[f. STILL a. + LIFE sb., after Du. stilleven (in the 17th c. also stilstaand leven, stilliggend leven). Cf. G. stillleben, in the 18th c. stillliegende sachen (Zedler 1744).
The Du. expressions have been found only in the sense explained below, but it is presumed that they were originally applied to representations not of inanimate objects but of living things portrayed in a state of rest.]
Inanimate objects, such as fruits, flowers, dead game, vessels, etc., as represented in painting. (For other uses see STILL a. 5 b.)
1695. [R. Graham], Short Acc. Painters, in Dryden’s Dufresnoy’s Art Paint., 277. His peculiar happiness in expressing all sorts of Animals, Fruit, Flowers, and the Still-life.
1701. Wanley, in Phil. Trans., XXV. 2004. In the Still life indeed, the Eye is quickly deceiv’d.
1706. trans. De Piles’ Art Painting, 440. Kneller … did also several Pieces in Still-Life exceedingly well.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), III. 19. He painted still-life, oranges and lemons, plate, damask curtains, cloths of gold, and that medley of familiar objects that strike the ignorant vulgar.
1859. Gullick & Timbs, Paint., 51. Still-life is the exact imitation of immobile objects, such as fruit, flowers, and eatables.
attrib. 1867. Contemp. Rev., VI. 387. Landscapists and still-life painters ought to go through a course of real drawing.
1887. W. P. Frith, Autobiog., I. iv. 52. He still insisted that I should paint a composition of still-life objects.
1898. Gosse, Short Hist. Mod. Engl. Lit., vii. 236. But these pedestrian studies of nature had no passion in them; they were but passages of an inventory or a still-life painting.
