Delusions of Grandeui

The Oxford New American Dictionary defines "still life" as "a painting of lifeless things." Unfortunately, in most cases, a lifeless subject means a dull painting. And five rooms full of dull paintings--the MFA's "Grand Illusion: Four Centuries of Still Life"--definitely makes for a lifeless show.

The exhibit recently returned from a tour of department store galleries in Japan; the money the MFA made from renting out this show funded the massive Reubens retrospective the museum mounted last year. "Grand Illusion" feels like a second-tier, low-budget project. It draws from the permanent collection, as many shows do during times of economic stress, but it doesn't add the new twist that a show making use of frequently-seen pieces desperately needs.

Confusing and even careless categorization detracts from the potentially interesting idea of tracing a genre of painting through different eras, countries, and media. Several uninspired classifications such as "Fruit" or "Musical Instruments" divide the exhibition. One of the more interesting categories is "Vanitas" paintings which often include images of freshly-hunted animals, hourglasses or rotting fruit to suggest the passing of time and to remind people of their own mortality, hopefully promoting moral behavior.

In the gallery devoted to "Vanitas" images, the vast majority of the paintings are traditional scenes of hunted game; three modern works--a Max Beckmann, a Georgia O'Keeffe, and an Axel Kesselbohmer--show skulls. Not one seventeenth- or eighteenth- century painting shows any of the other symbols associated with passing time; after such a lengthy label description of the section, their absence is conspicuous. However, in the "Fruit" section and again in the "Trompe I'Oeil" section, there are perfect examples of decaying fruit (one label doesn't even acknowledge its symbolic value) that would have been far more effective in the "Vanitas" gallery.

The hesitant juxtaposition of contemporary works with older ones also creates a problem in the show. The collection includes some fascinating modern pieces that are perhaps more effective than the "standard" still lifes in exploring the real role of the genre. The contemporary works often play with scale, color, or perspective, provoking the viewer to think about new ways to look at objects that might otherwise seem mundane.

"Grand Illusions" reserves the last gallery for 20th-century still lifes and scatters other contemporary works throughout the rest of the show (which again brings up the question of classification--why are some of the 20th-century works in their own gallery and others interspersed in the other rooms?). In the first four galleries, the placement of the paintings and their labels only suggests a dialogue between works of different periods. A more effective and meaningful approach would be to hang an O'Keeffe flower, for example, next to a 17th-century rendering of a flower and challenge the viewer to think about how the two canvases present the same subject in different ways. Instead, older and more contemporary works are hung in separate clusters, across the room from each other.

Despite these shortcomings, some of the pieces in the exhibition are worth examining more closely. The sections entitled "Trompe I'Oeil" and "Twentieth Century Still Life" liven up an otherwise drab show. The former category merits a close look because of the amazing technical skill with which they were painted. Most notable is "The Slate" of 1890-94 by John Haberle, in which the entire canvas is painted to look like a chalky slate, complete with a wooden frame, and, as the label points out, uses scientific precision and detail to create a canvas that appears messy and smudged.

The 20th-century room provides some diversity of medium, scale, and color, which is welcome in a show in which the majority of the pieces are similar in size and palette. (The Japanese version of the show, according to the catalogue, didn't include the contemporary works, and, without them, must have been painfully dull.) Contemporary artists grapple with mass-produced products as subjects, trying to endow them with the individuality that every flower or piece of fruit naturally possesses. Barnet Reubenstein's "Oyster Pails" of 1978-79 shows stacks of hundreds of Chinese take-out cartons; though in reality they are identical, Reubenstein uses variations of tone and shading to make each one unique.

Another work in this gallery commands attention: Roy Lichtenstein's "Glass V," a human-size painted bronze sculpture of a drinking glass. It's the only three-dimensional work in the show (although it appears flat from most angles) and, as a sculpture, is less often on display than his many paintings.

Although some of the pieces are interesting enough, don't make a special trip to the MFA for this show. The radio commercial tries to make "Grand Illusions" sound intriguing: "There may be only one way to peel a banana, but there are countless ways to paint one." There are many confusing and unthinking ways to hang one, too.