‘The pear has been cut so that it almost seems to dissolve into the image plane; there are two bottles, one a little taller than the other…These objects, alongside the ripe fig, the doll’s leg and the cut pear, follow precise proportions.
When I did the still life with the onions, I arranged the onions, then I added a white bottle, placing it close to the old wall. I found a piece of cloth and wetted it, so it no longer seemed white, but stained. The onion peel is as textured as the wall. There is a white and a black bottle, the latter I blackened myself so that the shadow would fall where I wanted, and at the time the light wasn’t quite right. So I used a black bottle: it looks like the shadow of the white one. […] I only partially soaked the cloth. Where it’s wet, it looks dirty, it gains a texture: there is material harmony.’
(Mario Giacomelli, in S. Guerra, Mario Giacomelli. La mia vita intera, Bruno Mondadori 2008)
