The Apple Basket

April 13, 1874, the night two days before First Impressionist Exhibition.

“Nobody here?”

“Yes, they all went home. To finish works. You should see how they put a jerk in paintings!” the bartender shouted to Manet, washing two goblets on his hand.

The night was filled with scent of Paris, a scent mixing luxury perfumes and smokes. With a belly full of light resentment to Impressionism, our protagonist was intending to order drinks for all through the night, but he noticed something different in the corner. A familiar figure.

“Good night, sir, I think I must have seen you before in some small shows,” he stepped gently to the table in the corner besides the glass wall. With his drink, of course. Yet the young man was staring at the street behind Manet’s shadow so that Manet had to repeat the sentence again.

“Oh, hi,” that’s the response. In order to show some reluctant kindness Manet held out his hand, “I’m Manet. Edouard Manet.”

The young man took a quick look at the hand. It seemed as his surprised face was telling, “sorry sir I haven’t washed my hand for eight days.” The visitor’s hand stopped above the table, and the other hand put down the drink slowly. Manet could only embarrassingly pulled back the first hand, but he tidied up his suit a bit  and didn’t feel annoyed. He slowly took a seat besides this untidy lounger.

“How was your work? Let’s say, is it now qualified for the show?” Manet began a new topic.

“Yes! Definitely!” the young man smiled slovenly, raising his tone, “my dear Manet, this work is specifically a reply to one of your fantastic pieces! I was a fan of you, but I didn’t find a way to thank you before. Now it is!” Looking at his hair could already told you this was not an ordinary artist if you were sitting in the same position as Manet was.

“O’ that’s, that’s appreciating. So which work are you referring? Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass), I guess?” Manet put down the drink again after sipping it twice. He was somehow scared by the contrasting enthusiasm.

“Olympia.” the man responded with a hiccup.

Obviously our Manet didn’t expect this answer, so he might forget that his purpose was only wandering in the bar to digest his sorrow. He was curious about this friend, but he will later regret asking the next question: “Oh, why do you choose it? Could you let me see your piece?”

He then saw A Modern Olympia. Every straight line disappears, replaced by dots and chunks even vaguer than Impressionists, Manet felt shocked. Executed in a chaotic, feverish scrawl of brushstrokes, it looks like the grotesque, delirious hallucination of a madman rather than a serious work of art rebelling the traditional forms.

***

At first glance, this basket of apples looks like a perfectly normal kitchen scene. You have a tipped-over basket of apples, a dark wine bottle, a plate of light pastries, and a crumpled white tablecloth spread across a wooden table. But if we stand in front of it for more than ten seconds, we might start asking ourselves: is physics having a bad day?

Take a closer look at that table. The edge on the left side doesn't match the edge on the right side at all. In fact, if this were a real wooden table in your house, any glass you put on it would immediately slide off and shatter. And then there are the apples. Some look like they are sitting comfortably on the cloth, while others seem to defy gravity, almost floating or ready to roll right out of the frame and land on your feet.

So, did he just forget how to draw in perspective? Not even close.

He decided that traditional, one-point perspective was boring. Before, they tried to create a single, frozen snapshot from one exact angle, like a camera. He thought that wasn't how human sight actually works. When you look at a table with snacks on it, your eyes move around. You look at the pastries from slightly above, the bottle from the side, and the apples from another angle entirely.

Instead of hiding these different viewable angles, he smashed them all into one single painting. He painted this still life over many, many sessions—taking so long, in fact, that the real fruit often rotted before he finished! He used heavy, deliberate brushstrokes and bold dark outlines to build each object, making the apples look solid, heavy, and almost like colorful geometric spheres.

This painting isn't trying to trick you into thinking you're looking at real fruit. It's reminding you that you're looking at a painted canvas. By playing with perspective, light, and structure, He completely blew up the rules of traditional art. Without this tilted table and these stubborn, gravity-defying apples, modern art movements like Cubism—and artists like Picasso—might never have happened!

***

At last I still didn’t understand why Mrs wanted me back, and I couldn’t still say who was more weird, he or his Marie-Hortense Fiquet, but one thing sure was that our plan completely fell through.

He has already told me to paint with his apples and oranges for a whole week, beginning from yesteday. I could draw whatever I want. I actually didn’t care, but he invited me (like he did usually before) then I had no reason to decline (like I did before). But what I was angry with is that I never expected how Mrs shouted toward him as frequently as I couldn’t imagine. That was pretty distracting, and moreover Provence was extremely inconvenient compared with Paris. I can’t understand moving to such a place to live.

