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Still Life with Fruit, Dead Game, Vegetables, a Live Monkey, Squirrel and Cat-- Franz Snyders
Hannibal’s aesthetic intentionally invokes “vanitas,” both the concept and the style of painting. I especially see Hannibal’s cinematography and food porn in the work of Pieter Claesz. The cinematography leans more blue than golden, though. Appropriate in that we no longer live by candle light.
Vanitas is the old school concept of “vanity,” which is closer what we’d call “nihilism” or “futility.” 16th century Dutch still lifes were commissioned by extremely wealthy and tasteful people who wanted to show off they could afford the luxuries in the painting, but also wanted to exhibit a proper Calvinist sense of their place in the world. So, e-v-e-r-ything in these still lifes is a reminder that you will one day die. It is intentionally lush, unsettling, and evocative of death. Food is half eaten or rotting, flowers are wilted, cups are overturned, the animals wild and either dead or struggling to survive. Very Hannibal.
I particularly think the still life with dead game sub-theme in the vanitas genre captures the “things come apart”/ Second Coming feel of the show. Don’t you think?
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