Lot 16: BOHUMIL KUBIŠTA

BOHUMIL KUBIŠTA CZECH 1884-1918 STILL LIFE WITH FRUIT (ZÁTIŠÍ S OVOCEM) signed and dated Kubišta 1909 lower right oil on canvas 67 by 84cm., 26½ by 33in.

Mahulena Nešlehová, Bohumil Kubišta, Prague, 1984, no. 109, catalogued & illustrated; p. 59, pl. 47, illustrated
Jiří Hlušička, The Hascoe Collection of Czech Modern Art, Prague, 2004, p. 26, mentioned; p. 192, no. P42, catalogued; p. 55, pl. 36, illustrated

Sale: Art Consulting Brno, Prague, 30 January 2000, lot 75
Purchased at the above sale

Painted in 1909, the present work epitomises the flowering of Modernism in Central European Art. Still Life with Fruit is a feast for the senses, and demonstrates Kubišta's experimentation with perspective and colour at its most sophisticated. Vibrant objects snake across the canvas in a tour de force of contrasting forms and textures, all depicted in contradictory perspectives. The table top is besieged by bulbous objects, described with hints of angles that are a premonition of the Cubism that would follow in Kubišta's work. A generously gathered tablecloth drapes beyond the edges of the composition, amplifying the sense that the fruits are toppling with the cloth into the foreground, anchored only to the surface of the table by the large vase at the upper left.

Kubišta's still-lifes of this period focus on the inherent geometry of objects and explore the spatial problems of representing three-dimensional form. The inspiration of Cézanne's approach breathed new life into the time-honoured tradition of still life painting at the turn of the century, and his aesthetic accomplishments had a profound impact on Kubišta's work of this time. While there is still a sense of three-dimensionality and recognisable form in Still Life with Fruit, space is defined by the contrast of colour surfaces. Warm and cool tones press dynamically against each other, allowing the warm tones to expand, and act almost as a light source within the composition. As Cézanne commented: 'Painting does not mean slavishly copying the object: It means perceiving harmony amongst numerous relationships and transposing them into a system of one's own by developing them according to a new, original logic' (quoted in Richard Kendall, Cézanne by Himself, Drawings, Paintings, Writings, London, 1988, p. 298).

While Kubišta's aesthetic and ideological development passed through Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism and Futurism during his life-time, his still-lifes encapsulated best his yearning for innovation and a personal departure from the academic. The ambiguity and static dynamism of the still life as exemplified by this work is encapsulated in the words of Meyer Schapiro: 'Still-life engages the painter (and also the observer who can surmount the habit of casual perception) in a steady looking that discloses new and elusive aspects of the stable object. At first commonplace in appearance, it may become in the course of that contemplation a mystery, a source of metaphysical wonder. Completely secular and stripped of all conventional symbolism, the still-life object, as the meeting-point of boundless forces of atmosphere and light, may evoke a mystical mood like Jakob Boehme's illumination through the glint on a metal ewer' (Meyer Schapiro, 'The Apples of Cézanne – An essay on the meaning of Still-life', Art News Annual, XXIV, 1968, p. 44). Much more than a simple, representational image, Still-Life with Fruit captures mood and emotion, showing Kubišta's process in untangling personal and traditional methods of perception.

Fig. 1: Paul Cézanne, Nature Morte aux Fruits et Pot de Gingembre, oil on canvas, circa 1895, sold: Sotheby's, New York, 7 November 2006, lot 18