Still life with lemon, orange and tomato 1903

Paula Modersohn-Becker made this still life with lemon, orange and tomato sometime between 1893 and 1907, using oil on paper on cardboard. Look at the way those colors are laid down, the way they sit next to each other. I imagine her dabbing the paint, one stroke at a time, building up these forms. It’s all about feeling the weight of the objects, seeing how the light hits them. The paint is thin but there’s a real sense of heft, the tomato pulses with ripeness, the lemon glows like a little sun, and that orange stares right back at you. I am interested in that dark hole in the middle of the orange, and how it relates to the dark crevices in the surrounding colours. It is so interesting that she added flowers around the rim of the plate. Modersohn-Becker was part of a community of artists, each of them pushing the boundaries of what painting could be, and how it could express something deeply personal. I can see the conversation between these artists echoing through the years, inspiring each other to see and feel in new ways.