Still life is is anything but still. The diversity of subject, style and affect highlighted by Impressionist Still Life at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) explores a broader definition of still life, questioning how the genre ever acquired its historical reputation for being boring, inexpressive and insignificant.

Impressionist still life painting is “based on traditional prototypes, but taken to a more innovative level,” says Alexandra A. Lawrence ’93, Research Fellow in the Art of Europe Department at the MFA, and part of the curatorial team behind Impressionist Still Life. As Impressionism took root in Paris in the 1860s, artists became less concerned with faithfully representing their subject and more concerned with individual composition.

The MFA’s blockbuster show—the first major exhibition anywhere devoted to this subject—synthesizes an overwhelming amount of information in seven galleries. The show includes ninety paintings by sixteen artists, spanning forty years of history.

“The masterpieces featured in Impressionist Still Life beautifully tell the story—too long overlooked—of the artists’ fascination with the power of still life as a tool of individual expression,” said George T. M. Shackelford, the show’s curator and Chair of the Art of Europe Department at the MFA. “I think that even those who have studied Impressionism in depth will be surprised and delighted by what this exhibition reveals.”

The exhibition flows almost chronologically, beginning with the realism of Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), and ending with the postimpressionism of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). The viewer does not get a snapshot of one small movement, but instead comes away with a sense of what happened artistically between the classic 18th century still lifes of Jean-Siméom Chardin and the 20th century innovations of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Related paintings are placed side by side to inform the viewer’s understanding of both the history and the aesthetics behind Impressionist still life painting.

Impressionist Still Life brings to life Edouard Manet’s claim that “a painter can say all he wants to with fruit or flowers.” One example of still life as an outlet for personal expression is “Hollyhocks in a Copper Bowl” (1872), painted by Courbet when he was in prison. The flowers, a symbol of death in Dutch painting, emerge drooping and threatening from a black background, creating a horrible effect unexpected in still life.

The exhibition is everything but a catalogue of flowers and peaches: the paintings depict shoes, tea sets, books, skulls, figures, and carcasses. Experimenting with unique subject matter allowed impressionists to stretch the limits of still life painting, and the exhibition successfully illustrates this breadth. The range of artists is also extraordinary, from those known for still lifes like Fantin-Latour and Cézanne, to those known for landscapes like Monet, Pissarro and Sisley, to those known for figure painting like Degas, Cassatt and Caillebotte.

The paintings in Impressionist Still Life were chosen for their quality, innovation, and cohesion, and borrowed from over fifty public and private collections worldwide. One painting, never previously shown in the United States, is Claude Monet’s (1840-1926) rare “Jar of Peaches” (1866), which depicts a jar of canned peaches and a few fresh peaches on a glossy marble surface. The painting exemplifies Monet’s obsession with surface, texture and reflection in an unusual arena for the landscape maestro. Of Monet’s two thousand catalogued works, only three percent are still lifes.

Two other jewels of the exhibition, equally distinct and eloquent, were painted by Monet in 1872. “Still Life with Melon” and “The Tea Set,” which hang side by side in the Gund Gallery, show Monet’s experimentation with both traditional and nontraditional still life. “Still Life with Melon” features the heavy round shapes of the melon, peaches, plates and grapes, balanced with traditional bourgeois taste. In contrast, “The Tea Set” is evidence of Japanese influence on the Impressionist movement: a tea tray rests diagonally on the floor, as if the artist happened upon it accidentally. The painting is beautifully understated and fragile.

The paintings in Impressionist Still Life are all there for a reason, but some are more famous or considered more significant than others. Henri Fantin-Latour’s “Still Life: Corner of a Table” (1873), for example, is thought to be the culmination of what he was trying to do artistically: to arrange a still life so as to make it seem unarranged.

Mary Cassatt’s “Tea” (1879-80)—in which the antique silver tea set is more prominent than Cassatt’s sister and her companion—and Edgar Degas’ “The Millinery Shop” (1882-86) are both well-known portraits of materialism. Vincent van Gogh’s “Roses” (1890), painted in the last year of his life while in a mental asylum, introduces thick black outlines and cube-shaped petals into the composition of a vase of wilting roses. Paul Cézanne’s “The Kitchen Table” (1888-90) is a revolutionary still life because Cézanne shows that he has set up the table laden with fruit, jugs and a basket in his studio, and that he will not be confined by realistic representation or perspective.

Impressionist Still Life is rich with meaning because many of the paintings, as well as being important aesthetically, have anecdotal significance. They trace friendships and artistic influences among the featured painters and tell personal histories. Fantin-Latour’s beautifully balanced composition of color compliments, “The Betrothal Still Life” (1869), was the artist’s proposal of marriage to Mademoiselle Dubourg. “Moss Roses in a Vase” (1882) is a touching still life Manet painted while dying, composed of flowers given to him by friends (most of whom were Impressionists).

The atelier of Charles Gleyre in Paris in 1862 formed friendships between Impressionist greats including Claude Monet, Frédéric Bazille, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. Impressionist Still Life displays Bazille’s and Sisley’s versions of “The Heron,” which they painted side by side in 1867. Several Bazille and Renoir paintings were created while the two were sharing a studio.

Impressionist Still Life gives its viewer a broad and deep understanding of the Impressionist movement and still life painting. It succsefully captures the balance between tradition and innovation, history and aesthetics, convention and individual expression, world-famous works and those that are less familiar, and realistic representation and stylized arrangement.

IMPRESSIONIST STILL LIFE

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Through June 9