Male bather arms outstretched FWN 914 1877/8 73cm x 60
The first Impressionist Exhibition opened on the 15th April 1874 at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, Paris with 30 artists displaying 165 works under the catchy title of the “Co-operative and Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, etc”. The press didn’t take any notice of that chosen name, and invented their own more descriptive ones like “The Intransigents”. The property was owned by Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, who seemed to have discovered ahead of his time the importance of catchy names, otherwise known as Nadar, the famous French photographer. He was part of the circle of young artists and innovators who gathered in the cafés of Montmartre. He had made his fortune through his photography, especially doing fine portraits of anybody who was anybody in Paris at the time. ‘35 Boulevard des Capucines’ was his former studios, which he allowed the Impressionists to use for their first exhibition free of charge.
In 1856, Jean Marie Le Bris became the first guy to “fly higher than his point of departure”, after being pulled with his ‘artificial albatross’ on a cart behind a horse charging along a beach in Normandy, and taking off from the cart into the air rising to a height of 100m for a distance of 200m. In 1868, this first ever flying machine and pilot was photographed by, you’ve guessed it, Nadar. Nadar loved all things flying - when Paris was under siege in the Franco-Prussian war, he dropped stuff off to the Communards from a balloon; he took the first aerial photograph from his own ‘giant’ balloon; and he formed an association with Jules Verne as Secretary, himself as President: "The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier than Air Machines" - they liked their catchy titles in those days!
This painting of the ‘Bather with outstretched arms’ is the last one of a series painted by Cezanne – not really a series, more like trial and error, till he ended his attempt to express whatever he wanted to express with this one. Cezanne’s application of the paint is by “finely graded tones applied in tiny parallel strokes” (Tate Exhibition 1896). The figure of the bather seems to stand out from the painting, giving it a colossal look, the large feet solidly anchored to the ground. But the guy seems to be in a dream, a world of his own. Many art historians and writers have presented many, many attempts to interpret what Cezanne was trying to express; and because he attempted so many sketches and paintings of the same stance over a number of years, he obviously had something in mind! But what?
I’d like to suggest that we look to those who were inspired by Cezanne’s work, and who in turn they inspired, and so on..
Rainer Maria Rilke fell in love with Cezanne’s work when he saw it in the retrospective of 1907, and produced some of his finest poetry to his wife describing how Cezanne’s work inspired him. Rilke wrote “Letters on Cezanne” to his wife as a commentary of what he experienced.
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
Rainer Maria Rilke, book of hours, translated by Joanna Macy.
Joanna Macy, an environmental activist, author, scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology, translated Rilke’s poems into English in 1996.
“I felt a sense of release, as if I had been let out of a cage I had not known I was in. Rilke’s images lent some pattern, even meaning, to a life I thought had failed in its spiritual vocation. Once I had imagined that my journey would be like the Pilgrim’s Progress, where each adventure brings the hero closer to the heavenly city, but the Christian God with whom I had been intoxicated in my teenage years did not survive the theological studies I undertook to serve him (and it was a him). When I turned outward, angry and heartsick, to political affairs, I found that I was a failure as an atheist, too, for I could not cure myself of praying to a God I no longer believed in.
But gradually over time, as the mind relaxed, capacities bred by my earlier Christian experience resurfaced and infused my understanding of Buddhism. The presence that I became aware of, around and within me, is apprehended through an act of rapt, wordless attention, receptive and probing. And what the presence seems to be is the web (of life) itself, the thrumming relationality of all things.”
I know that for thousands of lifetimes,
we have been one,
and the distance between us is only a flash of thought.
For the deep blue sky,
the snow-capped mountains painted against the horizon,
and the shining red sun sing with joy
Thich Naht Hahn
Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist.