Red Apples

Helene Schjerfbeck painted still-lifes throughout her career, especially of cut flowers and fruit. In Red Apples (1915) she used not only bright colors, thick layers of paint, and expressive brushwork, but also a pallet knife to produce the flat surface. The glowing red is accentuated by its complementary color, green. She used many different colors here: various shades of green, mustard yellow, pinkish red, and in the background, violet. These colors are positioned brilliantly to counterbalance each other. Schjerfbeck found apples the most difficult fruit to paint.

Later in life she recalled influences from the time she spent in Paris as a young woman, including her response to apple paintings by the great French painter Paul Cézanne, whom she admired greatly. She was particularly fascinated by the way Cézanne used color: "…in colour matters Cézanne was one painter who set completely impossible colours side by side. Yet the overall effect was harmonious in the end because he always used exactly the right amounts of each colour. It's not only the tone but the amount of each tone that makes it complete. A single stroke of the brush in a colour is often fine but another touch of the same colour ruins everything." (Letter to Finnish painter Maria Wiik, August 3, 1916)

We present today's work from the collection of the Finnish National Gallery thanks to Europeana.  <3  We hope you enjoy our celebrations of Women's History Month!

P.S. Read here more about Helena Sofia Schjerfbeck, this female Finnish gem! <3