Welcome to The Courtauld Collection 'In Detail' I'm Coralie Malissard
and I'm the Bridget Riley Art Foundation Curatorial Assistant here at The Courtauld
The detail that I'm focusing on today
is the sprouting onion that is in the lower left hand corner
of Paul Cézanne's 'Still Life with Plaster Cupid' from about 1894
as I hope to convince you in just a few minutes, I believe this painting isn't a
straightforward conventional still life
I might argue that Cézanne didn't simply paint the onion
as the passive studio prop it might at first glance appear to be
Cézanne makes this onion an important agent
in the pictorial composition
and one might go as far as to state that this
bulb vegetable encapsulates Cézanne's broader meditation
around the challenges of picture making
close looking reveals that this is actually one of his most radical compositions
it's a disorientating painting where
Cézanne distorts traditional perspective
the space is inconsistent
the arrangement of the different planes is uncertain
and the illusion of depth is avoided
if we look at the table in the
foreground of the painting where half a dozen apples, a couple of onions
and a cupid sculpture are laid
it's traditionally understood as representing reality
while the propped up painting against
the wall which incidentally depicts a similar subject
matter and has been identified as Cézanne's Peppermint Bottle from 1893
well that stands for an illusionary pictorial space
In this painting however Cézanne questions the expectation of illusionism
in painting and we therefore quickly realise that
illusion and reality are blurred
if we focus on the relationship between
the real fruit in the studio, those depicted on the table in the foreground
and the ones we see painted on the propped up canvas
our eyes keep having to move back and forth to the point where both depictions
of fruit become virtually indistinguishable
their relationship
actually reveals itself to be ambiguous
paradoxical
this is where the sprouting onion really comes into action because it
seems to exist precisely in that liminal space where
illusion and reality are blurred
the foliage acts as a sort of bridge
as a transition between these two spaces
for Cézanne contour usually existed as a way of highlighting where
one form ended and another began
but here there is no precise contouring
the stem seems almost painted into the canvas leaning up on the floor
they almost fuse with the table leg in the reproduced painting.
The use of infrared technology revealed that Cézanne carefully considered this
specific area and reworked it quite a few times
he had originally painted the sprouts in a much more defined way
but as we can see, he then consciously chose to blur this transitory space
this visual fusion, this ambiguity is heightened by the blue drapery which
seems to cascade down from the propped up painting
and blend itself with the hem of the fabric which is draped on the studio table
the uncertainty of the space is further
enhanced by the fact that the junction between the onion
and its green stem is made to align with the bottom of the propped up canvas
it's quite a jarring red line that cuts across the onion decisively at an angle
here we see Cézanne using red as an outline colour in order to throw things
into question and contrast
you no longer have
any certainty of where the objects are poised
is the canvas air touching the floor?
is the table solid?
what elements can we trust
Cézanne is said to have wanted to astonish Paris with an apple and I think in this
case the same could be said of an onion
while the still life has often unjustly been cast
as a conventional and stifled genre
I believe this work is testimony to its
radical potential
still life and specifically this painting gave Cézanne the freedom to choose and
arrange objects in picture planes and here we really see the artist
testing the inherent ambiguities and challenges of painting
It's remarkable to see how the depiction of a handful of veg lying around in the studio
can become a meditation in the art of
picture making highlighting the complex interplay between art and reality
Thank you for watching and I hope you
will join us for the next episode of 'In Detail'