One of the many pleasures of our
vacation in the South of France was the opportunity to visit the
sites where artists created their paintings, to view and experience
the landscapes and light that inspired them and informed their work.
Aix-en-Provence is a graceful, elegant city steeped in art history
and culture. Its fountains, squares, mansions and museums help Aix
retain its architectural heritage. It is a cosmopolitan city and
home to 40,000 university students. Its central boulevard, the plane-tree-and café-lined Cours Mirabeau, is considered one of the most beautiful in France.
The Cours Mirabeau,
Aix-en-Provence
Aix is the city of Cézanne.
He lived and painted here - his studio (Atelier Cézanne)
as well as his family estate (the Jas de Bouffan) are both in Aix. We
visited these as well as a café
that Cézanne frequented
with writer Emile Zola and the building that housed his father's hat
store before his career change to the banking profession. Unfortunately we
did not have time to visit the quarries at Bibemus with its view of
Mt. Saint Victoire,
The Atelier, located up a
steep hill from the city center, preserves Cézanne's
indoor work area where he composed many of his still lifes. There
is a peaceful garden surrounding the workshop and you can imagine
Cézanne setting up his
easel and painting Mt. Sainte Victoire – still visible in the
distance.
If you only have time to
visit just one of the Cézanne
sites, I'd suggest the Jas de Bouffan. Although the family home is
now almost completely devoid of furnishings and has none of Cézanne's
paintings (long since departed for the museums of Paris, New York,
etc.), there is an excellent tour that provides a great introduction
to Cézanne and his works.
Cézanne's paintings are
projected on the walls of the main room. You tour the estate and see
the locations where he painted many of his landscapes. The
description of the stages of his artistic development and the
biographical sketch of the artist are informative and interesting.
What my wife Diane christened as “Cézanne's
pig” made its appearance during one explanation in the back garden.
A black and white baby pig sauntered over to the tour group, sniffed
around the tree near which we were standing (looking for truffles?),
and then wandered slowly away. I have no idea where the pig came
from – perhaps one of the neighboring properties - but I'd like to
think of him (or her) as the descendant of one of the pigs that
lived at Jas de Bouffan while Cézanne
was painting. Alas, I have been unable to find any Cézanne
painting featuring a pig.
Jas de Bouffan, the family estate from 1859-1899
Paul Cézanne
was born in Aix in 1839. He certainly qualifies as one of the
cultural giants of the nineteenth century who paved the way for
the revolutionary changes at the turn of the twentieth century. (See the August 3 post, TheTurning of the Centuries). Recognition of his genius came late
in life but time has been kind to his reputation and lucrative to
those who own his painitngs. Earlier this year, the nation of Qatar
paid 250 million dollars to purchase one of his “Card Player”
paintings. This was the highest price paid for any painting. Ever.
Cézanne
is sometimes classified as a Post-Impressionist but, over the course
of his life, he painted in many styles and art historians have identified four stages of his development. His earliest
paintings, through 1870, were emotional and expressive – the output
of an intense young man. Some had violent or erotic subjects. These
paintings were generally composed in dark colors, which led some to
name this stage of Cézanne's
artistic development the “dark period”.
The paintings of the next
stage were influenced by the techniques and colors of the
Impressionists. It included many landscapes created in the open air.
Cézanne was a slow and
exacting artist. One wonders how he kept pace with his Impressionist
friend Camille Pissaro, who strongly influenced Cézanne
and with whom Cézanne
often painted outdoors. Perhaps he did not. In comparing paintings
by the two artists of the identical scene (an orchard in Pontoise),
Richard Murphy in The World of Cézanne
[WOC] contrasts Cézanne's
greater interest in the architectural elements – the buildings and
walls near the orchard - with Pissaro's emphasis on the light
variations and colors around the leaves and the trees. Pissaro's
painting shows the orchard in full blossom while Cézanne's
has most of the leaves and blossoms gone from the trees and the
building and wall more clearly seen. Murphy writes: “...there was
quite possibly a purely practical reason for the differences...
Cézanne worked so slowly
that the blossoms may very well have fallen from the trees before he
could complete his picture.”
Beginning about 1878,
Cézanne entered what has
been called his “Constructive Period.” Cézanne
referred to his paintings as “constructions after nature”, built
out of “plastic equivalents and color”, and urged that we “see
in nature the cylinder, the sphere and the cone”. [WOC] This
artistic philosophy seems almost Platonic – looking for an ideal
form beyond the immediate visual impression, imbuing meaning beyond
that given by our senses. For twenty years, he had spent time
painting in both Paris and in Provence. Then in the late 1870's, he
moved back to Aix more or less permanently and away from the
influence of the Impressionists. Besides landscapes and portraits,
he began painting still lifes (more than 200 over the course of his
life) - bringing back a genre that
had lost favor over the years. A still life lends
itself easily to his artistic philosophy – the forms are more
distinct and the painting could be “constructed” more easily.
The last stage of his
development was “a peiod of synthesis during which his painting,
incorporating elements of all the previous styles, became freer and
more nearly abstract.” [WOC] His later works laid the groundwork
for the abstract painting of the twentieth century. Cézanne
died in 1906 at the age of 67, having contracted pneumonia after
painting in a downpour for two hours. Both Matisse and Picasso have
been credited with the line that “Cézanne
is the father of us all”.
Here are several paintings
that I think show both the stages of Cézanne's
artistic development and the changes in art styles through the
nineteenth century. From top to bottom are examples from his early Expressionist/emotional/"dark" period (
Portrait of Achille
Emperaire, Cézanne's
friend - c. 1868), his Impressionist period (Jas de Bouffan, 1876), the Constructive period (Still Life with Open Drawer, c. 1879) and the Synthesis Period (Le Mont Sainte Victoire, c.1904).
Attribution
The Time-Life Library of Art
series has an excellent summary and analysis of Cézanne,
his life, his art, and his times: “The World of Cézanne:
1839-1906” by Richard W. Murphy. If you can get your hands on a
copy (it was published/copyrighted in 1968), it would be a great way
to explore Cézanne
further. The notation [WOC] designates direct quotes from the book.
Links
No blog entry can capture
even a small portion of Cézanne's
work. The paintings above are simply examples to illustrate the
various stages of the development of his art. The web has many images of of his
paintings. Here are links to images of ten more of his works along
with their current locale.
The Card Players
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Bathers The National
Gallery, London
This YouTube video includes a brief discussion of the work.
The Black Clock Private collection
The Railway Cutting Neue Pinakothek, Munich
At the right of this 1870 painting is Mt. Sainte Victoire. This is the first time this favorite subject appeared in a Cézanne
painting.
Mont-Sainte-Victoire from Bibemus Quarry Baltimore Museum of Art
This is a later painting of Mt. Sainte Victoire (1898-1900). There is a brief discussion of the work at the Baltimore Museum of Art's webpage. Click here to go there.
Mardi Gras (Harlequin andPierrot) Pushkin Museum, Moscow
The Gulf of Marseille Seen from L'Estaque Art Institute of Chicago
View of Gardanne Brooklyn Museum of Art
.
The Turn in the Road atAuvers Private Collection
Here are two websites with thorough (complete?) collections of the paintings.
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