Claude Monet, 'Still Life', about 1869

Loosely painted in vibrant colours against a plain brown background, a still life of fruit is set on a tabletop covered with a crisp white tablecloth. Monet places two brightly coloured apples in the foreground, one red and the other red and green, shimmering with touches of white paint. In the wicker basket lined with vine leaves, four pears are meticulously stacked. A fifth stands to the left, partly behind three bunches of plump grapes. Monet carefully places a source of light to the left of the composition, as the shadows of both apples and pears fall sharply to the right.

The work was painted in 1867 when Monet was 27 years old. Like his contemporaries Edouard Manet and Paul Cezanne, in his early works Monet took inspiration from the 18th-century artist Jean-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779). Rediscovered in the 1860’s, Chardin was greatly admired for his modest still lifes consisting of humble domestic objects such as fruit, poultry, pots and kitchen utensils, placed on a table or ledge. Like Chardin, Monet would depict homely objects, but unlike that artist he would often depict his still lifes on top of white table linen. This simple cloth was possibly inspired by Manet’s still lifes of the 1860’s, in which he also included draped linen. Where Chardin’s still lifes are austerely arranged, Monet would intricately stage the fruits to create a dynamic composition. Here, the triangular pile of pears is placed strategically in the wicker basket, adding a diagonal line to the otherwise horizontal arrangement. In addition, the artist also carefully balances the variety of colours, contrasting the red and green apple with the yellow pears and multi-coloured grapes.

But why would Monet choose to paint a still life at a time when he was also working on more complex group portraits and vibrant seascapes? It is possible that he did so because they were a genre popular with dealers and collectors. In the same year, his submissions to the influential Paris Salon were rejected. Possibly, to conform with the more conservative trajectory of the Salon jury and Parisian collectors, Monet chose a subject and style he knew would be appreciated. Another possibility is that the work was painted simply on a rainy day, when the artist couldn’t go outside. After all, for most of 1867, Monet was living in Saint-Adresse on the Normandy coast, where wet summers are no exception. Whether a strategic choice or the result of bad weather, Monet’s still lifes are a remarkable fusion of traditional genre and personal vision.