Happy 171st birthday to Paul Cezanne!!! When considering the aesthetic revolution of the 20th century, it is pretty easy to make a case for Cezanne's prominence. Others, like Picasso and Kandinsky, might have brought it to fruition, but, as Picasso said, "Cezanne was the father of us all."
So many crazy things are written and said about modern art - which is really all art/music/film/writing today. But the way that I tell it to my students is that it is just the idea that things do not have to look/sound/read/feel like something else. While the artists of the past were judged primarily on how well they reproduced the world, Cezanne claimed that art was, "a harmony parallel to nature." Things can look however you want them to look!!
Of course the problem with this is, how do you then tell if it's good or bad? This is where I really love Cezanne! He pioneered the revolutionary notion that, when you reject the rules of the majority, what you need to do is to look deeply and fearlessly into your own consciousness for what moves you, and this is what he did for his whole life!!
He was brilliant, insecure, radical, courageous, flawed and relentless!! I love his paintings, but just as much I love the man and what he accomplished!
Here are some words of his:
"Nature is not on the surface, but in the depth."
"Painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realizing one's sensations."
"Regarding one's art, one must be incorruptible, and to be so in one's art, one must practice being incorruptible in one's life."
"All juries are pigs."
And of course:
How I love his fruit!!!!
3 comments:
I love his landscapes - I see them everywhere!
Do you mean you see the paintings everywhere, or that you see his paintings in the actual landscapes?
I see his paintings in the actual landscapes - I can see exactly what he was looking at. It's really neat to be able to see glimpses into other people's vision like that - I guess that's one reason humans are so drawn to art. We really are such social creatures.
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