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Claude Monet (1840-1926)
France, 1872
Oil on canvas
53 x 73 cm
Inv. no. 450
This painting dates from 1872, the same year as the famous Impression, soleil levant (Musée Marmottan, Paris). Although the compositional scheme may be based on Fantin-Latour’s Table with flowers and fruit (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), which adopted a classical approach to this genre, this work adds an innovative handling to the theme. This conception was paralleled at the same time in the work of Édouard Manet, who deliberately attempted to integrate the subjective content of his personal vision into his paintings of inanimate objects.
An ordered sequence of spherical forms provides a superb structure: the summer fruits create a subtle chromatic dialogue with the Chinese porcelain that is carefully positioned in the space, allowing the whole to be seen as a coherent artistic discourse. The open-air aesthetic that the Impressionists held so dear fills the canvas with light and lends it a unique originality. However, it is through his use of the colour that Monet best manages to express a situation that is essentially meant to be understood using one’s senses.
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