Still-Life with Musical Instruments

still-life

This painting is one of the most successful examples of Baschenis's lifetime pursuit: the painting of still-lifes of musical instruments. It shows the artist's unflagging attention to the forms of his subjects, which are geometrical and capricious at the same time. The instruments are studied under a light that reveals their inner poetry but leaves their age-old shape and substance intact.

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About the Artist

Evaristo Baschenis

1617 – 1677

Italian painter, the most prominent of a family of artists recorded from 1400. He was ordained c. 1647 and painted a few religious subjects, but his fame rests chiefly on his beautifully poised and polished still-lifes of muscial instruments. His predilection for the subject may have been associated with the contemporary fame of the Amati family of violin-makers of Cremona, which is near to Baschenis's native town of Bergamo. The Accademia Carrara there has the best collection of his paintings.

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