Still Life in Green 1930

Helene Schjerfbeck made this still life in oil on canvas, probably sometime in the early twentieth century. You can see how the painting came into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I really sympathize with Schjerfbeck here. Imagine what it must have been like to stare at a bowl of fruit for hours on end! The paint is applied in these thin, washy layers, giving it a kind of ephemeral quality. I'm struck by the way she's captured the light on the fruit, especially the pale green highlights that suggest a certain ripeness. Look at that dark contour around the yellowish pear—that gesture alone communicates so much about the weight and form of the fruit. Schjerfbeck was clearly in conversation with other painters throughout time. Artists are in an ongoing exchange of ideas, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting is a form of embodied expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.