The new Resident Evil just dropped, and while reviews praise its gameplay, for me, these games have always delivered the experience of absorbing a wonderfully peaceful life. Yes, most of your time will have you walking around a post-apocalyptic place with a pistol while trying to avoid zombies, but the main activity is not fighting them. Instead, she’s picking up hand-sized objects piece by piece and turning them around as you search for keys and clues. These might include a cup, a rotten apple, a note from a repentant scientist, a vase. All this gloomy ephemera is rendered with the latest graphics technology as you rotate it under an inexplicable light source and admire its semi-realistic art style.
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) was someone who made great strides in the still life medium using painting technology, to the point that Pablo Picasso referred to him as “the father of us all”. His work is currently the subject of a successful show at the Fondation Beyeler near Basel, which brings together around 80 paintings from his later career: 58 oil paintings and 21 watercolors from institutional and private collections in Switzerland, France, Germany, England, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United States. Although many come from sources such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum and the Musée d’Orsay, over half come from private collections and have rarely been seen in public.
Among them are 14 of the artist’s favorite natures with fruit, including Apples and Oranges (circa 1899). This is a painting of generosity. At least two dozen pieces of fruit crowd the pristine tablecloth in such abundance and random positioning that they look like they might push each other off the table. It is difficult to tell whether their colors come from the skin, from the light in the room or from the ambient reflections of other fruits nearby. Each ball of pigment is crafted with such care, each boasting a personalized border that separates it from the world, that you begin to feel they have their own personalities. Cézanne worked slowly and apparently preferred apples to other fruits because they took so long to spoil.
This may be a personal favourite, but the show also features a host of his famous masterpieces, including Card players (1893-1896). What is strange about these fellows is that even though they are most likely doing battle, they seem to be as wrapped up in themselves as the fruit. Behind them the tavern rolls. Perhaps this is where all the tension went, the background where Cézanne’s signature patchwork hits the brushstroke
Residents Group (c. 1895) may be an amalgamation of the two works described earlier. Here, the liberated background calls out in greens, blues and magentas, the backs of which are washed with the same level of chaotic characterization as the fruit in the first work described. All three are masterpieces in a show that seems to be filled with them.
“Cezanne“ is on view at the Beyeler Foundation until May 25, 2026.
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