This still life is typical of Cézanne’s
work in that it has his unique degree of realism and values are based on color
ratios instead of levels of gray. Many of the edges are defined with slow,
blended lines; the canvas has a flattened quality. Both of these
characteristics do not come off as “amateurish”, however. The color scheme is
analogous, pivoting on a full use of yellows. |
Small, organic, circular shapes (fruit) are surrounded by angled, perpendicular
and parallel edges (background). The underlying value or meaning to this
painting (to me) seems to be the exercise of creating a pleasing, balanced and
interesting work through elemental arrangement and repetition. Beyond my
intuition, a major portion of this work’s importance is marking Cézanne’s influence
on increasing western art’s experimentation with abstraction and reducing its
overall concern for projecting optical realism.
Carefully defined shapes, a warm color palette, color purity and sensitivity to
spatial volume intuitively blend together to create this composition. The
arrangement of shapes is quite sensitive, employing considered overlap, touch
and close-proximity to support the intuitive sense of object weight and surface
texture this painting communicates. This treatment also creates the
characteristic sense of spatial order infused in the canvas. Diminishing textural detail and the value contrast strategy support this work’s
sense of depth.
Elemental mass and this work’s rich development of
negative space create a truly stable sense of pictorial balance. Shape-to-shape value contrasts move from the light-to-mid-range in the
foreground and dense-to-mid-range in the background. There is pleasing balance
between rigid and curved edges, positive and negative space and the full use of
the value scale. This work is somewhat dominated by small shapes, warm colors
and diluted purity. The brightly-colored circular shapes create a repeating and subtle pattern,
causing the eye to move from shape to shape.
Careful examination of subjects shows that they are presented from more than
one vantage point. One example is the front table edge, which seems to be
viewed from a higher angle on the left than on the right. Cézanne
as a legendary artistic figure already carved out his position through his
intuitive adjustment of light and dense tones through color manipulation in
favor of value. He clearly installs multiple vantage points in this work
without the fragmented identity of cubism, a movement which works like this one
portends.
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