With Still Life with Apples, Cézanne demonstrates that still life—considered the lowliest genre of its day—could be a vehicle for faithfully representing the appearance of light and space. “Painting from nature is not copying the object,” he wrote, “it is realizing one’s sensations.”
Cézanne consistently draws attention to the quality of the paint and canvas—never aiming for illusion. For example, the edges of the fruit in the bowl are undefined and appear to shift. Rules of perspective, too, are broken; the right corner of the table tilts forward, and is not aligned with the left side. Some areas of canvas are left bare, and others, like the drape of the tablecloth, appear unfinished. Still Life with Apples is more than an imitation of life—it is an exploration of seeing and the very nature of painting.