yeah, the thing about realistic still lives is its about how the painter is conveying visual information to the viewer. when its done well most people just get the perception of “oh, well, you just painted it exactly how it looks in real life” but thats actually just an illusion.
its like if a storyteller told a really epic amazing story about something that happened and u said, “well, you didnt really do anything, you just told us what happened”. the art comes in creating that illusion and making it seem like it was obvious how the story should be told.
likewise with painting. you can get so good at pushing colored dirt around that people say “well all you did was perfectly arrange this colored dirt and now when i look at the colored dirt i feel like im looking at fruit on a table” and theyre not impressed. lol.
this is part of why people like impressionism so much. the method by which a painter is conveying visual information+ constructing the picture is made much more explicit. if u close the gap towards realism too much it paradoxically looks like u “did nothing”. big art lesson there
