Natureza Morta, Maças e Peras (Nature Morte, Pommes et Poires) - Paul Cézanne

 

Natureza Morta, Maças e Peras (Nature Morte, Pommes et Poires) - Paul Cézanne
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OST - 38x46 - 1888-90


Few other painters are as synonymous with excellence in a single genre as Paul Cézanne stands in relation to the still life. With fastidious study and unwavering dedication, Cézanne elevated the humble academic genre to groundbreaking heights, forever altering the course of art history with a few pieces of fruit. Among his simplest yet most powerful still life arrangements, Nature morte: pommes et poires demonstrates an acute subtlety of emotion and stands as one of the purest distillations of the artist’s craft.
Such modest arrangements of apples, pears, tables and ceramics would fascinate the painter from his youngest days and chart the progression of his artistic development over his decades-long career. From the romantic and demonstrative early works like Sucrier, poires et tasse bleue, which aimed to challenge audiences through an ambitious and pronounced handling of paint, to the complex and carefully crafted compositions of his last decade, Cézanne continually reinvented his still lifes, bringing ever more nuance to each canvas.
Using a relatively narrow range of elements in each composition and often utilizing the same recognizable fabrics, baskets and pitchers, Cézanne rearranged and reimagined each ensemble resulting in new spatial relationships with radically different formal qualities. Nature morte: pommes et poires is a masterful exemplar of the artist’s mature still lifes of the late 1880s and 1890s, in which an assortment of simple fruits upon a tabletop are transformed into a pictorial statement of remarkable grandeur and sensitivity. Unlike some of his earlier works, which faithfully transcribed the appearance of the furnishings, paneling and wallpaper around him, the emphasis in the present work falls exclusively on the fruit.
Beyond the table surface is only a plain wall. In contrast to later still lifes in which the more flamboyant compositions are constructed with architectural white cloths or colorful drapes, the objects here are laid in a forward-facing arc which repeats the quiet ellipse of the plate. Upon closer examination, one notices the departure from conventional perspective; the table is tilted at a sharper, slightly diagonal angle compared to that of the plate, but such subtle juxtapositions are rendered less perceptible by the richly-colored fruits which surround it and draw the viewer’s eye. On either side of the composition, the bold hues of crimson and green are balanced by the soft yellows in the neighboring fruits and brought to attention against the bright, cool white of the plate at center. The visible stems of the pears and apples all splay in differing directions, directing the gaze in a circular motion around the center dish, and yet remaining bounded at nearly all angles by the table’s edge, save for the lone, piquing stem of the verdant pear. With these simple and delicate touches, Cézanne has achieved a painting of classic harmony while simultaneously exhorting his call to modernism through an understated yet unfaltering challenge of traditional perspective.
The artist, who proved notoriously difficult for his portrait sitters—often demanding dozens of lengthy studio sessions of his models—was perhaps best suited to such a genre which could afford him the time and quietude to master his examination of life. Cézanne’s ceaseless exploration of his craft was quite aptly and eloquently captured by critic Roger Fry, who stated: “Nothing else but still-life allowed him sufficient calm and leisure, and admitted all the delays which were necessary to him for plumbing the depths of his idea. But there, before the still-life, put together not with too ephemeral flowers, but with onions, apples, or other robust and long-enduring fruits, he could pursue till it was exhausted his probing analysis of the chromatic whole. But through the bewildering labyrinth of this analysis he held always like Ariadne’s thread, the notion that changes of color correspond to movements of planes. He sought always to trace this correspondence throughout all the diverse modifications which changes of local color introduces onto the observed resultant… It is hard to exaggerate their importance in the expression of Cézanne’s genius or the necessity of studying them for its comprehension, because it is in them that he appears to have established his principles of design and his theories of form” (R. Fry, Cézanne: A Study of His Development, Chicago, 1927, pp. 37 & 50).
It is masterworks like Nature morte: pommes et poires which have long been credited in inspiring the following generation of painters and helped usher the Modernist painting and sculpture which would define the twentieth century. A motivating force behind the revolutionary Cubist compositions of Picasso and Braque — who would demonstrate a similar dedication to the genre in the following years— Cézanne’s continual experimentation and the planar distortions best evinced in his still lifes directly challenged the way artists saw the world.
Contemporaries of Picasso like Matisse, whose focus never landed within the bounds of Cubism, also found great inspiration in the pioneering works of Cézanne, especially following his death in 1906. With its bold patterning, abundant fruit and starkly juxtaposed angles, Matisse’s Nature morte bleu from 1907 pays clear homage to the late master’s legacy. While Matisse particularly delighted in lush textiles, opulent designs and bright palettes, his choice of subject matter and precarious arrangement stand as a testament to his study of Cézanne’s work. Matisse’s illusory depth, bold outlines, unconventional scale and flat expanses not only recall but celebrate the technical ingenuity of the late painter and builds upon the foundation he created years earlier.
A poignant encapsulation of Cézanne’s greatest achievements, Nature morte: pommes et poires is a rare work of this caliber and emotional depth remaining in private hands. With an illustrious international exhibition history and provenance dating to epoque-defining dealer Ambroise Vollard, the present work stands unparalleled in today’s market. As Joachim Gasquet wrote of the artist a century ago, “To be a good worker, to fulfill his craft well, was the basis of everything for him. To paint well was to love well, for him. He invested himself fully, he lost himself with all his strength in every one of his brushstrokes” (quoted in The World is an Apple: The Still Lifes of Paul Cézanne (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 228).