Any fans of Cezanne

[cacian]

I was just reading a bit about cezanne and studying his paintings very closely and I must I found them doubely intriguing.
The subjects of his paintings are somehow consistant and more or less come back in the same style same objects same positions.
One is able cezanne from another straight away.
I cannot make up my mind which one I like because there is so much there.
There is a feeling of forcefulness and repetitions.
A bit like Maupassant with his short story style.

Which paintings do you like and why?

Thank you for sharing.

[stlukesguild]

I generally have mixed feelings concerning Cezanne. I largely agree with the cultural critic, Camille Paglia, who suggested that Cezanne was an embodiment of the American Protestant work ethic... or as Curly (of the Three Stooges fame) put it: "If at first you don't succeed, keep sucking until you do succeed."

In general, there's nothing wrong with the Protestant Work Ethic... its just to me this... the struggle... is so obvious in Cezanne's work and my taste leans more toward an art of virtuosity.

Anyone interested in Cezanne you surely peruse the writings of his childhood friend, Emile Zola. Zola grew increasingly exasperated and disappointed in Cezanne with the passing years. Zola was the first to move to Paris where he rapidly established himself as one of the leading figures in the arts and a sophisticated and all-around cultured individual. He had a reputation as a lady's man, and his home was open to meetings of all the leading artists of Paris.

Cezanne was a taciturn and antisocial individual who almost set out to offend everyone. He would sit quietly in the corner... brooding... as the other artists and poets debated the latest ideas of the day. When someone finally asked Cezanne for his thoughts on the matter, he would burst forth with nothing but a stream of profanity... or lean over and let out a loud fart. His early works were crude... to the point that they almost suggested a complete incompetent... or the artist on the verge of a real breakthrough.

He lacked anything approaching the ability to draw... at least not the sort of skill in drawing that one might expect of an artist at this point in time. Quite honestly, I have more skill in drawing in an academic manner (and in no way am I patting myself on the back) than Cezanne:



There is nothing even vaguely suggesting the sort of fluidity and mastery of drawing exhibited by an artist such as Degas... who could render in the most academic manner:



Or could capture the form, gesture and even personality in but a limited number of marks:







His paintings are even worse... crude and lumpen... built up in endless layers... showing a complete lack of understanding of form and space:





Anything involving the nude was even worse... perhaps the result of his own ingrained prudery... and inexperience with women (Zola suggests that Cezanne remained a virgin into his 30s).



After some years in Paris, Cezanne returned to the South and France and was nearly forgotten. But there he continued to labor away. The dealer Ambrose Vollard speaks of Cezanne spending years on a single canvas... building up layer after layer, then scraping it all away... often exploding in anger and throwing the painting out the window where numerous canvasses hung from the trees. And yet with time... his persistence and determination resulted in an art of unique genius. The paintings were still build up in layer after layer... and they still exhibit his absolute lack of ability to convey clear form and spatial relationships... but these "failings" eventually take on a genius of their own... and ultimately suggest some of the distortions that will give birth to Picasso's Cubism.






One must also credit Cezanne as the single artist most responsible for promoting the idea that the still-life might be accepted as a genre capable of producing the greatest masterpieces. Without Cezanne's precedent, one cannot imagine the still life paintings of Picasso:



Georges Braque:



Henri Matisse:







Chaim Soutine:



Max Beckmann:



Giorgio Morandi:



... and any number of other artists.

One suspects that Cezanne is far from being a unique situation... although honestly I prefer the artists who are much more fluid... much more "natural"... who were seemingly born with an unbelievable talent/aptitude/intelligence for rapidly mastering the concepts and skills involved in painting. I will take Degas, Manet, Monet, and many others over Cezanne in a minute.

