eventually purchased it. Ruysch has bees, beetles and butterflies that are easy to learn. She can also access Amsterdam’s growing plant collection, which her father has edited.

It is worth noting that Ruysch was not the only woman painting in the 17th century. Curator Robert Schindler rediscovered Rachel’s little-known work, Anna, a driving force to organize the show and put it in the sisters side by side with the sisters, and the exhibition shows how much they are in the conversation. The section dedicated to scientific illustrations also includes examples of several other female artists, including Maria Sibylla Merian, who went to the Dutch colony of Suriname to study insects at the age of 52. Currently, scientists are particularly interested in different forms of biological reproduction, which leads to a widespread fascination with the Suriname toads, which carry eggs on their backs. Ruysch’s father had a preservative specimen, which Ruysch explained in a letter to the Royal Society of London, putting her at the highest level of scientific exchange centre.

The exhibition greatly improved scholarships during Ruysch’s career. Curators collaborate with plant experts to stock many species Ruysch depicted in the catalogue of exhibitions. The study shows that the 1690s of non-local specimens rose as the Dutch trading network flourished. Her arrangement showed plants from at least five continents, including passionflower, cactus and stinky rotten flower (Orbea varietygata, The museum is native to South Africa and provides olfactory samples for this purpose). These are the products of natural global painting, colonialism and trade history that are inseparable from art history.

Although Ruiz’s arrangements are full of richness, they are also fragile things. There is little to be fixed to the proper element: in her first major work, the loose rope is loose, Stolen flowers and fruits hanging in front of a niche (1681), it seems almost incompatible with the task containing its bounty. We can easily imagine elements of her photos slipping out of the perfect alignment she wishes. Sometimes she further attracts fate by perching insects on already drooping stems like tiger moths in a garden on a tiny piece of wheat. Flowers in vase (1704);Moths encourage us to consider the effect of gravity on these carefully constructed worlds. In the 1692 portrait of Ruysch by Michiel Van Musscher (the curator believes she painted the floral arrangement of the scene), she deliberately put the bloom into place, staring at the audience casually, fully recognizing her talent. Ruysch assembled from a series of original materials before her, including cut flowers and plant illustrations, is much more than the sum of its parts.

Ruysch’s work suggests that the world blends together in its wonderful beauty, because we will. It is easy to see that she might feel this way in the powerful economic hub of Amsterdam in the 17th century. Now, this rude damage is obvious and can be responded by leaving nature to its own equipment. Ruysch invites us to think about what we might lose if we let go.