Still Life with Apples

The still lifes painted after a stay in Paris in 1882–4 attest to the Viennese artist’s progressive approach. Starting in the tradition of the Munich realists around Trübner and Leibl, from this time onwards Schuch started to take his cue from Gustave Courbet’s still lifes, as well as the works Cézanne produced at the same time. Schuch repeatedly took a new angle to address similar arrangements, indeed we could almost term them serial. While paying attention to space and the material properties of the Objects, his main focus was on the composition and the effect of the colours. The white-and-blue tablecloth cuts horizontally across the entire image, and on it with broad brushstrokes he places Objects against an unreal dark background. Schuch in this way played an important part in the evolution of abstract painting in Germany. (Kathrin DuBois)