Still Life with a Curtain

Around 1895, Paul Cézanne set up a familiar scene on his table: a bunch of apples and oranges nestled in shallow dishes, a white pitcher decorated with painted flowers, a rumpled tablecloth, and a thick patterned curtain hanging heavily on the left. These humble objects were his favorite subjects, and he returned to them over and over. He worked so slowly that fresh fruit would sometimes spoil before he finished, so he occasionally swapped in wax replacements to keep going.

Something feels a little off if you follow the edges of the table behind the cloth, and the fruit appears to be seen from a few angles at the same time. This was completely on purpose. Cézanne cared less about copying exactly what the eye saw and more about constructing sturdy shapes from patches of color and careful brushwork. That approach of breaking things down into planes lit a spark for younger artists, and Picasso himself credited Cézanne as a foundation for Cubism. Often named the father of modern art, he managed to turn a plain arrangement of fruit into a quiet turning point for painting.