An arrangement of vines and apricot branches stands on a table, its edge bearing the legend ”Ottmr. Elliger Fecit 1667”. Despite the naturalistic depiction of fruit and leaves marked by the colours and decay of autumn there is something unnatural about the entire scene, about the way in which everything hovers in the air. Gravity has been suspended. The unnatural aspect is exacerbated by an ear of barley bearing a large grasshopper hanging down from above, describing a diagonal curve down through the entire pictorial space.
Generally, butterflies and ears of corn in still lifes from this period refer to life beyond our earthly existence (in Heaven), to the Resurrection and to nature’s God-given cycle of revival. A grasshopper can have several, mutually exclusive meanings within the iconography of the age, but within this composition the most likely reading would focus on its function as a symbol of the soul.
The world view from which Ottmar Elliger’s painting sprang may well have been influenced by the religious scene of the day. One of the best-liked writers within Protestant popular devotional Christianity was the German theologian Johann Arndt (1555-1621). In his books Paradiesgärtlein and Vier Bücher zum wahren Christentum he presents a cosmological philosophy in which all the individual links of nature form a chain.
The death of plants, followed by another cycle of growth, is interpreted as a symbol of mankind renouncing its old self, girding itself with a new and better self cleansed of sin. One possible metaphysical meaning of the fruits and vine might also be found in the devotional literature of the period, e.g. the so-called plant sermons. Here, the fruits of plants are often interpreted as Christian believers. The grapes on the vine act as a symbol of the Christian community. Just as the grapes are part of the vine, so all Christians belong to Christ.
