Still Life. Victoria Charles
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Moscow
In Chardin’s painting, “inanimate objects” (the usual description of the genre at the time) blended together, as it were, to express in their own way the character of the national perception of the world.
Still Life
Unknown artist, first half of the 19th century
Oil on canvas, 115 × 92 cm
Art Museum, Sebastopol
While in his early still lifes Chardin paid tribute to the Dutch and Flemish traditions, his mature work marks the establishment of a new set of stylistics for the genre. Without himself being aware of it, Chardin resolved within the sphere of a little genre a task of great magnitude.
Still Life
Alexandre Gabriel Decamps
oil on panel, 28 × 24 cm
The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
And then came Cézanne. To a certain extent he drew the balance of European easel painting, the application of the still-life formula specifically to the landscape, the portrait and the composition with figures.
Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase
Simon Saint-Jean, 1856
Oil on canvas, 47 × 38 cm
The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
Now it required no effort of the imagination to see that the folds of drapes and the folds of a mountain, a person’s head and an apple are identified in a paintwork visual whole. Cézanne’s painting is devoid of isolated shapes and colours, just as it does not recognise the dichotomy of line and colour.
Still Life. Green Pot and Tin Kettle
Paul Cézanne, c. 1869
Oil on canvas, 64.5 × 81 cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
According to the painter and critic Emile Bernard, who recorded Cézanne’s thinking on art, the painter asserted that neither lines nor shapes exist – there are only contrasts.
Still Life with Fruits
Nicolae Grigorescu, 1869
Oil on canvas glued on wood, 38 × 71 cm
Location unknown
Shape is created by a precise interrelationship of tones, and if they are harmoniously juxtaposed, then the painting creates itself. For that reason the verb “model” should be replaced in the painter’s vocabulary by the word “modulate”.
The Buffet
Paul Cézanne, 1873–1877
Oil on canvas, 65 × 81 cm
Szépmüvészeti Muzeum, Budapest
In seeking out the fundamentals of expressivity, Cézanne did not draw sharp boundaries between genres. The objects on his table, be they jugs, cups or apples, are of no less significance than the figures in some painted “story”.
Still Life with a Soup Tureen
Paul Cézanne, c. 1877
Oil on canvas, 82 × 65 cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
He had a profound respect for the Old Masters, regarding them as intermediaries between art and nature. And since the study of the great variety of nature comprises the hardest part of a painter’s studies, a few objects gathered together can become a subject of universal significance.
Apples and Biscuits
Paul Cézanne, 1879–1882
Oil on canvas, 45 × 55 cm
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris
Not without Chardin’s influence, still life became a privileged genre in painting (although the very concept of genre was no longer as important as it had been). Many of the greatest painters of Cézanne’s era were indebted to him, including Gauguin, who overtly imitated Cézanne by intensifying the decorative, rhythmic aspect to the detriment of an integral understanding of the paintwork element.
Still Life. Pitcher, Fruits and Tablecloth
Paul Cézanne, 1879–1882
Oil on canvas, 60 × 73 cm
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris
Generally speaking, the impression emerges that Cézanne’s work served as a “key junction” in which the paths of European painting came together before diverging once again. It has become a cliché to speak about the link of inheritance between Cubism and Cézanne, although on closer examination the situation proves much more complex than supposed.
Dish of Apples
Paul Cézanne, 1879–1882
Oil on canvas, 55 × 74.5 cm
Collection Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur
One way or another this link does exist and clearly proclaims its existence in the powerful lapidary forms of the early Cubist paintings, in which still life will play an essential role as an experimental genre. The astonishing pace with which the language of objects changed in Picasso’s painting is eloquently demonstrated by the still lifes of 1906–1908.
Still Life with Fruits
Paul Cézanne, 1879–1880
Oil on canvas, 45 × 54 cm
The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
If there is anything that most closely expresses Cézanne’s celebrated behest, it is the still lifes which Picasso produced on the threshold of Cubism. The objects in them appear as symbols of “object-ness” itself, as if the artist intended to carve out in the thickness of paint graven images of minor deities – the patrons of form and substance.
Still Life with Dish, Glass and Apples
Paul Cézanne, 1879–1880
Oil on canvas, 46 × 55 cm
Private collection, Paris
The principle of “reverse perspective” together with dense texture creates the impression of a palpable density of space, which the founders of Cubism attempted to “tame” (to somewhat distort Braque’s words).
Apples and Leaves
Ilya Repin, 1879
Oil on canvas, 64 × 75.5 cm
Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg
Picasso never