Still Life with Fruit

Whitney Johnson

History 300

5-1-06

Simply Wonderful Still Life

I absolutely adore going to museums, so anytime I get to go it's a splendid experience. The only bad thing about going to the Crocker Art Museum was trying to convince Ryan to come along with me. After some prodding and pulling he caved in. There are so many great pieces at the museum but one that really caught my eye was a simple yet very intriguing piece. Painted by David de Heem I, Still Life with Fruit, 1622 oil on panel. This simple yet stunning piece really caught my eye and I decided to write my analysis of this piece.

In this very dark painting you feel as if there is nothing else in the world but the fruit and glass left on this wooden table. The background of the painting is very dark and has only a few different variations of color/shading seen in the back. However even if the background seems dark and dreary the main subject in the wondrous fruit that sit before us on the beautiful wooden table. There is a very strong sense of light coming straight on hitting the many small round fruits giving them such great highlights. The orange, red, and yellow really seem to pop out at you. These three complementing colors really make your eye dance around the piece. There is a blue fabric draped across the wooden table, on top of this beautiful fabric is our plethora of fruits. Your eye is directed to the plump juicy cherries hanging from their fresh cut branches on the table top. Very faintly at the slight left of middle, you see a martini glass with some pale yellow drink in it. The highlights on the glass are very light and direct. I believe when this piece was painted the light was aimed directly at the subject points on the table.

All the objects in the painting are arranged in almost a triangular composition. Your eye automatically sees the martini glass and the protruding leaves, then