La nature morte – « fixer l’empreinte du temps »

Pascal Quignard – contemporary French writer winner of the Prix Goncourt in 2002 – admits he seeks his models on the side of unknown musicians, erotic painters, all artists left out of account history. Indirectly addressing the issue of still lifes, Pascal Quignard located in the lineage of Marcel Proust, who defines the still lifes in his book Chardin and Rembrandt, as the way to fix the imprint of time. An expression of the seventeenth century that Quignard summarizes the captivating charm of these paintings: still life paintings are coites. In fact, what is now called improperly still lifes had to name this time “life coye” quiet life. These terms do not characterize a genre, they reflect the spiritual aspiration of these paintings.