Still Life

The painting depicts a still life consisting of fruits, a glass tray, a vase and flowers. These objects are the optical centre of gravity on the canvas. They are placed against the drapery – the rectangle dominant in the upper part of the composition, stretching to the edge. The painting subject seems to be an excuse to show the richness and diversity of colour patches: saturated and luminous, with a predominance of warm, golden-ochre tones, complemented by orange and redness, which are brightened by impastoed white highlights, and fading at the edges of the canvas with blue, green and violet tones. Cool, broken colours seem to cover the main motifs, focusing attention on the essence of presentation – a fragment of the reality: still life set in the interior, which does not play a very important role. This ”ordering” procedure is used by the artist in many pictures, regardless of the subject matter. The patch of colour plays a major role and becomes almost the self-reliant painting value. The shape and volume of items are subject to perdition, the area was flattened, the existence of a third dimension is indicated only by the overlapping of individual elements (emphasized by the intermittent dark contour) and the experience gained from the observation of reality. The picture was painted vividly: with short, multi-directional brush strokes, giving a delicate yet clear and rich texture. It is provided by the multi-layered technique of paint application, covering the former versions of a painting (including the figure originally located at the right edge), enriching its colouration. [M. Ipczyńska]