In his early works Cézanne stated, “my pictures reveal a Baroque temperament and a heightened sensuality” (BBC, 1995). This comes across due to his use of contrasting colours that are bold and daring. The works are characterised by both a dark, heavy use of colour and paint. This achieves a romantic feel seen evidently in his Self-Portrait of 1861/2 with its strong colours and high intensity. His works are “passionate, violent, and expressionistic” (Eisenman, 1994, p. 391).
From 1862 onwards his work took on a raw emotional style. We see a freer brushstroke develop and he begins to convey form through colour rather than line. He is increasingly focused on structure and the handling of the paint becomes as important as the subject matter. According to the art historian Lawrence Gowing in his achievements Cézanne has discovered an intrinsic structure inherent in the medium and the material (Eisenman, 1994, p. 394). His paintings also become flattened. He is no longer concerned with representing depth in his compositions. His palette becomes lighter and he no longer uses chiaroscuro (light and shade). He simply represents light through colour. We see colours along side each other that are not found like this in nature. The colours he uses do not merge together under the naked eye. “Colour functions primarily to express moods or strong feelings and only partially to indicate mass, volume, depth, and pictorial unity” (Eisenman, 1994, p. 394).
In his late works we see the definite development of what is Cézannes trademark the constructive brushstroke. This is where he creates diagonal movement of small parallel square brushstrokes. He begins to apply the paint in small patches and spots in parallel or geometric hatchings like the squares of a mosaic. This gives the effect of a tapestry of colour. He begins to look at objects within the one picture plain from different viewpoints and perspectives. He uses these techniques in order to express the idea of the internal structure of the spaces that lay before him and to render their volume. He finally moved into the use of watercolour, which he treated the same as oils only “In moving towards colour he moved towards space and in moving towards light he moved towards emptiness” (BBC, 1995). In the painting “Trees by the water” (1900-1904) a large part of the canvas is left blank and this becomes a technique increasingly used by Cézanne in his late works.
Throughout his life Cézanne was influenced by lots of movements. His main influences were Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, and Pissarro (Eisenman, 1994, p. 390). While studying at the Academy Suisse in the early 1860’s he attended the Louvre everyday where he admired and copied artists such as Rubens, Delacroix and Pouissin. He saw copying as an important form of discipline and inspiration (Webmuseum). What struck him the most about Delacroix was his romanticism and intensity in his use for colour. “He understood, respected, and made extensive use of the greatest masters of the past” (Eisenman, 1994, p. 390). He believed they had achieved harmony, balance and compositional perfection but now he wanted to achieve these things in a new way.
While he exhibited with the impressionists in 1874 he had nothing in common with them. He was not influenced by their work as he saw it as too light and fluffy and not concerned with structure. However dealings with them caused him to “change from a Romantic rebel to a cultural revolutionary” (Eisenman, 1994, p. 390). He also used the “narrow tonal range and prismatic hues of impressionism as a means of capturing the effects of light and air and of disciplining his sometimes violent and disordered imagination” (Eisenman, 1994, p. 394). During his time at the Academy Suisse he met Pissarro who would later influence him more than anyone else. During the 1860’s Courbet also influenced him. He applied paint crudely in layers like Courbet’s work from Ornas. This caused him to apply the paint almost in relief. This influenced his desire to create surface energy, his choice in subject matter and his spatial construction. Around the early 1870’s we see a slight influence from Manet in Cézannes use of black and white, pattern and his flattening of the picture plain. However, this does not last long.
Pissarro was the biggest influence on Cézanne, apart from his friend Zola. He helped him to find his own identity. With Pissarro he learned the meaning of hard work. He allowed himself to be guided by the older painter. He later called him the Good God Pissarro. In Auvers he taught him to work outdoors. He answered to nature now and nature was his new palette. From Pissarro’s example he used long flat and supple palette knives and painted with sweeping strokes studying the effects of light. “Cézanne’s strokes are broader than Pissarro’s and manage to evoke the shape, density, and surface texture of the objects they describe” (Eisenman, 1994, p. 397). During the early 1870’s Cézanne and Pissarro lived next door to each other in Auver. It was during this period that Pissarro influenced him the most. The house of the hanged man, 1874 displays a greater tonal variety and is lighter than previous works. He is using the prismatic colours seen in the works of the impressionists and the paint application is lighter and patchier.
