Crâne et chandelier

Crâne et chandelier (Skull and Candlestick) at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, dated around 1900, is another of Cézanne's late skull paintings, here paired with a candlestick — an explicitly vanitas combination that places the memento mori in direct dialogue with the light that temporarily keeps darkness at bay. The candlestick was a recurring still-life prop in his work, and its combination with the skull creates a more explicitly symbolic arrangement than his other object groupings. The Stuttgart Staatsgalerie's strong holdings of late Cézanne provide context for this intimately scaled work.

The candlestick's vertical form provides a strong compositional anchor beside the rounded mass of the skull, the two objects creating a dialogue between linear and volumetric form. Cézanne renders the skull's smooth surface with careful attention to the way light models its convex form, using cool and warm tones to establish the different planes.