Plate with Apples, c. 1919

With delicacy and finesse, Alfons Walde (1891–1958) staged the seemingly unspectacular subject of a Plate with Apples in oil on wood in 1919. Again a resident of Kitzbühel from 1918, Walde steadily developed his style, using a visibly more dynamic brushstroke as well as impasto. In extreme close-up and from an extreme viewing angle—looking almost straight down on the subject from above—the painter demonstrates his ability for striking pictorialization. Set diagonally against the dark backdrop of the square format in bright colors, the depiction of the plate almost elevates the two pieces of fruit, rendered in complementary colors, red and green, out of the picture. Using delicate contours and suggesting shadows with broad brushstrokes, the representation oscillates between simplifying flatness and three-dimensionality. Still lifes played a role in Walde’s oeuvre already when he was still working in the Viennese avant-garde scene of the 1910s.

MH, 2021