Paul Cezanne
Paul Cézanne
was born in
Aix-en-Provence, a small town south of France. As a young boy,
Cézanne’s
passions lay in his poetry and his friends, including Emile Zola
(Preble 402). Cézanne
is included in the time of the Post-Impressionists.
Cézanne wanted "to make
Impressionism into something solid and enduring
like the art of museums" (Preble
401). Cézanne did not have a typical,
(as I define as friendly), relationship
with his father. Cézanne had some
problems with his father. Cézanne’s father
wanted for Cézanne to be a lawyer.
His father had sent him to a college for
lawyers but Cézanne was coaxed
otherwise by his friend Zola her moved to Paris
(Preble 402). Cézanne’s
father had bought the Jas de Bouffan, which would be
the place that Cézanne
did many of his works (Rewald 21). The Jas de Bouffan
would be their
residence for over a half a century. In one of Cézanne’s
paintings of their
residence he omits people and animals that, like in most of
his paintings,
would disrupt the unchanging features of the scene (Murphy
150).
Cézanne’s father was always in a struggle with his son. His father
was one
that could not comprehend anyone being able to be successful in
anything that
did not make him or her rich. One thing that his father had to
be able to
recognize was that his son had determination, but his father was
utterly blind
in seeing his son’s talent (Rewald 35). When Cézanne’s father
died, Cézanne
spoke of him as a genius for leaving him an income of 25,000
francs (Murphy
123). Cézanne married his 12-year affair Hortense Fiquet.
A few months after
their marriage, Cézanne’s father died. Hortense was not
welcome at the Jas de
Bouffan by Cézanne’s mother and sister. People say
that his mother and sister
banned her from the house and they were in a rage
of giving her too much money
(Murphy 117). Cézanne’s sister, Marie, was the
one that encouraged the
marriage, even though she disliked Hortense, in hope
that in would lift the
spirits of her brother. Hortense and Cézanne did not
along very well (Rewald
125). Even after their marriage, Cézanne had no
thought about living the Jas or
his other and sister. Cézanne thought that
16,000 francs, which were her share,
was all that she needed (Rewald 125).
Emile Zola was Paul’s best friend. Cézanne
and Zola were attracted by their
shared interest in literary movements and
artists. Zola and Cézanne played an
important role in each other’s life with
Zola helping start Cézanne’s art
career and Cézanne helping Zola to start
thinking about pictorial art (Murphy
14). Cézanne at one point thought he could
write and some of his works are
found in his letters to Zola: Dark, thick
unwelcome mist covers me up; The
sun withdraws its last handful of diamonds
(Murphy 14). Zola was a very
important person on telling the history of Cézanne.
However, their
friendship had its rocky times and its breakup by Zola. Zola can
recall the
complete disorder of Cézanne’s studio (Rewald 62). Zola tells us
how Cézanne
rarely swept the interior of his studio for fear that the dust
would disrupt
his works. Cézanne based his work on the observation of nature
and used
separate strokes that were visible to make rich surfaces (Preble
400).
Cézanne tried counting on the connection between adjacent strokes
of color to
show the entirety of the form and the space decreasing. In
Cézanne’s The
Saint Victoire from Bellevue we can see how Cézanne uses
this technique to show
space and depth from a flat plane. Cézanne likes to
make alterations on nature
and enlarge the mountain; Cézanne also makes
spatiality more clear and distinct
than the actual photographs of the motifs
(Loran 125). Cézanne seemed to be
obsessed by this mountain and somewhat
exaggerated the size of it in every one
of his paintings (Murphy 154). In
another view of this, entitled Mont Saint-Victoire,
Cézanne uses the tree
to show height by extending it the entire length of the
canvas. Cézanne
utilizes color contrasts to show depth playing with cool and
warm color
shifts (Schapiro 66). Cézanne painted this scene at least 60 times
from every
possible angle. Cézanne had a very distinct style of painting. To
move out of
the style of the broken-color of the Impressionists, Cézanne
created the
system of modulating the colors from a volume of cool to warm or
light to
dark. He made a series of steps (Loran 25). As the colors begin to
overlap
they are creating a three-dimensional image. Cézanne very seldom ever
made a
line around his paintings (Loran 26). Cézanne would make the lines
virtually
disappear off the edge thus creating more volume. This would make
Cézanne’s
paintings pass to the negative or the background (Loran 26). This
technique can
be seen in Cézanne’s Still Life with Apples, a Bottle, and a
Milk Pot (Rewald
253). In this painting we are able to see the way
Cézanne literally escapes the
use of encompassing lines. Cézanne loses the
edges in this painting producing
an image of it pass into the background. Let
us return to the color modulation
that Cézanne created. Color balance was one
final aim for Cézanne. Cézanne’s
light sources are moderately consistent and
his shadows are a very important
element to his color (Loran 28). Cézanne was
known to work on several canvases
at one time changing from one to the other
depending on the time of day or the
location of the sun. One of his paintings
that express this color balance is
Chestnut Trees and Farmhouse at the
Jas de Bouffan (Rewald 150). In this
painting Cézanne is also building on the
volumes, which leads us to the next
perspective on his work. Cézanne used
"lines" to create planes, but he used
planes to create volume. If every
artist can agree on one thing, it is that Cézanne
achieved volume (Loran 27).