[cacian]

wow Stluke this a fountain of knowledge I am grateful to your skills and understanding of the Art world.
Thank you for posting such amasing stuff.
About Cezanne I tend to think otherwise about his paintings.
I find the consistant similarities in his paintings quite intriguing and what I most like and find most ingenuis about his paintings is first of all the ability to take on themes say fruits , and they are always fruits of the summer,a table and most evidently so obvious it is almost a cry for help is this obssessive rendering repainting reshaping redrawing of the cloth.It reminds me a bit of a theatre curtains heavy almost velvety for opening and closing.
Studying his paintings one could almsot feel this heavy white almost fluffy and comforting cloth is about to come out of the painting one could reach out and feel it.
There is not one paiting the same although the subjects of this paintings is the same.
The idea that one can take a cloth,a table, fruits and background and reproduce inthouands ways is one hard skill to master because one never looks the same again.
The more one looks at the paintings and the cloth at the center of it and the more forms shapes figures come alive one can almost get mesmerised. I find it hard at times to capture or two but tha't because of the computer. One has to see them face to face to get a feel of them.
I will come back for more.

[stlukesguild]

I find the consistant similarities in his paintings quite intriguing...

With experience, you can easily identify most artists works by certain consistent tell-tale signs.

what I most like and find most ingenuis about his paintings is first of all the ability to take on themes say fruits... it is almost a cry for help is this obssessive rendering repainting reshaping redrawing of the cloth.

There was indeed a certain obsessiveness involved in Cezanne's manner of rendering... a striving to get it right. This resulted from his lack of any great skill in drawing or painting and led to the sort of frustration witnessed by his dealer Vollard, with Cezanne throwing paintings out of the window. On the other hand, as many will tell you, persistence and dedication will often triumph over ease and fluidity, and Cezanne is just such an example. Part of the strength of the work lies in the manner in which one can sense the passage of time... not only in the building up of the simple scenes... but also in the shifting perspective.

If you look, for example, at one of Cezanne's finest mature still-life paintings...



... you will notice that the back of the table on the right doesn't align with the back of the table on the left. Indeed the left of the painting seems to seen from a wholly different point of view than the right. Whether this was the result of incompetence or it was intentional, it suggests the manner in which we see things through the passage of time. This is what made Cezanne such a key figure to the Cubists. It is his reductive simplicity of form and solidity that made him important to artists such as Matisse, Beckamann, Balthus, and Morandi.

It reminds me a bit of a theatre curtains heavy almost velvety for opening and closing.

There is indeed a theatricality of staged element to Cezanne's work which placed him at odds with the aims of his great predecessors, the Impressionists. Where the Impressionists wished to convey something of the fleeting moment... natural and un-staged... Cezanne is after something that conveys a sculptural solidity... eternal and posed.

Studying his paintings one could almsot feel this heavy white almost fluffy and comforting cloth is about to come out of the painting one could reach out and feel it.

Cezanne, indeed, pushes the viewer's desire to touch in a manner clearly rooted in the work of his predecessor, Gustave Courbet:





Whether Courbet is painting overripe plump fruit... ready to burst... or an "overripe" plump derrière, he is motivated and conveys the desire to touch or grasp in a similar manner to Cezanne. It is intriguing that both artists were what might be be termed "provincials"... or "bumpkins". Both were raised in a rural environment where they might have gained a great respect for tangible reality... that which you can feel, touch, grasp, taste, f***... as opposed to the more sophisticated, cultured... and artificial concerns of the Parisian artists.

There is not one paiting the same although the subjects of this paintings is the same.

Well that was an aspect inherited from the Impressionists. When an artist is painting haystacks or waterlilies or apples the content is not the subject matter. The content is rather the artist's observations about light and color and the passage of time, etc... Monet was famous for his use of motifs... subjects that he would repeat under different conditions... different times of day... different atmospheres... different weather.

The idea that one can take a cloth,a table, fruits and background and reproduce inthouands ways is one hard skill to master because one never looks the same again.

Actually, working in a serial manner is easier than approaching each painting as something wholly new. It also allows the artist to explore alternative ideas with regard to lighting, color, composition, etc...

I find it hard at times to capture... but tha't because of the computer. One has to see them face to face to get a feel of them.

That's true of most paintings. The experience of a painting in real life is quite a bit removed from the experience of the same in reproduction.

[Red Hot Soho]

Wow thanks for the great information Luke. Very enjoyable read!

I know I'm a little off-topic here, but I've always wanted to know what someone like yourself thinks of:



This is one of my favorite paintings aesthetically but I've yet to read any analysis on it!

[cacian]

Stlukes
in this one can you see slightely left at the bottom of the cloth a shape os something like a Jemima Duck and on the slightly on the right at the face that looks almost like the painting the scream?