Art Essay of Forelle Pears...

 Art Essay of Forelle Pears 

by Eight Artists

1
Forelle Pears
Lily Groot (circa 1980s- ), American
Acrylic and colored pencil on canvas,
16" x 12" (w x h), 2025

Source: artist's website, edited
Lily Van Diepen Groot, an Indianapolis painter, muralist, and printmaker, holds a BFA from the Indianapolis University Herron School of Art and Design in Printmaking, and a MA from the University of the Arts in Museum Studies. Her paintings are meditations on color inspired by seed catalogs, cut flowers, and the gardens of the Midwest. She helps organize the annual local group art show Wet Wet Mud in Indianapolis, IN. The artist's web site is HERE.

2
Still life, Pear and Green Apples /
Nature morte, poires et pommes vertes
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), French
Oil on canvas, 13" x 9" (w x h), circa 1873
Musee de l'Orangerie, Paris, France

Source: Original, Musee de l'Orangerie and Wiki, edited
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), painted this in the late 187os, a preview to his still lifes of the 188os. The still lifes that Cezanne painted from the late 1880s are another focus of his work. He refrained from rendering the motifs in linear perspective and instead depicted them in the dimensions that made sense to him in terms of composition; a pear, for example, can be oversized in order to achieve inner balance and an exciting composition. He often painted the Forelle pear, common to France then, less so today.

Some doubt arose as to the authenticity of this work as a Cezanne in 1996 prompted by the lack of brightness in the colors and a certain softness in the brushwork. Rejected by the art historian John Rewald in his catalogue of Cezanne's works published in 1996, Rewald contended that it could be by Paul Gachet (1873-1962), son of the famous Doctor Gachet, a friend of Cezanne. Doctor Gachet's son, Paul Gachet, a pupil of Cezanne, learned to paint by copying the paintings in his father's collection. Claiming to be an artist-painter, he signed his paintings, Paul Van Ryssel. This canvas apparently remained at Paul Gachet's home until it was bought by Domenica Walter in 1951 through an intermediary in exchange for two paintings by Chaim Soutine.

3
Still life with Forelle Pears
Carolina Elizabeth (1994- ), American
Oil on linen panel, 6" x 4" (w x h), 2019
Private collection

Source: Artist's website, edited
Carolina Elizabeth has a BFA from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2006. "In college, I told a professor that I just wanted to make pretty things. He said 'that is the worst way to describe an artwork.' However, I believe pretty things have power." She began painting seriously in 2018. She works from her home studio in Edmond, Oklahoma, where she teaches art and paints pretty things. The artist's website is HERE.

4
Forelle Trio
Jeanne Rosier Smith (1966- ), American
Pastel on Paper, 6" x 4" (w x h), 2009

Source: Artist's website edited
Jeanne Rosier Smith holds a Ph.D. in English then went on to a full-time pastel art career in 2001 at 35-years-old. She's also been teaching for twenty years. Jeanne is a signature member of the American Society of Marine Artists and the American Impressionist Society. She's served as an educational consultant to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and has also given pastel demonstrations and gallery talks at the Museum. She's represented by Black River Gallery in Boothbay Harbor Maine, Powers Gallery in Acton, MA, Susan Powell Fine Art in Madison CT, Lily Pad Gallery in Westerly, RI, and Dare Gallery in Charleston, SC, and Anderson Fine Art in St Simons Island GA. The artist's website is HERE.

5
Still Life with Pear and Insects /
Stillleben mit Birne und Insekten
Justus Juncker (1703-1767), German
Oil on oak panel, 8" x 10" (w x h), 1765
Stadel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany

Source: Museum, edited
Justus Juncker (1703-1767), a German painter, was a teacher to his son Isaak Juncker and step-son Johann Daniel Bager, who both became painters in their own right. From the 1740s Juncker specialized in still life painting. In this 1765 painting he used a Forelle pear in its native Germany soon after this species was discovered and developed. Contemporaries of the Frankfurt painter recognized immediately that they were witnessing a break with "the art of the appropriate". What should really be seen on a pedestal of this kind was a "heroic" subject and not an "ordinary fruit". But the representation made clear the change in the significance of a still life during the eighteenth century. The focus was on the beauty of the object and not only its symbolic content.

6
Ripe with Color
Christiane David, American, Belgian born and raised
Watercolor on paper
Private Collection

Source: Artist's website, edited
After studying architecture in Brussels, Christiane David was a designer, while continuing her studies in oil and watercolor at the Academy of Art in Brussels. While in Europe, she painted, exhibited and sold her art. In 1985 she and her husband and young daughter moved to the us, Lancaster, PA. In 1996 Christiane became a member of the Berks County Art Alliance, West Lawn, PA. She is currently an associate member of the Oil Painters of America, the American Impressionist Society, and the Art Students League of New York. As an Abstract impressionist of more than 2,000 paintings her prices range from $250 to $12,000. Her artist's website is HERE.

7

Pears / Poires
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), French
Oil on canvas, 12" x 9" (w x h), circa 1890.
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA

Source: Original
In his early life Pierre-Auguste Renoir was appreciated more for his singing than for his drawing. He took music lessons until his family encountered financial difficulties, which forced him to leave school and begin work as a painter in a porcelain factory. Later, as an impressionist, his style was to paint smooth brushstrokes, hence his Pears, likely the popular and painterly Forelle pears in France then, have none of their lenticels dots due to his style. Pears traditionally symbolize fertility and bear a resemblance to the classical female form, which is perhaps one reason why Renoir painted both. In this painting the white cloth brings out the pear color, much like painting pears on snow, a Snow Life.

8
Reflections On Pears
Charlie O'Shields (1971- ), American
Watercolor and ink on paper, 8" x 6" (w x h)

Source: Artist's Blog edited
Charlie O'Shields (1971- ), born in Kansas City Missouri, painted this pear painting in 45 minutes using his A5 Hahnemuhle Watercolour Book. Charlie's goal is to inspire as many people as around the globe to do something creative daily and share their own wonderful stories. "I'm not remotely famous, just a guy with an art journal blog called Doodlewash, who adores watercolor... I've never figured out what constitutes right and wrong in art... I just keep taking a little moment each and every day to make something new... Make what you love, and love what you make. Whether you're taking weeks to make a masterpiece or stealing a few minutes out of your day for reflections on pears." His Doodlewash blog is HERE. His book Sketching Stuff is on amazon HERE.