If you eliminated all color from this painting and only left the black lines and shapes, the painting would still work because the black lines and shapes are balanced: they form the structure and backbone of the painting.

If I eliminated all black in the painting and left only the color shapes (moving them together so they are touching), the painting would also work because the colors have their own balance.

If the yellow spot were not there, both the color balance and the black line balance would be upset.

The real still life setup I painted this from consisted of a couple of containers placed on an orange cloth, in front of a grey background – pretty boring actually.