Cherry stems

The cherries in Osias Beert’s Still Life with Cherries and Strawberries in Porcelain Bowls are uncanny because they barely cast shadows, piled there in the bowl. Each cherry is rendered with near-equal sharpness, edges only slightly blurred and darkened as they recede into the background, into the bowl. Osias imbues each cherry a degree of presence, a spirit. The stems are animated, vermicular, like souls wriggling free from their containers, their pits.