CÉZANNE, Paul
(b. 1839, Aix-en-Provence, d. 1906, Aix-en-Provence)

Still-Life with Flowers and Fruit

1888-90
Oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm
Nationalgalerie, Berlin

This magnificent still-life shows Cézanne at his most fulfilled and fulfilling. Here the ginger jar, pears, and flowers, all placed on a turbulent swirl of tablecloth, bespeak a world of both fixity and change, where the ceramic's immutability stands in dramatic contrast to the passionate, organic vulnerability of the fruit and the frail, short-lived flags of waving flowers. Like Matisse, Cézanne returned to the most abundant, extravagant Dutch and Flemish Baroque still-lifes as a point of departure for his own.