Bay of Marsaille from L’Esaque by Cezanne

I don't count Cezanne amongst my top favorite painters, but I saw a landscape-focused show in Florence, Italy years ago and was surprisingly moved by it. The memory of that exhibit made me determinded to get to this show in Chicago of a wider range of his works, including his bathers and still lifes. After attending two, I can say that the viewing experience in Italy may have added to my pleasure. It was not very busy the day I was there. I could get really close to the art and was able to really feel the lightness. I remember being moved to tears. It was wonderful that didn’t feel the breath of someone queued behind me in a hurry for their one minute maximum turn with a painting. As someone who feels guilty inconveniencing others, I felt very rushed in Chicago.

The Opening Piece of the Cezanne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago! I like his landscapes best of all so this I felt was a stunning beginning. This show was very busy!

Unless an artist violates all my sensibilities, it's hard for me not to delight in seeing a body of work together. It gives me kind of a shivery sense of another artist’s visual perceptions, their favorite places and their contemporaries. Sometimes I boldly wonder how my work would look in a show with art as well lit and as well framed as these top calibre exhibitions…. Lighting can really upgrade art! Just saying…

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paul-cezanne-bathers-les-grandes-baigneuses

As a painter myself, I watch scholarly reviews with a somewhat skeptical eye. I feel like some art historians like to look at artist's work as though everything, even technical misteps, were intentional and I don't think that's true. I watched an excellent YouTube on Cezanne's (big blue) Bathers on loan to the show from The National Gallery in London, and I find it interesting at how far experts will go in reading into pieces, suggesting it took years for Cezanne to paint it because his emotions, trail-blazing skills, and high concepts were so…. profound (pronouce in a breathy whisper, please), and not because he struggled with getting his concept to be passably pleasing. I also sort of roll my eyes at the Cezanne quote about how he felt so deeply. I would hazard a guess that most creatives feel this way. It doesn’t mean that his art come from deeper in his heart than did others’. Not trying to be mean or tout my ignorance here, it’s just that as much as I enjoy the art as human, sometimes naive, sometimes brilliant, we’re not dealing with gods, here (or are we?).

My blunt opinion is that Cezanne struggled for grace in his figures. His academic figures were laboured and stiff and as a student of a rigorous French Academic tradtion myself, I know that he would have worked on those student pieces for many hours and would have had critiques and corrections suggested. They still weren’t anything to write home about. To me, his only figure with true musicality to it, true grace in the forms is this one, “Scipio” which was in Claude Monet’s collection.

Scipio by Cezanne from my onw photo 2022 Chicago- This is by far my favorite portrait or figure of his.

It didn’t escape my notice that when Cezanne needed money, his art dealer suggested he make and sell prints of some nude male bathers. They sold well and may have encouraged him to keep going with the bathing series. Ya know, struggling artist and all that.

image of male bathers framed painting by Paul Cezanne — Bathers by Cezanne

I’ll be making a video on composition and style and I’ll talk about Cezanne’s work there, but for now let me say that after seeing the range of his work, I still prefer his landcapes to all other subjects. My second favorite of his would be the still lifes. Maybe not too shocking of a revelation.

stoneware pitcher by cezanne photo by thimgan hayden chicago — Stoneware Pitcher by Cezanne

I enjoy the drama of his still life works. To me, it looks like he knew he was master of space and atmosphere when he approached his interior set ups, very much like a competent stage director. His use of blues and deep yellows, common in all his work, really shines in these subjects. Don’t let it pass you by that the two colors he seemed to use most were warm cyan blues, grays, yellow ochres and rosey rusts. These exact colors are widely used in movie color palettes. More on the color theories later (in the coming video).

screenshot from: https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/cinema-palettes-famous-movie-colors/

All in all, I think that Cezanne was at his best with space and atmosphere (composition), and if he was sore that his realism and sense of mass never reached the level that he might have originally hoped, he was likely pleased with the degree of fame and appreciation he earned in his lifetime. HIs work was collected by other artists (like Claude Monet) whose approval meant something as the new art, Impressionism established a path for a broader appreciation of what was meant by “good art”.

And now his work I like best…. the landscapes. His landscapes have a relaxed, airiness to them. They feel less laboured than his other pieces. As a painter always trying to loosen up, I love it when I feel the mellow calm of the artist just playing around in the colors, as it were. Maybe that is not at all how he was while painting landscapes, but that’s how I feel when I look at them. I feel like they’re a nice balance between stylization and cheerful observation. I also enjoy the fact that many are what we might call unfinished. I like to think he got to that point and didn’t have any guilt put on him by other artists or academy saying, “Make that paint thicker” and “aren’t you going to finish that corner?”

three landscapes by cezanne from my photo at chicago art institute

Thanks for reading! I’m sure I missed getting some nuance just right in this post. It’s hard to explain that I do really like his paintings, yet have misgivings in attributing him with the same kind of godlike technique accolades that some give him.

Thoughts on the Cezanne Exhibit (Chicago 2022)