File:David Ligare Still Life with Grape Juice and Sandwiches.tif

Painting by David Ligare, Still Life with Grape Juice and Sandwiches (Xenia) (oil on canvas, 20" x 24", 1994. Collection: de Young Museum, San Francisco). The image illustrates a key body of work David Ligare's art beginning in late 1980s when he embraced the time-honored genre of the still life as a means to empirical investigation. As in this image, the altar-like "set" he commonly uses introduces a spiritual counterpart to the material, an idea manifest in his subjects—often food and drink items that recall depictions of offerings to the gods in ancient frescoes that serve as inspiration. This work conveys themes of hospitality and social responsibility, depicting simple offerings common to a homeless shelter at which Ligare volunteered. This body of work and individual piece were publicly exhibited in prominent exhibitions and discussed by critics in major art journals and daily press publications, and acquired by museums.

Artist David Ligare. Copyright held by the artist.

David Ligare

Entire artwork

Yes

The image serves an informational and educational purpose as the primary means of illustrating a major, longstanding body of work in David Ligare's career beginning in the late 1980s: his adoption of the still life, which he employs to further his empirical investigation of beauty, the structure of the visible world, and ancient laws of nature. These paintings have been described as having a mystical simplicity. They distill concepts such as the classical balance of opposing, symmetry and integration through perceptual analyses of objects, light and shadows. While they are archeological and historical in their embrace of a time-honored genre, they are also present-focused in their call to closely examine and revere the commonplace. He frequently stages his still lifes in a small, precisely proportioned altar-like enclosure that serves as a neutral background against a Pacific Ocean backdrop. Because the article is about an artist and his work, the omission of the image would significantly limit a reader's understanding and ability to understand this key body of work, which brought Ligare longstanding recognition through exhibitions, coverage by major critics and publications and museum acquisitions. Ligare's work of this type and this series is discussed in the article and by critics cited in the article.

There is no free equivalent of this or any other of this series by David Ligare, so the image cannot be replaced by a free image.

The image will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original due to its low resolution and the general workings of the art market, which values the actual work of art. Because of the low resolution, illegal copies could not be made.