Still Life with Oranges and Pitcher (“Palermo”), 1924

This painting shows an arrangement of oranges, eggs, and a pitcher on a blue tabletop. Departing from the tendency to break up forms in his earlier works, Herbert Boeckl (1894–1966) was now trying to focus on the physicality and dimensionality of his motifs. He used dark contours as a strong creative means for giving shape to objects. The complementary contrast of blue and orange, in addition to the tectonic paint application, suggest a space that is created entirely by paint. Although Boeckl had already discovered Paul Cézanne’s (1839–1906) painting on his student trips to Berlin and Paris, he made a particularly close study of it during his time in Sicily. Through the paintings of Cézanne—and by reflecting on his still lifes in particular—Boeckl succeeded in forging new paths in his painting by clarifying space and representing the plasticity of objects.

AK, 2019