Melting Snow at Fontainebleau FWN 145 1879/80 76.6cm x 100.6
Sometimes we don’t see things that are right in front of us; they just don’t impinge on our consciousness. The mind is so adept at filtering out stuff, in its effort to keep us focused on the task at hand; if something does not pose a threat, then the mind simply ignores it. Trees pose no threat.
Cezanne did not paint a tree till he was well into his thirties. Yes, you could hardly be a painter of landscapes in Provence without painting trees in the background of your work - but precisely: they were in the background - Cezanne never painted a tree as the motif of the painting till later in life! This particular painting is a copy of a photograph! The winter was so bad that year, that no-one could wander far from home because of the snow, and Cezanne like everyone else, was housebound.
In 1975, a scientist named Broeker forecast what the rise in global temperature would mean by the time we reached 2020; and he was pretty much spot on with his prediction! As a young man, at that time, engaged in all kinds of campaigning for social justice, I did not take on board his prediction - it did not impinge on my consciousness until some forty years later!
This is the last blog of Cezanne’s first phase of development - his ‘balsy’ phase, ‘maniere couillarde’, ending in 1870, when he was 31 years old.
Spiral Dynamics Integral Theory provides us with the tools for understanding human development more thoroughly, on all kinds of levels. On the level of evolutionary human development, 1870 can be used as the date when the Traditional Era lost its position as top-dog to the Modern Era: The traditional worldview of stability with unchanging, absolute codes of living provided by religion; a hierarchy of social order and control; a sense of a higher authority, and the importance of loyalty and duty; The Modern Era of a worldview encouraging change and creativity; the value of policy tested by scientific method rather than blind faith; values judged by the good of the outcome, rather than the interpretation of holy texts; values of pragmatism and materialism. Each human Evolutionary Era seems to have a Great Work that it must fulfil for human development to carry on to the next Era. By 1870, the values of this Modern Era had achieved what no faith-path, no empire, no social organisation had ever achieved in the history of humanity - the abolition of slavery, throughout the known world: the promise of a different way of living together had been enshrined in law.
For France, after many decades of conflict, 1870 saw the final demise of Empire, and the acceptance of democracy as the new power for social organisation and the promise of a new way of making decisions together.
For Cezanne, his twenties were a time when he was struggling with himself. Often dark and deep, brash, antagonistic and over-confident, and yet anxious and withdrawn, uncertain and moody, Cezanne had yet to find his own power. Soon, he will be able to take his seat at the table of life, set his own intentionality, and ground himself in the promise he knew he had within: and what magnificent trees he would then paint!
Trees pose no threat; it’s we humans that pose the threat. Perhaps the Great Work of our Era is to live together in harmony with this earth, for that is where our promise lies.
Whose woods these are I think I know
his house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
to watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
to stop without a farmhouse near
between the woods and frozen lake
the darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
to ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep.
and miles to go before I sleep. --
Robert Frost
May I end with an ancient ancestral blessing:
Walk tall as the trees,
live strong as the mountains,
be gentle as the spring winds,
keep the warmth of the summer sun in your heart
and the Great Spirit will always be with you.