Still life (Basket with vegetables)

On the tablecloth of a table that goes beyond the edges of the canvas, there is a fruit bowl in the center, full of fruit: mamey and pineapple showing their juicy pulps, two limes, a granadilla, a fig and a guava. To the left there is a basket with various vegetables (radishes, turnips, carrots, chayotes, onions, a pepper and a lettuce), a pig's foot and a piece of bacon. In the center, underneath the fruit bowl, lies a plucked hen with its legs up, and to the right is a ceramic pot with a wooden spoon, a copper pot, a glass, a decanter and its lid.

The neutral and dark background accentuate the color and textures of the fruit, vegetables and the various objects on the table, which are illuminated by an indefinite light source from the left side that projects the shadow of some of them onto the base of the table. 

The Puebla Academy in which Arrieta was trained, unlike the San Carlos Academy in Mexico City, promoted the production of the "minor genres" in the theory of the hierarchy of genres, such as still life (also called nature morte, pantry or dining room painting), the genre painting and the landscape in their various forms. Governed more by the guidelines of the Flemish and Dutch artistic tradition than by those of the French-Italian as in the capital, during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the Puebla Academy became the most important national production center for still life and traditionalist painting, which Arrieta made his specialties and for which today he is considered to have been one of their most celebrated practitioners. 

Most of Arrieta's still lifes follow the same composition with very little variation. The structure of the painting draws from an object, almost always of greater size than those that surround it, located in the center as vertical axis from which the various elements are distributed on the platform of a beige-colored table that serves as the base, and unfold across the pictorial field without showing their edges. When the painter signed his canvases, he used to do it in the middle of the edge of the table; however, in this case, the work is not signed. Another peculiarity that characterizes the still life of the artist is the neutral and dark background that surely served to accentuate the rich and varied color of the fruit, vegetables or flowers. All these properties are present in the two dining room paintings that are part of the Amparo Museum collection. 

As for the items that appear in the works, Arrieta alternated those of regional crafting with others of European or Asian origin, which reveal not only the diversity of the nineteenth-century Puebla people in their culinary culture, but also the fusion of varied gastronomic traditions that give fame to the City of Angels' cuisine. It was not by chance that these paintings were an intrinsic part of the decoration of the dining rooms in the houses of the bourgeoisie, and were the object of great demand, as evidenced by the copious number of still lifes made by Arrieta and other artists such as Manuel Serrano. Although in the painting at hand there are no objects of European or Asian manufacture, as in many other of Arrieta's pantries, the observer can identify some typical objects of craftsmanship, such as the terracotta jug in brown and black tones, a wooden spoon, a hammered copper saucepan, a wicker basket, a painted porcelain or crockery fruit bowl, the crystal glass and decanter, and delight in the meticulous drawing and the vibrant color depicted by the textures of the various materials, which are products of hand craftsmanship, but also of the fruits and vegetables, which are the products of a bountiful land.