Still life in front of a chest of drawers 1887

Paul Cézanne’s ‘Still life in front of a chest of drawers’ presents us with an intimate array of domestic objects rendered in oil paint. The composition, dominated by earthy tones, invites us to contemplate the relationship between form and space, challenging our conventional understanding of perspective. Notice how Cézanne flattens the pictorial space. Each object—the fruit, the cloth, the ceramic ware—appears to exist on the same plane, defying traditional notions of depth. Cézanne uses short, parallel brushstrokes in the construction of forms in a way that reflects the artist's concern with perception. The apples, rendered with visible, constructive brushstrokes, feel weighty and grounded. He constructs the objects not as illusions of reality, but as objects defined by their material construction and their own presence as constructed form. Through his manipulation of form, Cézanne destabilizes fixed perspective and representational conventions. Cézanne’s focus isn't on the imitation but on the structural integrity of the composition itself, paving the way for radical experimentations that would follow in the 20th century.