Mushrooms

still-life

The fact that this subtle still-life is known under the title Mushrooms is understandable given the prominent place taken by four boletus in the left foreground of the picture. This name fails, though, to do justice to the other elements that, precisely through their presence alongside the mushrooms, form an exceptionally balanced composition: to the left a wicker basket, to the right of it a melon, a root of celery and four thrushes, which, along with the warm, greenish brown colouring, appear to evoke autumn. It is not impossible that a reference to autumn is indeed woven into this jewel of a painting.

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About the Artist

Jan Fyt

1611 – 1661

Jan Fyt (also spelt Fijt), Flemish painter and etcher, primarily of still-life and hunting pieces. He was mainly active in his native Antwerp, where he was a pupil of Snyders, but in the course of his successful and prolific career he also travelled in France, the Netherlands, and Italy. Like Snyders, Fyt painted elaborate style of decorative still-life associated with the circle of Rubens. His most characteristic paintings depict trophies of the hunt, dead stags, hares, and birds, all treated with a feeling for texture and details akin to that often seen in Dutch still-life. The rare flower paintings by Fyt are exceptionally fine and more attuned, perhaps, to modern taste. Among his followers, Pieter Boel and David de Coninck were his most influential successors.

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