In Cézanne’s The Quarry Called Bibemus, the
volume is accentuated. Cézanne
relies on warm-to-cold contrasts and overlapping
forms to give the volume
instead of linear and aerial perspective (Murphy 81).
The color contrast
between the bright green tree and the orange rock make the
space perfectly
clear without the use of lines (Loran 71). Cézanne had problems
with
perspective. In his Road to Gardanne, Cézanne drastically changes the
scene
in order to organize space. Cézanne compresses the size of the foreground
and
makes the road with a sharper turn. Cézanne also reduces the size of
the
trees immensely, but increases the size of the bridge immensely (Loran
48). This
same technique is also used in Mardi Gras and Harlequin. This is
one of his
monumental works in which he struggles with his space
organization. His son,
Paul, posed for the paintings as Harlequin (Murphy
108). In this photo Cézanne
shows his struggle of space by adding sections to
the plane. We can see a
crinkle in the canvas area of the ankle and toe of
Harlequin. Cézanne also
caused distortions in his paintings that were merely
accidental. Due to the fact
that Cézanne would still be scheming his
paintings distortion was often made
(Loran 29). We can see this in his
artwork entitled Women Bathers (Schapiro
117). We can see in this
painting how the head of one of the women is distorted
and somewhat absent
from the painting. His distortion was sometimes just
considered a lack of
dexterity and manual skill, which he later mastered. It is
said that because
Cézanne had not reduced himself to simple abstract shapes
there were
distortions. He was still trying to capture the realistic look by
smudging
and smearing (Loran 95). The painting’s distortion can also be
explained by
the fact that he did all canvases at one time which did not allow
him much
accuracy on the human figure. Much distortion can be seen in the
painting of
another Bathers (Rewald 87). In this painting, the bathers can not
even be
distinguished without reading the name. In Cézanne’s L’Estaque, Cézanne
is
showing how he unifies the foreground and background of some of his
paintings
(Schapiro 63). Unlike the original picture of this scene where the
foreground
and background are clearly separate, Cézanne’s paintings unify hem
into one,
so that they merge to look continuous with one another. Cézanne is
losing the
aerial perspective that is held highly among the Impressionists
(Loran 106).
Works Cited 1Loran, Erle. Cézanne’s Composition: Analysis of
His Form with
Diagrams and Photographs of his Motifs. University of
California Press, 1970.
2Murphy, Richard W. The World of Cézanne :
1839-1906. Time-Life Books, Inc.,
1968. 3Preble, Duane, Preble, Sarah,
and Frank, Patrick, Artforms: An
Introduction to the Visual Arts. "Late
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries".
Addison Wesley Longman, 1999.
4Rewald, John. Cézanne: A Biography. Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., 1986.
5Schapiro, Meyer. Paul Cézanne. Harry N. Abrams,
Inc.,
1952.
Bibliography
1Loran, Erle. Cézanne’s
Composition: Analysis of His Form with Diagrams
and Photographs of his
Motifs. University of California Press, 1970. 2Murphy,
Richard W. The
World of Cézanne : 1839-1906. Time-Life Books, Inc., 1968.
3Preble,
Duane, Preble, Sarah, and Frank, Patrick, Artforms: An Introduction to
the
Visual Arts. "Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries". Addison
Wesley
Longman, 1999. 4Rewald, John. Cézanne: A Biography. Harry N.
Abrams, Inc.,
1986. 5Schapiro, Meyer. Paul Cézanne. Harry N. Abrams,
Inc., 1952.