''The Basket of Apples'' (French: ''Le panier de pommes'') is a

still-life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...

oil painting by French artist

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...

, which he created c. 1893. The painting rejected realistic representation in favour of distorting objects to create multiple perspectives. This approach eventually influenced other art movements, including

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

and

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

. It belongs to the

Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection The Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection is an art collection held by the Art Institute of Chicago.Art Institute of Chicago It is based on a collection assembled by Helen Louise Birch and her husband, Frederic Clay Bartlett. Birch and Bartlett ...

of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

Background

Since the Neoclassical era, the subject of still life had been largely dismissed by artists as a trivial subject. It had not been considered to be of the same importance as religious and historical paintings or even landscapes and portraiture. The exception to this was a brief period in 17th-century Northern European art, particularly in the Netherlands, although this had little impact. This neglect of still life in art made it an attractive subject for Cézanne, who considered the subject to be a blank slate upon which he could experiment. Due to the lack of conventions in the depiction of the subject, Cézanne was given the freedom to create meaning within this largely untouched area. With his paintings of still life, Cézanne effectively reinvented and reinvigorated the subject, which then had great influence on artists of the 20th century, such as

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

and

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

Description

''The Basket of Apples'' is an

oil-on-canvas Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

painting that depicts a table holding a bottle and a basket full of apples. The canvas measures 65 cm x 80 cm and is signed "P. Cézanne" at the lower left. The painting is noted for its disjointed perspective. It has been described as a balanced composition due to its unbalanced parts; the tilted bottle, the incline of the basket, and the foreshortened lines of the cookies mesh with the lines of the tablecloth.Schapiro, Meyer (1988). ''Cézanne'', New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, p.96. . The table depicted in the painting is tilted, with no right angles, creating an impossible shape. The basket of apples also tilts forward, and appears to be held in place by the bottle and folds of the tablecloth. In this painting, Cézanne had not intended to depict the objects in a realistic manner. He used heavy brushstrokes to create a greater density than would be seen in real life. He once described art as "a harmony running parallel to nature". This objective to create harmony in composition and structure is evident in this painting. In creating this composition, Cézanne was challenging the idea of linear perspective. Since the Early

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

, artists had used a single vantage point in order to create the illusion of space. Cézanne recognised that human perspective is far more complex than viewing an object from a frozen point in time. Instead, he created a representation of sight in motion, with objects viewed from varying viewpoints. With this aim, he deconstructed the image, by carefully suggesting different perspectives. This is evident in the way that the cookies are depicted on the table, which appear as seen from the side, but also slightly from above.

Significance and legacy

''The Basket of Apples'' demonstrates how Cézanne employed multiple perspectives, a vivid colour palette and analytical brushwork to produce creative compositions in opposition to realistic depictions of everyday objects. Because his paintings were the precursor to

and

, Cézanne has been described as the "Father of Modern Art". The distortion displayed in this painting was a process that influenced the work of

and

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

. This was noted by Braque in 1957, who stated, "The hard-and-fast rules of perspective ... were a ghastly mistake which it has taken four centuries to redress; Paul Cézanne and after him Picasso and myself can take a lot of credit for this."

References

External links

*
The Basket of Apples
' at The Art Institute of Chicago {{DEFAULTSORT:Basket of Apples Paintings in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago Paintings by Paul Cézanne Still life paintings 1893 paintings Post-impressionist paintings

Background

Description

Significance and legacy

See also

References

External links