Still Life with an Apple

Diego Rivera's "Still Life with an Apple" (1918) is a graphite drawing on tan laid paper from the period when Rivera was still in Europe, working through the lessons of Cubism and Cézanne. The simple subject—an apple on a table—was a classic motif of modernist still life painting, most famously associated with Cézanne, who said he wanted to "astonish Paris with an apple." Rivera's treatment shows the apple as a solid, sculptural form, the graphite modeling its volume through careful hatching and shading. The tan laid paper provides a warm ground. The composition is spare and focused, with the apple isolated against a plain background, inviting the viewer to contemplate its form. This drawing belongs to the period of Rivera's intense engagement with European modernism, before he returned to Mexico to develop the monumental mural style that would define his career. It shows the rigorous formal discipline that underlay his later, more overtly political work.

Rivera's still life drawings from his European period demonstrate the formal and technical foundation upon which his career as a muralist was built, showing his mastery of the basic disciplines of rendering and composition.

This graphite drawing of an apple connects Rivera to the great tradition of Cézanne and the Cubists, the simple fruit rendered with a formal discipline that would serve as the foundation for his later monumental works.