Still Life with Asparagus
1880
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1880
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see a single stalk of asparagus lying on a dark, wooden table. The paint is thick in places, making the vegetable look almost real enough to pick up. Rousseau painted this around 1880, long after asparagus became a luxury food in France. The way he builds up the paint—thick for the white tips, thin for the shadows—gives the stalk weight and presence. He was part of a group of French painters who looked back to an earlier artist, Jean Siméon Chardin, for inspiration in quiet, everyday scenes. To see how Chardin did the same thing, look up his still lifes next.
