The Vase of Tulipsc. 1890
Typical of Cezanne’s work, this painting is carefully considered and the composition hard-won: the traces of at least three other pieces of fruit at lower left attest to Cezanne's struggles to make the arrangement work. More about this work
About this work
Typical of Cezanne’s work, this painting is carefully considered and the composition hard-won: the traces of at least three other pieces of fruit at lower left attest to Cezanne's struggles to make the arrangement work. Even in the final version, there remains a tense spatial relationship between the objects, which seem to float in the picture plane rather than being anchored to the tabletop.
Text from the Art Institute of Chicago.
What you’re looking at
A work made of oil on canvas.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Paul Cézanne
French, 1839–1906 · Born and died in Aix-en-Provence.
Cézanne divided his life between Paris and his native Aix-en-Provence. Encouraged by his schoolfriend Émile Zola and later by Pissarro, with whom he painted at Pontoise and Auvers in the 1870s, he showed at the first and third Impressionist exhibitions. He then withdrew to Provence and worked towards a more structured art, building form from patches of colour in still lifes, bathers and repeated views of Mont Sainte-Victoire. Younger painters, Picasso and Braque among them, saw him as a founder of modern painting.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Post-Impressionism
Artists who kept Impressionism's colour but pushed towards structure, symbol and feeling.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1933.423
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
