Cezanne

On December 11, we had an invigorating lesson and discussion on Cezanne. Any thoughts since then?
Cezanne

Cezannes purpose was twofold. He wanted to paint nature convincingly so as to reveal its basic structures and their relationship in space. Seldom did he abandon nature and paint solely from his imagination or fail to create a solid, well-balanced form. His second aim was to convey the unequivocal message that his pictures were flat, painted canvases, not imitations of reality. To achieve these ends, Cezanne devised his own ways of using color and rendering geometrical forms, combining them into a method of painting that is at once simple, intellectual and highly intuitive. A method that has given us an original view of nature.

Cezanne - Still Life with Fruit Basket

Cezannes point of departure in painting was radically different from that of his contemporaries. He was not attracted to subjects by their topical interest, charm or erotic content, their inherent drama or possible social or allegorical significance. He looked at them only as visible images beneath which there was a substructure of meaning to be found. It was only through the revelation of this meaning that the artist was able to express his deepest emotions. And the two things the revelation and the self-expression that went with it constituted the artists only reason for being.

None of them (Seurat, Gaugin and VanGogh), he felt, submitted to the hard discipline of finding the inner logic of nature in order to find the inner logic of themselves. He distrusted Courbets assertion that art should be a social commentary, and Delacroixs that it should narrate literary themes. And as we have seen he distrusted from the beginning the Impressionist concern with the fleeting moment.

Several consequences followed Cezannes unique approach to art. One was that an inordinate amount of looking preceded the act of painting. Cezanne had to see a motif first. This is not to say that he could see the whole structure before he began to paint. In fact it was impossible for him to do so. The process of painting itself, if it went well, was a continual revelation of the inner meaning of the scene. But the artist did have to find at least a starting pint on which to build. Lacking this the scene had no significance for him.