C┼╜zanne often introduced aubergines and onions into his compositions because of their shiny, silky skins and deep colours.
CŽzanne needed a considerable number of sessions to complete his paintings and this is probably why there are fewer still lifes with flowers than compositions with fruit. The poet Joachim Gasquet records him as having said: ‘Fruit are faithful. … They like having their portraits painted. They sit there as if they were asking forgiveness for changing colour. They exhale their spirit together with their fragrance. They approach you through their scents and talk to you about the fields they have left, the rain that has fed them, the dawns that they have seen. When I use juicy paint to outline the skin of a beautiful peach or the melancholy of an old apple, I catch a glimpse, in the reflections they exchange, of the same faint shadow of renunciation, the same love for the sun, the same memories of dew, of freshness.’
