The Basket of Apples, 1893
Paul Cézanne
Oil on canvas · 65 x 80 cm
A tabletop of fruit and tilted bottles that quietly breaks the rules of perspective.
Cézanne tilts the table, splits the bottle's axis and lets apples defy gravity — showing an object from several angles at once. This restless, searching still life quietly broke the rules of perspective and lit the fuse for Cubism and modern art.
What you're looking at
The table does not join up. Follow its front edge behind the cloth and it comes out the other side at a different height, because Cézanne painted the two halves from slightly different positions and refused to reconcile them. The bottle leans. The biscuits are stacked in a way no biscuits stack. Everything is very slightly wrong on purpose, which is why it feels more solid than a correct painting would.
On a Frame TV
About 5:4, so use the matted file — the clean crop takes the tilted table edge at the bottom, which is where the whole trick of the picture lives. Warm and mid-toned with no deep shadow anywhere, which makes it an easy one to live with in daylight.
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- 4K master file (3840px+)
- Samsung Frame TV–ready crop
- Phone wallpaper crop
- Printable art card
Public domain · one .zip, no sign-up
More like this
Other works in the collection, starting with Paul Cézanne.
