The origins of still life as an independent genre go back to the Italian Renaissance city states and the cities of the Low Countries, the founding centers of early capitalism. Its emergence reflected the increasing wealth that created a market for domestic paintings, the material opulence of the new culture, but also a new analytical realism; an interest in objects and objectivity, and in the visual process itself, that embodies the spirit of early modern science.   The depiction of objects naturally caters to the celebration of material values. Since the painting is itself ...