Still Life with a Ginger Jar and Eggplants

Still Life with a Ginger Jar and Eggplants is an oil on canvas painting created by Paul Cézanne between 1893 and 1894. This iconic piece exemplifies Cézanne’s mature exploration of geometric form and color application within the demanding genre of the still life. The arrangement centers around a distinctive pale ginger jar, contrasted against the deep, saturated purples of the eggplants and various pieces of fruit scattered across a densely draped surface.

In this work, Cézanne moved beyond the fleeting optical realism of Impressionism to address underlying structure and spatial ambiguity. He utilizes subtle shifts in perspective, deliberately refusing a traditional single-point focus; notice how the tabletop appears simultaneously tilted forward and anchored, drawing the viewer’s attention across the composition. Cézanne’s technique involves building up the forms with his characteristic constructive stroke, using modulated patches of color to give the objects weight and volume. The careful placement of the fruit, including plums and apples, alongside the highly stylized eggplants, demonstrates the artist's dedication to transforming mundane, domestic subjects into monumental studies of fundamental shape.

The significance of this painting lies in its profound contribution to the development of modern art, serving as a foundational reference point for later movements like Cubism. This canvas is a critical part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, offering researchers and the public access to this essential Post-Impressionist masterwork. Because of its age and historical importance, high-quality prints derived from institutional photographs of the original painting are widely available, with some institutional resources even making the image available through the public domain, ensuring global appreciation of Cézanne’s revolutionary vision.