Still Life

Luisa Aubert: 

When we look at this painting, one can quickly think that it is a story about a meal. There is fruit, there is a jug, there is a table. But these things are not presented to us as food. On the contrary, they work as tools to tell another story, a story about shape, colour, texture and the possibilities that the painting can offer.  

Narrator: 

This is Luisa Aubert, art historian at the National Museum, talking about the artist Paul Cézanne and his painting “Still life”. 

Luisa Aubert: 

What Cézanne does is to break with a long tradition, that when you paint still life, you bring out the fine porcelain, and add exotic fruits and flowers. But he goes into the kitchen and just picks up completely everyday things, which both you and I have, because he wants us to study them. He wants us to take a closer look at what all these different things evoke, both on their own and together. 

What is an apple like? How do I experience looking at an apple? What do I see when I look at that mug? Why does the table tilt this way?  

In this way, Cézanne brings out our curiosity and then he forces us to challenge the idea of what we recognize, and what becomes an alien experience with these familiar objects. 

Narrator: 

Cézanne had an analytical approach to his subjects. He changed and challenged the way we look at art and inspired a number of great artists. He no longer reproduced reality as a photograph and broke with the central perspective. 

Luisa Aubert: 

The central perspective is when the object that is far from us, becomes smaller than what is close to us, as we know from the natural world. This pictoral ideal goes all the way back to the 15th-16th century and broke with the previous flat and stylized imagery.  

When Cézanne breaks with the central perspective, he says that the world can be seen through a kaleidoscope. That different fragments and angles can be seen at the same time, because this is how we actually perceive the world around us. We perceive the world very subjectively.