The French painter Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), who exhibited little in his lifetime and pursued his interests increasingly in artistic isolation, is regarded today as one of the great forerunners of modern painting, both for the way that he evolved of putting down on canvas exactly what his eye saw in nature and for the qualities of pictorial form that he achieved through a unique treatment of space, mass, and colour. Cézanne was a contemporary of the impressionists, but he went beyond their interests in the individual brushstroke and the fall of light onto objects, to create, in his words, “something more solid and durable, like the art of the museums.”
Cézanne was born at Aix-en-Provence in the south of France on January 19, 1839. He went to school in Aix, forming a close friendship with the novelist Emile Zola. He also studied law there from 1859 to 1861, but at the same time he continued attending drawing classes. Against the implacable resistance of his father, he made up his mind that he wanted to paint and in 1861 joined Zola in Paris. His father’s reluctant consent at that time brought him financial support and, later, a large inheritance on which he could live without difficulty. In Paris he met Camille Pissarro and came to know others of the impressionist group, with whom he would exhibit in 1874 and 1877. Cézanne, however, remained an outsider to their circle; from 1864 to 1869 he submitted his work to the official Salon and saw it consistently rejected.
His paintings of 1865-70 form what is usually called his early “romantic” period. Extremely personal in character, these works deal with bizarre subjects of violence and fantasy in harsh, sombre colors and extremely heavy paintwork. Thereafter, as Cézanne rejected that kind of approach and worked his way out of the obsessions underlying it, his art is conveniently divided into three phases. In the early 1870s, through a mutually helpful association with Pissarro, with whom he painted outside Paris at Auvers, he assimilated the principles of colour and lighting of Impressionism and loosened up his brushwork; yet he retained his own sense of mass and the interaction of planes, as in “House of the Hanged Man” (1873; Musee d’Orsay, Paris).
In the late 1870s Cézanne entered the phase known as “constructive”, characterised by the grouping of parallel, hatched brushstrokes in formations that build up a sense of mass in themselves. He continued in this style until the early 1890s, when, in his series of paintings titled “Card Players” (1890-92), the upward curvature of the players’ backs creates a sense of architectural solidity and thrust, and the intervals between figures and objects have the appearance of live cells of space and atmosphere.
Finally, living as a solitary in Aix rather than alternating between the south and Paris, Cézanne moved into his late phase. Now he concentrated on a few basic subjects: Still lifes of studio objects built around such recurring elements as apples, statuary, and tablecloths; studies of bathers, based upon the male model and drawing upon a combination of memory, earlier studies, and sources in the art of the past; and successive views of the Mont Sainte-Victoire, a nearby landmark, painted from his studio looking across the intervening valley. The landscapes of the final years, much affected by Cézanne’s contemporaneous practice in watercolor, have a more transparent and unfinished look, while the last figure paintings are at once more somber and spiritual in mood.
By the time of his death on Oct. 22, 1906, Cézanne’s art had begun to be shown and seen across Europe, and it became a fundamental influence on the Fauves, the cubists, and virtually all advanced art of the early 20th century. Apparently, Cézanne was not an easy man to love, but professors and painters adore him. Art critics lavish him with superlatives, including “a prophet of the 20th century”, “the most sensitive painter of his time”, “the greatest artist of the 19th century”, and “the father of modern art”. But he’s not quite a household name, and his posters have never been best-sellers at museum shops around the world. In fact, most non-professionals wouldn’t stand a chance of recognising a Cézanne unless it was clearly labelled. Even then, there’s no guarantee of popular appeal…
The painting above is “The Card Players”, 1890–92, exhibited in the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is the largest version and is the most complex, with five figures on a 134.6 x 180.3 cm canvas. It features three card players at the forefront, seated in a semi-circle at a table, with two spectators behind. On the right side of the painting, seated behind the second man and to the right of the third, is a boy, eyes cast downward, also a fixed spectator of the game. Further back, on the left side between the first and second player is a man standing, back to the wall, smoking a pipe and presumably awaiting his turn at the table.
It has been speculated Cézanne added the standing man to provide depth to the painting, as well as to draw the eye to the upper portion of the canvas. As with the other versions, it displays a suppressed storytelling of peasant men in loose-fitting garments with natural poses focused entirely on their game. Writer Nicholas Wadley described a “tension in opposites”, in which elements such as shifts of colour, light and shadow, shape of hat, and crease of cloth create a story of confrontation through opposition. Others have described an “alienation” displayed in the series to be most pronounced in this version.
Agreed. Through a mutually helpful association with Pissarro, with whom he painted outside Paris at Auvers, Cezanne really did assimilate "the principles of colour and lighting of Impressionism and loosened up his brushwork". Perhaps Pissarro and Monet had far more impact on artists across the world in the 1860s, 70s and 80s, but eventually it was Cezanne who "retained his own sense of mass and the interaction of planes". By the 1890s the next generation of artists were using Cezanne as a model of modernity, not the Impressionists who were by now dead or elderly. Which is why we now love Modigliani more than Monet.
ReplyDeleteI really like Cezanne ever since I saw some of his painting in a an exhibition. I can understand why he is an artist's artist as quite a lot of his stuff is not "pretty" enough to appeal more widely.
ReplyDeleteI do like this art.
ReplyDeleteI think a talking refrigerator would be a great idea...as long as it didn't yell at me.