Sánchez Cotán established the prototype of the Spanish still life, called a bodegón, composed mainly of vegetables.
Characteristically, he depicts a few simple fruits or vegetables, some of which hang from a fine string at different levels while others sit on a ledge or window.
The forms stand out with an almost geometric clarity against a dark background.
This orchestration of still life in direct sunlight against impenetrable darkness is the hallmark of early Spanish still life painting.
Each form is scrutinized with such intensity that the pictures take on a mystical quality, and the reality of things is intensified to a degree that no other seventeenth-century painter would surpass.

Norman Bryson describes Sánchez Cotán’s spare representations as abstemious images and links his work to his later monastic life.
They are supposed to express a monastic denial of worldly pleasure and richness: "Absent from Cotán's work is any conception of nourishment as involving the conviviality of the meal .... What replaces their interest as sustenance is their interest as mathematical form."
His fruits and vegetables are arranged in beautiful ballet like compositions.
The Carthusians are vegetarian, but many of his works contain game birds.

He depicted few artifacts other than the strings from which vegetables and fruits dangle, this being the common means in the seventeenth century of preventing food and vegetables from rotting.
Even if the objects are arranged so that they seem close enough to touch, they are nevertheless distanced.
For all the realism with which they are depicted, the isolation of each object, heightened further by the black background, lends them a monumental, almost sculptural gravity.
Sánchez Cotán established the prototype of the Spanish still life, called a bodegón, composed mainly of vegetables. Characteristically, he depicts a few simple fruits or vegetables, some of which hang from a fine string at different levels while others sit on a ledge or window. The forms stand out with an almost geometric clarity against a dark background. This orchestration of still life in direct sunlight against impenetrable darkness is the hallmark of early Spanish still life painting. Each form is scrutinized with such intensity that the pictures take on a mystical quality, and the reality of things is intensified to a degree that no other seventeenth-century painter would surpass.
Norman Bryson describes Sánchez Cotán’s spare representations as abstemious images and links his work to his later monastic life. They are supposed to express a monastic denial of worldly pleasure and richness: "Absent from Cotán's work is any conception of nourishment as involving the conviviality of the meal .... What replaces their interest as sustenance is their interest as mathematical form." His fruits and vegetables are arranged in beautiful ballet like compositions. The Carthusians are vegetarian, but many of his works contain game birds.
He depicted few artifacts other than the strings from which vegetables and fruits dangle, this being the common means in the seventeenth century of preventing food and vegetables from rotting. Even if the objects are arranged so that they seem close enough to touch, they are nevertheless distanced. For all the realism with which they are depicted, the isolation of each object, heightened further by the black background, lends them a monumental, almost sculptural gravity.
Juan Sánchez Cotán