Still Life with Orange

Still Life with Orange was painted during Bernard’s Cloisonnist, or Synthetist, period and it exhibits all of the hallmarks of that style. The composition is flattened, the colors are intense and pulsating, and the contours of the still-life elements have been gouged out to create distinct borders between the fields of color. It shows a bold departure from the broken brushwork and dissolving forms of Impressionism. Synthetism shows the clear influence of Japanese prints and resulted from a conscious effort to work less from nature and more from memory.