Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot

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.

Boucheron: the Accessory

Boucheron (Paris)

Zigarettendose (cigarette case)

circa 1924

     It is Beauty's briar rose rendered in enamel and gold, making it all the more delicate to handle. The design is complicated, but also simple: its visual success - or in other words, what makes it so eye-catching - relies on the crisp quality of its central register which is set over a discreet gilt roundel, but which uses only a few colours. With slabs of crescent-shaped red enamel, the rose petals form six puddles against the dark green blanket of leaves, each of whose buds seem to ripple outwards in slow motion. The gold specks which blot the roundel's inside give the design a subtle asymmetry, reflecting its Asiatic inspirations such as Japonisme and Chinese woodcuts. And while the foliage appears to be a miniature panel of stencilled glass, the two diamond-set wings appear to be natural sources of light, each illuminating and flanking the rose bed with geometric precision.

     Among these details, however, it is the coral clasp that plays the most important role. Not only does it hold the piece together as well as indicate the top from bottom, but it functions as a kind of bow - one that gives the case its final dab of colour, like the finishing touch of paint on a picture. Clicking the clasp open, is it possible to imagine the interior? Is it plain or elaborate, or does it reflect the cool elegance of its exterior? Either way, the language of smoking is an act of subversive communication, and with a tool such as this surely cigarettes are not the only things meant to be lit with desire.

François-Louis David Bocion

François-Louis David Bocion

Célestine

circa 1884

     A child sitting in a tree. She casually dangles her bare feet and legs down the spine of its trunk and she looks at us with an indirect stare - is she daydreaming? Around her the air is clear. Two poultry move lazily along the ground, perhaps looking for a bit of forgotten feed, and a pair of roughly-cut stone blocks rests at the base of the girl's perch. They seem cool and smooth, just as Lac Léman in the distance, and they remain as firmly attached to the ground as the house itself, probably generations' old.

     Notice that dividing the girl from the dwelling, and from the actual dirt floor beneath her, is the fine line of clothing hung out to dry in the wind. This sits just below the picture's centre, with its opaque colouring allowing it to easily blend in with its surroundings. Maybe this detail indicates that the child is daydreaming - that she has mentally separated herself from the material world in search of a solitude different from, or even better than, that depicted in the scene. The line of clothes, a sign of domesticity and labour, acts to 'divide' the girl in both the vertical and horizontal planes of existence, placing her up high in the safe cradle of nature. Only the branches and sky frame her figure, allowing just her feet to make contact with cultivation (are they not the only part of her that 'touch' the slanted roof?) and showing her as she truly is: a child lost in translation. 

     However, whether she chooses to remain grounded in reality or to escape and drift into the unknown, like the ship in the distance, we may only guess.