Roofs FWN 105 1876/77 50cm x 60
Here we have three paintings of roofs – one each from Cezanne’s Impressionist phase, his constructivist phase and his final mature phase. I hope you have some time to enjoy these three and compare them; I’m sure you’ll be able to find more comparisons and insights into Cezanne’s development to add to those in this blog. This is the last blog covering Cezanne’s second phase, his Impressionist phase; I hope you have enjoyed them. I’m going to take a few months off, and re-commence with Cezanne’s third phase, his constructivist phase, at the end of February 2020. And then complete these blogs with Cezanne’s final mature phase in 2021. See you in the New Year….
of beauty:
I think it’s really hard for us to realise just what a big thing it was for the Impressionists to paint as they did; and that’s partly because their contribution to the development of art and the unfolding of beauty has had such a great influence on recent generations, whether we realise it or not. I have this notion that before the Impressionists, Art was about moralizing; it had to have some higher purpose, because paintings were owned by the upper classes who saw their role in life as providing a stable society for everyone to live in. It was at best paternalistic, and at worst dictatorial.
The Impressionist came along and said: “hey, we’re just going to paint the stuff of ordinary life, because that’s where beauty lies. And we’re going to paint it in a way that offers an invitation for you to feel the rich atmosphere that we paint. We’re not interested in the precise detail of the motif; we’re not interested in attaining such a polished finish that you can’t see the paint. We want to be raw, honest and simple, rich and vibrant, joyful and inclusive.” Their higher purpose was indeed remembering that beauty is the beholding of the graciousness of ordinary life by the people.
Roofs of Paris FWN 178 1882 59.4cm x 72.4
of truth:
Gradually, Cezanne began to realize that beauty was not sufficient unto itself; and the way he expressed what he sensed was missing, was ‘solidity’. In his famous phrase, he “wants to give Impressionism the solidity of the Old Masters”. He tried to do this by retaining the beauty of the Impressionist phase, and adding a more rigorous ‘constructing’ of the painting. The paintings from his Contructivist phase are sharper, more dense and more intense; less raw and more thoughtful.
The more we humans develop, the more complex we become. It is not so much that the truth of previous generations is wrong, but that it becomes insufficient; it can no longer express the full complexity of the truth that we now live. We are drawn on by the energy of evolution to find new ways of expressing beauty and truth together, beauty of the ordinary and truth of the complexity of life.
It is this task that becomes Cezanne’s focus and dedication in his Constructivist phase; and it is this phase of Cezanne’s oeuvre that I will begin in the New Year of 2020.
Roofs FWN 326 1898 65.7cm x 81.6
of goodness:
It’s the most mysterious of paradoxes that beyond complexity lies simplicity. In his mature phase, Cezanne discovers this simplicity. I think (coz that’s where I find mystery) it’s like the great scientific discoveries – Pythagoras enabled mathematics, music, architecture and cosmology, by discovering a simple formula: the Square on the hypotenuse, and the hidden structural balance of proportions 3² + 4² = 5². Einstein changed the whole way we understand the universe, space and time itself,…simply based on E=MC².
This simplicity is open-ended and inclusive; we won’t get there if we stay firmly in our box. We have to look outside of our understandings; we have to be creative; we have to be able to receive all things and fear none: because we have come to realize that simplicity and complexity are one, unending; and there lies beauty, truth and goodness.
Cezanne used to sign his paintings: non finito….
Because of this love
my bowl has fallen from the roof.
Put down a ladder and collect the pieces, please.
People ask: but which is your roof?
I answer: wherever the soul came from
and wherever it goes at night,
my roof is in that direction.
From wherever spring arrives to warm the ground
from wherever searching rises in the human heart
my roof is in that direction
Be quiet now and wait.
It may be that the Ocean One
the one we desire so to move into and become
desires us out here on land a little longer
going our sundry roads to the shore.
جلالالدین محمد رومی
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī