Nature morte, pot à lait et fruits sur une table (Still life with milk pot and fruits on a table)

That octagonal jug with the small floral pattern was a real object on Cezanne's shelf, one of the studio props at his home in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, and it turns up in painting after painting around 1890. What he does with the table is the strange part. The top tilts up toward you, as if you were looking down at it, while the front edge behaves as though you were standing level with it, so the fruit seems to sit on a surface that gently refuses to settle. He had stopped trying to fool the eye with smooth light and shadow, and built the apples and pears instead out of small, firm, directional strokes of colour. The cloth, the fruit and the jug all press forward into the same shallow space, close to the surface of the canvas.