The Vase of Tulips

The Vase of Tulips by Paul Cezanne: The table in this still life of flowers and fruit appears in several of Paul Cezanne’s other paintings, although scholars d…

What to notice

Test the vase, fruit, cloth, and table edges against one another; small shifts in angle reveal Cézanne revising the arrangement while preserving its tension.

Discover

The table in this still life of flowers and fruit appears in several of Paul Cezanne’s other paintings, although scholars do not agree about which of the artist’s residences housed this piece of furniture. As is typical of Cezanne’s work, the painting is carefully considered and the composition hard won: the traces of at least three other pieces of fruit (presumably oranges) at lower left and near the vase attest to the artist’s changing opinion as he struggled to make the arrangement work. Even in the final versi…