View of gallery a still life flower arrangement and William Claesz Heda's "Still Life," and Chardin's "Still Life," for the Still Life and Flower Paintings exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art in late fall of 1945. The concept for the exhibition grew in response to persistent questions from museum patrons about abstract art, often asking what pieces of art meant, or what they were supposed to be. The Baltimore Museum of Art hoped to respond with this exhibition by showcasing the composition and the artists' technique of secondary objects, hopefully enabling the audience to approach artworks by looking at the fundamentals, without being distracted by over-scrutiny or contrived meaning. The exhibition included works spanning from the origin of still life painting in the seventeenth century Dutch world to more modern American works from the twentieth century. The purpose of this range was to allow for an easier comparison of each artist's artistic style and purpose in painting inanimate objects.