The Prophet of the Orchard
Paul Ranson looked at an apple tree and saw a rhythm. By 1902 the Nabis were winding down but their esoteric way of seeing and spiritual energy was still pulsing through Ranson. They called themselves prophets because they were bored with the light-drenched fluff of the Impressionists. They wanted something deeper. They wanted something flat and decorative that felt like a medieval tapestry or a Japanese woodblock print.
Apple Tree with Red Fruit is not a landscape, it’s a graphic manifesto. Those red orbs aren’t realistic fruit you can bite into, they’re symbols arranged in a decorative grid. They look like they’re floating in a sea of swirling lines that would soon become the backbone of Art Nouveau. Ranson was obsessed with the way a line could move across a canvas like a living thing. He lived in a world where a simple tree could be a sacred object if you stared at it long enough.
The dimensions are modest but the ambition is huge. It is seventy-three by sixty centimeters of pure rhythmic intent. It likely sat in the Salon des Independants surrounded by other rebels who thought the old guard was dead. Ranson died just seven years after this. He left behind a vision of nature that was less about the dirt and more about the soul. It is flat and it is strange and it is exactly what happens when you decide that a painting should be more than a window. It should be a shield against the mundane.
References
Clement, Russell T. Les Nabis: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press, 1996.
Frèches-Thory, Claire and Antoine Terrasse. The Nabis: Bonnard, Vuillard, and Their Circle. Harry N. Abrams, 1991.
Ranson, Paul. Apple Tree with Red Fruit. 1902. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.