Paul Cézanne completed his composition Still Life with Plaster Cast in 1894 and as well as being one of the last paintings he completed in his career, it is one of his more famous still lifes.
This work is often seen as one of the most radical compositions that Cézanne produced due to its abstract tendencies that heralded the coming of the Cubist movement.
In Still Life with Plaster Cast there is a clear distorting of the image. A dirty white colored plaster cast of a young boy with no arms is stood on a table among some fruit. The armless plaster cast (a plaster cast of cupid) is stood next to a painting of a bowl that appears to be holding two onions. However there is a blue cloth that appears to drape down from the picture of the bowl to the table. In fact, there are two blue cloths in the painting. Cézanne was playing with the complex nature of art and reality and he enjoyed expanding true images.
Cézanne's Still Life with Plaster Cast was also unusual because of its subject matter choice. Not only was it a still life diverging from reality, but it was also mixing the mystical with the ordinary. The relationship between the natural and the mystical had been dealt with before (for example in Botticelli's Primavera) but Cézanne added a new element with his abstract tendencies.
After criticism and refusal to enter his works in mainstream exhibitions in 1895 Cézanne agreed with art dealer Ambroise Vollard to show his pieces in a solo exhibition. The showcase was very popular with a new audience who liked what he was doing in the studio.