So I set off on Wednesday, then I could arrive there Provence on Thursday via Gare de Lyon. Unexpectedly I have not caught up the train. “What are you doing Renoir!” Eventually when I knocked up his door that was midnight, and every good host should’ve known to take care of a wet man caught in the rain. Obviously neither he nor his wife was a good host, and they were having a quarrel. He was in disadvantage, making me laugh aloud, forgetting the tiredness for a period, but soon I realized that their quarrel was about me!

We then began drawing on Saturday, but Mrs always put a face of mad to us. I whispered to ask him about the reason why she hates us.

“Nah, she was jealous of our apples.”

***

It was late 1897, and he was suddenly the talk of Paris. Most of us in the studio circles knew about him through Emile Zola’s famous novel, L'OEuvre. Zola had based his tragic, unkempt painter character on that name, making everyone curious about this dirty, antisocial hermit from Aix-en-Provence who had vanished from the art scene for years. Now, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard was putting on a massive show of his work, and I couldn't resist going.

I brought my friend Pierre along. Pierre wasn't a painter, just a guy who liked going to galleries and buying a small canvas now and then. As we walked through the cold, crowded streets toward Rue Laffitte, he zipped his coat up to his chin and complained the whole way.

"Is this guy really as dirty as they say?" Pierre asked, stepping over a dirty slush puddle on the sidewalk. "Someone at the café told me he wears clothes covered in dried paint and hasn't washed his hair since 1880."

"He definitely doesn't care about society," I laughed, pushing my hands into my pockets because of coldness. "But Zola made him sound like a complete madman. I want to see if his actual paintings are as wild as the rumors."

"If he paints like he dresses, that would be terrible," Pierre looked like a scared squrriel. "to be honest, I still don't get why everyone is making such a big fuss over a book character."

"Because Vollard says the paintings are actually good," I replied as we turned the corner, "and if Vollard thinks he can make money off him, there must be something worth looking at. That’s my guess."

When we finally squeezed into the cramped gallery and stood before The Blue Vase and Man with Folded Arms, we both went quiet. I actually really liked them. The Blue Vase had a solid, honest beauty to it. The flowers and apples felt heavy and real, and the blue color of the vase was remarkably calm and pleasant. It just worked.

Pierre, on the other hand, shook his head in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me," he whispered, pointing at Man with Folded Arms. "Look at his jacket, arms are uneven, the wall behind him is crooked, and the lines don't match up at all. This is worse than the Impressionists, and I already think Monet leaves his paintings half-unfinished. What is this mess? Uh."

"It’s not a mess, Pierre," I explained quietly, leaning in closer to show him the canvas. "Check the table under the vase. It looks broken because he painted different parts of it from slightly different spots. He didn't just sit still and copy a picture like a camera. He moved his eyes around as he worked, trying to show how we actually look at things in real life over time."

Pierre looked at me like I had lost my mind. "So his big trick is that he can't sit still? That's the dumbest excuse for bad drawing I've ever heard. If artists stop painting things the way they actually look, where does this stop? What's next—are people just going to paint completely random, abstract shapes without any structure in a few years and call it art? That’s impossible."

I looked back at the strangely tilted table and the quiet blue vase, smiling to myself, not quite sure how to answer him. I felt hesitated to confirm this new form, but I knew this is how art works.

***

“I just don’t know how do you still have that courage to draw more rubbish! Look, the money I gave you is so little, what magic does art have on you?”

“You just don’t understand!”

“No marriage. A kid. No fame, no money. No talent, my boy, no talent. You’d better realize that.”

“Could you just stop using those cliches to attack me?”

“I’m doing good for you. You should consider — even a bit is fine —the future, your kid, your family,” the old bald man lowered his voices, “Maybe you are destined to be a lawyer, an auctioner or a doctor, but the answer is obviously not a damn garbage painter — painting apples!” He accentuated on “a”, rising his tone again.

“You know, maybe I’m ahead of everyone.”

“No, that’s nonsense. I made my idea. I’m going to reduce support for your expenses, not because of your improper actions in marriage but because of your stupidity on your situation.”the old father sighed, “nobody could understand a kid having a long left hand and a short right hand. That’s too insane.” he dropped those words and left.

“I’m ahead of everyone. I’m too smart that everyone couldn’t understand me! I’m Cezanne!”