Still Life with a Curtain

Still Life with a Curtain from 1898, at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, is among the most complex of Cézanne's late still life arrangements, with a curtain hanging behind the fruit creating a deep, dense background of draped folds. Russian collectors acquired this and numerous other major Cézannes through the dealers Vollard and Durand-Ruel, recognizing his importance at a time when his influence was primarily felt among avant-garde artists. The curtain device — also used in his monumental Bathers — introduces a theatrical, almost baroque element into the concentrated still-life space. By 1898 his technique had reached its most complex structural development.

The heavy draped curtain creates a complex background of folds that Cézanne renders with the same analytical attention he gives the fruit — each fold a plane of color that defines form. The interaction of foreground fruit and background curtain creates a visual depth achieved through color rather than conventional perspective.