Composition with teapot 1901

Achille D'Orsi made this still life, Composition with teapot, with oil paint, but we don’t know when. The details seem important to him, and us, and he has a lot of fun with them! Look at how the gold paint is handled, not like a solid precious metal, but as a play of light and shadow. The physical quality of the medium, how thick or thin, smooth or rough the paint is, really helps us see how he feels about these objects. The details of the red cloth on the right are much broader, but the folds and textures of the fabric still feel very real. That interplay between the gold and the red, the hard metal and the soft fabric, reminds me of Fantin-Latour, but with a much more romantic flair! D’Orsi isn’t afraid of a little glitz, and the piece leaves us room for multiple interpretations.