Objects with Souls

Still life painting exploded in the 17th-century Netherlands after the Reformation gutted the market for religious art. But these paintings of flowers, fruit, and silverware weren't just decorative. Many were vanitas paintings — moral reminders that all earthly pleasures are temporary and death is always coming.

When Protestant churches stripped away religious imagery, artists who had built careers painting saints and biblical scenes lost their primary clients overnight. They had to find new subjects and new patrons willing to pay for secular art.