Still Life Apples and Grapes

Claude Monet

Contemporary-Art.org
Keywords: LifeApplesGrapes

Work Overview

Still Life with Apples And Grapes
Claude Monet
Date: 1879
Style: Impressionism
Genre: still life
Oil on canvas
66.5 x 82.5 cm (26 3/16 x 32 1/2 in.)
Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection


Claude Monet probably painted this and other still lifes in 1879–80, knowing that they would be more readily marketable than his landscapes. In Apples and Grapes, however, he employed the complexity of color, light, and texture found in his most Impressionist landscapes. This is particularly evident in the extensive cloth surface—the play of light on the horizontal brushstrokes (indicating the folds in the tablecloth) recalls earlier canvases in which Monet used similar short horizontals of variegated colors to suggest water rippling in the sunlight.


This work is featured in the online catalogue Monet Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, the first volume in the Art Institute’s scholarly digital series on the Impressionist circle. The catalogue offers in-depth curatorial and technical entries on 47 artworks by Claude Monet in the museum’s collection; entries feature interactive and layered high-resolution imaging, previously unpublished technical photographs, archival materials, and documentation relating to each artwork.