In an unusual twist on the common still life arrangement of fruit upon a table, Sterne relocated his subject to the floor. There, a jumble of gleaming green apples falls across a gathered cloth that rests uneasily upon checkered tiles. The legs and turned wood stretcher of a chair or small table is visible in the upper left corner, further emphasizing the curious perspective. By taking a common subject and presenting it in an unfamiliar way, Sterne perhaps hoped to draw greater attention to the form and structure of the objects on display.

Paul Cezanne, who explored the limitations of perception and challenged artistic conventions in his own still lifes, is an obvious influence [48.524]. Sterne became acquainted with Cezanne's work while living in Paris in the first decade of the twentieth century. Like the French painter, Sterne used color to build form. Hues of yellow and green strike against reds and browns to generate mass, while more subtle incursions of blue and purple define edges and suggest shadows. From the fast jabs of the brush that create the green leaves to the comb-like scratching that is especially visible in the cloth and the floor in the lower right, the surface is energized with texture.

Cody Hartley

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