La nature morte (1) - De la renaissance au baroque

Une nature morte est une œuvre d'art représentant des sujets dénués de mouvement, soit naturels, soit fabriqués par l'homme.
With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greco-Roman art, still-life painting emerged as a distinct genre and professional specialization in Western painting by the late 16th century, and has remained significant since then. One advantage of the still-life artform is that it allows an artist much freedom to experiment with the arrangement of elements within a composition of a painting. Still life, as a particular genre, began with Netherlandish painting of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the English term still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven. Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. Later still-life works are produced with a variety of media and technology, such as found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound.
Sources :
Dictionnaire universel de la peinture - Le Robert
Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Jean Mineraud - Les dessous du visible