Still Life with Peaches and Chestnuts 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted Still Life with Peaches and Chestnuts with oil on canvas, using the traditional still life materials of fruit and nuts set on a cloth. Renoir’s application of paint is loose and suggestive, rendering the textures of the fuzzy peach skins and smooth chestnut shells with an economy of means. This wasn't photorealism. It was about capturing a fleeting impression of the arrangement, a sensory experience rendered in pigment. But let's think about the making. The artist used materials sold to him by the burgeoning Parisian art supply industry. Canvas prepared in advance, pigments ground by factory workers, brushes manufactured en masse. The casualness of the composition belies its existence in a wider network of labor, economics, and consumerism. Renoir has imbued his subject matter with the sensibility of the era in which it was made. Understanding the conditions of artistic production, in addition to the artist's touch, reveals the cultural significance of works like this. It challenges the distinction between art and other forms of material culture.