Still life in front of a dresser FWN 807 1887/8 71.5 cm x 90 Munich
“I met Tschudi, the Director of the Munich Gallery, and now I know why Burroughs spoke to you of Cezanne’s ‘nature morte’ (still-life). It is Tschudi who infects them all. I told him what I thought of Cezanne – I was one of his first admirers, but I certainly don’t put him where they do!” Mary Cassatt (1910). Mary Cassatt, who befriended and mentored Degas (sadly, he needed some befriending) was one of the “three great women” of Impressionism (along with Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot). Hugo von Tschudi was responsible for acquiring the first Cezanne painting to be displayed in a public gallery – in July 1897. (The Mill at Pontoise, FWN 158). Tschudi acquired six Cezanne’s altogether – three are in Berlin, and three in Munich, including this one. (when Tschudi acquired the ‘Birth of Christ’ by Gauguin, it was the final straw for the Kaiser, and he sacked poor old Hugo!)
When put next to each other, complementary colours, on opposite sides of the colour wheel, provide high contrast and high impact combinations: side by side, they each will appear more bright and more prominent. So, by putting the orangey red of the fruit and the blue white of the tablecloth next to each other, Cezanne augments the colours he uses. They jump out at us - not only because they seem to come beyond the edge of the split-level table towards us and also seem to float above the table, held in the air by a tablecloth! – but because of the colours themselves!
In 1854, a chemist working in a weaving factory, sought to find an answer for his weavers who complained that when they put complementary coloured weave next to each other in the tapestry, the colours became extra bright; and, more annoyingly, when they put juxtaposed weave together, the colours seem to modify the hue. So it was that Chevreul eventually published his book: The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours; and so was born “The Law of simultaneous contrast”. Thus we have scientific laws for the experience that complementary colours appear more prominent; that, with two colours next to each other on the wheel, when put together in reality, the darker one darkens and the lighter one lightens; and that, with juxtaposed colours, the complementary colour of the lighter one is seen to tint the darker one. (When Chevreul’s weavers juxtaposed black thread with blue, the black thread would appear tinted with orange – the complementary of blue- or, if put next to violet, the black would take on a hint of yellow) (Post-Impressionist Masterworks, Samuel Raybone). Chevreul was rewarded for his work by having his name engraved on the Eiffel Tower (constructed between 1887 to 1889 for the World Fair in Paris of 1889): joining the seventy-one other men of science, engineering, and mathematics recognized for their contributions to our modern Industrial Growth Society.
Chevreul’s Laws of Colour caused all sorts of bother: he had proved, scientifically, that the human brain alters what we see. Impressionist painters wanted to paint the experience of the impression of the motif: the ‘savage eye’ that would enable them simply to copy what their eyes ‘saw’ – the impression of the object on the eye before it is interpreted by the mind. But Chevreul’s laws seemed to prove this was not possible. What does it mean to be faithful to nature in painting? Should the painter make allowances for the way the brain manipulates what we see? Later, the post-Impressionist painter Paul Signac sought to apply these new laws of colour, and vision, by painting with dots, so that the brain could interpret the dots as the scientifically astute artist anticipates.
The application of the scientific laws of colour was still circumscribed within a hierarchy of gendered theory about artistic technique: The ‘male’ principle of controlled activity was contrasted with the ‘female’ elements of artistic technique that resist systematic ordering. ‘Colour is the most feminine of the pictorial elements, because it is traditionally the most unmanageable – colour is inherently emotional’. (Cezanne by Richard Shiff, on Charles Blanc, French Art Critic). Whether you put your faith in the laws of science, or in the intuition of the artist, no-one questioned the gendered hierarchical understanding of artistic technique, and critique. On seeing Cassatt’s ‘Two Women Picking Fruit’ for the first time, Degas splurted out his instinctive response: “No woman has the right to draw like that!”.
“If I have not been absolutely feminine, then I have failed,” wrote Mary Cassatt, while at work on a mural for the Columbian World Fair of 1892. Among the most prominent painters and printmakers of her generation, Cassatt (1844–1926) had been asked to develop a decorative program on the subject of “modern woman” for an Exposition, an international fair held in Chicago in 1893. Once installed, her vast mural astonished viewers with its allegorical depiction of larger-than-life girls and women jointly pursuing scientific, artistic, and cultural achievements. When asked why she had excluded male figures from her vision of contemporary womanhood, Cassatt replied, “Men, I have no doubt, are painted in all their vigour on the walls of the other buildings.”
While the men were busy constructing monuments of the scientific and industrial growth society, the women were busy de-constructing the whole accompanying value-system.
our work should equip
the next generation of women
to outdo us in every field
this is the legacy we’ll leave behind
Rupi Kaur