The Basket of Apples

This still life's askew perspective gives it a dynamism it would not possess if it conformed itself to the physics of the natural world. The thick brush strokes give the painting a feeling of weight and great presence. "Art, Paul Cézanne once claimed, is 'a harmony running parallel to nature,' not an imitation of nature. In his quest for underlying structure and composition, he recognized that the artist is not bound to represent real objects in real space" (Art Institute Chicago, www.artic.edu).