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La Pomme coupée et le Pichet (nature morte)
circa 1876
The apple's white flesh
gawps like an open mouth. It lounges on the table like a fruit too lazy to
care, too relaxed to consider its modesty. It seems to have taken pleasure in
being sliced apart by the knife because an element of self-pride oozes from its
cut. Shadowed by the brilliance of the shiny pitcher, the apple strains to show
all that it can; to prove that it is prettier than its neighbour (and maybe the
other apple, too). Rather than assuming the pitcher's grace and indifference, the
apple is an exhibitionist; it calls attention to its green skin and natural,
succulent curves as it poses and 'yawns' about without taste - and without
realising that its efforts are, ironically, fruitless.
Artificial and empty, the pitcher only
holds value in its function and shiny appeal; it is made of a material already
tamed and understood by human-kind and it therefore does not hold innate beauty.
Whereas the apple, wild and unpredictable, is not understood: it is an organic,
shape-shifting thing that does not fit into a mould but grows constantly and irregularly,
making its core of existence all the more beautiful than the pitcher's. It has
nothing to prove, nothing to compete against and no reason to make a show of
itself. The knife, the compositional balance of this picture, is what divides
the apple from the true fraud and, in a way, also 'points' to the only centre
of beauty: nature.
