Free Essay. Visual Analysis of Paul Cezanne's Still Life with Apples 1895-98

Art can be elaborate or simple, depending on the audience. While some people may be able to visually analyses art to understand and appreciate the intentions of the artists, others cannot comprehend art. It is for this reason why the prices of some paintings usually surprise the majority of people. Artistic taste, therefore, depends on an individual's experience with art as well as their understanding of the creative process. In this context, this analysis explores Paul Cezanne's Still Life with Apples 1895-98, highlighting the different characteristics of the painting, including its subject, agenda, and the visual choices incorporated by the painter.

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Still, Life with Apples is a painting by French painter Paul Cezanne. The artist was a post-impressionist painter whose art laid the foundations to the transition of art from the 19th-century conception era to a new, more radical period in the 20th century (Marcikic & Paunovic, 2017). Cezanne is considered to be the pioneer of cubism and the bridge between it and 19th-century impressionism. His paintings were characterized by their repetitive stroke brushwork and their exploratory aspect. At the time, these properties were the signature of his work, and many art enthusiasts could identify paintings through them.

The painting is a product of the final period of Cezanne's work ranging from the year 1890 - 1906. During this period, the life of the artist was surrounded by troubling events and circumstances. To persevere, through the hard times, the artist became increasingly withdrawn from society and deeply invested his energy and time in his paintings. His paintings during this time became sought after more, and his person achieved a position of admiration and respect among the new generation of radical painters. It was in this period of his life that inspired the embryonic cubist style that was later popularized by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

As the name of the painting suggests, the artworks subject matter is still life painting. Considering the circumstances surrounding the artists as highlighted above, Cezanne was experimenting with new painting styles. In Still Life with Apples, the artists prove that the modest genre of art could be a vehicle for thinking through impressionism. According to Cezanne, painting from nature was not merely copying from it. Instead, it represented the realizations of the artist's sensations (Dominiczak, 2017).

The actual size of the painting is w927 by h686 millimeters. Inferring to these measurements, it is quite clear that the oil on canvas painting is a horizontal artwork since the width precedes the height of the material on which it is painted. The horizontal layout of the painting is compatible with the representations therein. For example, the layout perfectly fits the scenario. It represents where a bowl of apples is on a rectangular table by the window side. The preceding width to height ration allows for the best representation of the apples, which are the main objects of the still life painting (Marcikic & Paunovic, 2017).

Consequently, the relationship between the shapes and the frames of the painting is harmonious, especially since the frames do not come into contact with the shapes. The shapes are generously left within the center of the frame, thus appearing vividly with no interactions with the borders. From all angles and perspectives, therefore, the canvas format is sufficiently appropriate for the subject of Cezanne's art.

Cezanne reliably causes us to notice the nature of the paint and canvas, and we never lose ourselves in a hallucination. For instance, the edges of the natural product in the bowl are challenging to characterize, seeming to move before our eyes. Cezanne's scene resists the standards of direct viewpoint (a framework for making the hallucination of room on a level surface, wherein each article is seen from a single, fixed perspective) and instead gives us moving perspectives. The right corner of the table tilts forward and neglects to line up with the left side.

The pitcher, the bowl, and the glass all tilt to one side, as though attractively attracted to the blind. Even though the craftsman chipped away at this painting for several years, a few zones of the canvas are left uncovered, and others, similar to the wrap of the decorative liner on the right edge of the table, seem incomplete. Still, Life with Apples is more than an impersonation of life. It is an investigation of seeing and the very idea of painting.

Cezanne focused on the visual and physical characteristics of the paint and canvas and attempted to catch the full multifaceted nature of how our eyes take in the sights before us. He never focused on simple illusionism (Garcia et al., 2019). This is clear, for instance, in the edges of some of the apples, which have all the earmarks of being unclear, practically moving, and on the different sides of the table, which do not adjust. Cezanne left a few zones of canvas exposed. Different zones, similar to the correct wrap of the clustered decorative spread, seem incomplete.

Optics entranced Cezanne.

He attempted to distill usually happening structures to their geometric basics: the cone, the shape, the circle. He utilized layers of shading to develop surfaces and delineated his structures for accentuation. His profound investigation of geometry in painting prompted his turning into an ace of point of view. Cezanne had minimal open achievement and was over and over dismissed by the Paris Salon. In his last years and especially after his demise, more youthful specialists, among them Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, found and drew from his work.

While many people may consider Still Life with Apples, a pure art form or artistic rendering, the attention to detail within the painting suggests otherwise. For example, the figural scenes from the painting attest to much more than just simplicity, which is common in still life paintings. The kind of story depicted might appear to be natural and straightforward, yet in reviewing the circumstances surrounding the creation of the art, one may argue otherwise. As mentioned earlier, Cezanne was trying to uphold still life art from the modest regards the French Royal Academy had rendered it.

Despite the painting being a representation of a scene from healthy everyday life, attention to detail tells a far more in-depth story. One may see a reflection of Cezanne's life from the painting. For example, the setting of the table, the table cloths, and the scattering of the apples across the picture are a representation of chaos. Considering the health troubles that the artist was experiencing at the time, including a tumultuous relationship with his wife and the death of his mother, an enthusiast can argue that Cezanne was expressing his grief, sadness, or hollowness (Marcikic & Paunovic, 2017).

In perspective, however, the image presented by the painting is of a typical French dining table set up during the time. Regardless of it being an indoor setting, the dramaticism is evident in the untidiness of the tablecloth and the scatter of the fruits and wine glass on the table. Moreover, the right side of the table cloth seems unfinished compared to the rest of the painting, further cementing the spectacle.

Conclusively, the painting is an excellent example of the transition of modern art. It represents the dawn of impressionism and ushers in a world of cubism and abstract art. Nonetheless, it reinstates the artistic nature of still life paintings and their excellence regardless of their modesty. Still, Life with Apples is indeed a sophisticated yet straightforward artistic representation of Paul Cezanne's ideas of how art was supposed to be represented. Through the analysis above, one appreciates that indeed, art should not merely be copies of nature, but a representation of an artist's sensations.

References

Dominiczak, M. H. (2017). The Perseverance of Paul Cezanne. Clinical chemistry, 63(8), 1426-1427.

Garcia, N., Renoust, B., & Nakashima, Y. (2019). Understanding art through multi-modal retrieval in paintings. arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.10615.

Marcikic, I. J., & Paunovic, M. V. (2017). Inverse perspective in Cezanne's art. FME Transactions, 45(2), 301-306.