Still Life with a CurtainAI

Painted around 1895, this still life shows Paul Cézanne doing what he loved most: arranging simple objects and studying them with endless patience. You can see a heavy patterned curtain falling on the left, a white pitcher with painted flowers, a crumpled tablecloth, and a generous spread of apples and oranges resting in shallow dishes. These were the kinds of everyday things Cézanne returned to again and again, often spending so long on a setup that the real fruit would start to rot, which is why he sometimes used wax pieces instead.

Look closely and you will notice the table edges do not quite line up behind the cloth, and the fruit seems to be viewed from slightly different angles all at once. This was no mistake. Cézanne was less interested in copying what the eye sees and more in building solid shapes out of color and brushstrokes. His way of breaking objects down into planes and forms made a huge impression on younger artists, and painters like Picasso later pointed to him as a starting point for Cubism. Often called the father of modern art, Cézanne turned a humble bowl of fruit into something that quietly changed the course of painting.