The Basket of Apples by Paul Cézanne

It was painted in 1803. The Basket of Apples is a still life oil painting by French artist Paul Cézanne. It belongs to the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In The Basket of Apples the objects have lost something of their individual character a bottle and fruit and almost become cylinders and spheres.

Cézanne captured the solidity of each object by juxtaposing color patches. He also depicts a table from different perspectives. The artist became obsessed with multi-perspective approach to the canvas. The right side of the table is not in the same plane as the left side of the table, which was a stylized method used by Cézanne to incorporate the differences of viewpoint into an impressionistic still life.

The biscuits on a plate are carefully stacked but they too seem animate, as of straining to take in the drama unfolding before them.
The Basket of Apples by Paul Cézanne

The Card Players by Paul Cézanne

He painted The Card Payers during 1890-1892 with five different versions that varied between two card players to three players with two onlookers.

The compositions were based in detailed pencil, watercolor and oil studies. The table is the center of the scene; it is the meeting point for the diagonals of the players bent arms, as well as the focus of their gaze.

In 1936 The Card Payers was bought by an American collector for five million francs. In 2011 Qatari royal family has paid $250 million for the painting making it the highest price ever paid for an art work.

The Card Players by Paul Cézanne