Still life

Etymology

A calque (loan-translation) of the Dutch "stilleven," from "stil" (still, motionless) and "leven" (life). The genre flourished in 17th-century Dutch painting, and English borrowed the term by translating its parts directly.

noun phrase · /STIL LYFE/
A depiction of inanimate objects — fruit, flowers, vessels, everyday things — arranged for their own sake.
What it names
A whole genre built on ordinary motionless things, where the interest lies entirely in light, texture, and arrangement rather than in a story or a face.
Example
The still life is just a lemon, a glass, and a knife — but the light on the peel is astonishing.
Related idea
A still life shows deliberately arranged inanimate objects; a tableau is a frozen arrangement of living figures posed as if in a picture. Both are staged and static, but the still life has no people in it.