During his time with the impressionists and Pissarro it is clear that Cézanne felt a sense of release in his works. He is no longer burdened with the dark heavy works of his early years. He paints in a freer style in the outdoors and leaves behind him the torment of his life that is interlinked with that of his father. Pissarro encouraged him to leave the subject matter with which he was dealing with and to concentrate on nature. He encouraged him to use lighter colours and short dabbing strokes. He introduced him to bright contrasting colours rather than the heavy dark tones of his previous paintings. Cézanne began to organise his pictures and strove to suggest an underlying structure to the natural world, which he became a part of.
Cézanne was born in 1839 in the era of the steam train or locomotive. When he was twenty the “Communist Manifesto” was produced by Karl Marx, along with the publishing of Charles Darwin’s “Origins of Species”. A series of developments and discoveries socially, politically, scientifically and naturally were changing the views and thinking of people. The 1870’s saw the “Electromagnetic theory of light” and Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” was complete in 1905. The second half of the nineteenth century saw the development of mass production, which resulted in the dramatic change of city life. By the time Cézanne was fifty the Eiffel Tower was built in Paris and motorcars and wireless radios were common items. All of these developments make up the social context in which Cézanne was painting and developing his view of nature. In Cézanne’s paintings we do not see the depiction of the new industrial France we merely see his obsession with nature. There are however subtle indications that he disapproved of what was happening around him. The fact that he simply left out the changes or chose not to address them in his work shows that he is not enamoured by them.
“Cézanne’s stay, in 1870-71, in the remote village of L’estaque…screened him from current political events – defeat of Napoleon III, the Prussian invasion, the French capitulation and the political experiment of the Commune” (Schmitt, 1995, P.36). He moved to L’Estaque so that he could live in isolation from society and concentrate on his painting. The 1870 painting “Railroad cutting” illustrates the changes in his techniques and gives insight into his views of modernisation. “The paint is still applied thickly, but perspective has been largely eliminated, depth being expressed instead by means of flat, overlapping zones” (Schmitt, 1995, P. 38). The composition of the painting is significant. The railroad cuts across the middle-ground and is painted with accuracy giving the invasion of the natural environment an aggressive feel like “a gaping wound inflicted on nature by progress, in the shape of a railroad” (Schmitt, 1995, P. 38). Cézanne clearly disapproves of the railroad and has used his painting to highlight this. He often depicted scenes differently to how they appeared in reality. This occurred in “Railroad cutting” where he has created his own arrangement of the house, railroad, Mont Sainte-Victoire, and the cathedral, “as if to contrast the transient works of humankind to the permanence of nature” (Schmitt, 1995, P. 38). It is clear that he felt threatened by modernisation. In the 1880’s he settled permanently in L’Estaque but it became more and more industrialised as time went on. His views of this modernised world are portrayed in a letter to his Godchild: “Unfortunately, what we call progress is nothing but the invasion of bipeds who do not rest until they have transformed everything into hideous quais with gas lamps – and, what is still worse – with electric illumination. What times we live in!” (Schmitt, 1995, P.77).
Cézanne’s career was a complex one however it’s development can be clearly traced. He struggled to achieve what the painters of the Louvre had and it wasn’t until his final years that he reached his goal. He took a journey on which his characteristics of painting changed due to his influences and the social context in which he was painting. He strove to do something new and that he did. He changed painting and is considered to be the father of modern art. This could not have been achieved without his passion, determination and ultimately his obsession with paint and painting. While working in the family bank he wrote in a ledger “I am wasting away, painting haunts me, the desire to pick up my brushes once again becomes more and more pressing” (BBC, 1995).
Bibliography
BBC Production, 1995, Cézanne
BBC Arts Co. Production in Association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1996, Cézanne
Eisenman S., 1994, Nineteenth Century Art, A critical History, Thames and Hudson, London.
Frascina and Harrison, 1982, Modern Art and Modernism, The Open University
Gombrich E.H., 1996, The Story of Art, Phiadon.
Hoffman, R., 7 Feb 1999, What is new and unique about Cézanne, World Socialist Web Site.
Schmitt Evmarie, 1995, Cézanne in Provence, Pegasus Library.
Web museum, Paris, 2002, Cézanne Paul
Modernity and Modernism, 1993, The Open University