Nature morte à l’œuf cassé 

Léonor Fini made this still life painting with oil on canvas. Fini’s choice of materials—oil paint, canvas, and brush—place her squarely within a tradition of Western fine art painting. Yet, consider the objects she's chosen to represent: an eggshell, leaves, a scrap of cloth, and a gilded fragment. These are things that would usually be discarded, considered without value. Notice how the texture of the leaves contrast with the smooth eggshells and the rich folds of the cloth. The eggshells, broken and empty, suggest fragility and the transience of life. The gilding, once part of a larger, perhaps grander object, is now just a remnant, divorced from its original context. The arrangement feels deliberately casual, as if these objects were simply left where they fell. But painting is a slow, deliberate process. The artist's hand is evident in the careful rendering of light and shadow, in the way each object is given equal attention and consideration. Fini elevates the mundane, challenging our assumptions about what is worthy of artistic representation.