Still-Life with Cherries
1919
- Period Early 20th century
- CategoryStill Life
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David Sterenberg’s StilI-Life with Cherries is one of the “classical” works in the oeuvre of an artist who had, by the early 1920s, already produced a series of extremely original still lifes. The artist looks down at the scene from above, placing the flat table top parallel to the plane of the canvas. The plate with cherries and the knife on the edge of the table are also viewed from above. The texture of the wood is lovingly brought out; the form of the table top in the bottom right-hand corner is strangely elongated. The cherries and the knife are extremely lifelike, almost to the point of moulage, while the background is cold and empty. Although StiII-Life with Cherries pays tribute to the Constructivist penchant for “made objects” and “shown materials”, the artist does so by painterly means. Sterenberg’s still-lifes of 1919 are often interpreted as reflections on the hungry years of war and revolution in Russia. This particular work is also a unique paraphrase to Breakfasf (1916), which depicts a knife and cherries in a similar artistic key.