The Basket of Apples
The artist
Paul Cezanne, a French painter whose careful still lifes helped inspire modern art.
What you see
A tilted basket of apples on a table, next to a bottle, a plate of cookies, and a rumpled white cloth.
The story
Cezanne painted it around 1893, spending a very long time arranging every object just the way he wanted.
The style
He painted the table and objects from slightly different viewpoints at once, so the edges do not line up in the usual way.
Look closer
Look at the tabletop: the left side and the right side of the table edge do not match, yet the picture still feels balanced.
Where to see it
The painting lives at the Art Institute of Chicago in the United States.
Fun fact
Artists say Cezanne's tilted apples taught later painters that you can bend reality to make a stronger picture.