: Paul Cezanne once referred to the area around his birthplace in
the south of France as "this country, which has not yet found an
interpreter worthy of the riches it offers." Focusing his career
in his native Aix-en-Provence, he became that interpreter.
Painting with emotion and passion, Cezanne (1839-1906) created
views of its venerable villages, verdant landscape and towering
Montagne Sainte-Victoire that have become icons of world art. He
also recorded the look and setting of his family home and his
studios, immortalized his wife and other sitters in portraits and
painted some of the finest still lifes of all time.
Cezanne's hard-won achievements grew out of a lifetime of trauma
and struggle. Tormented, obstinate and gifted, he virtually
willed himself into becoming a great artist.
Cezanne's work had an enormous impact on painters who followed.
In particular, he exerted great influence on avant-garde artists
of the Twentieth Century. Picasso called him "the father of us
all"; Klee, "the supreme master"; Matisse, "a kind of benevolent
god of painting." Over the years, he has been called the patron
saint of movements from Fauvism and Cubism to abstraction. In
spite of the adulation of fellow artists and thorough study by
art historians, few major painters have remained such an enigma
as this driven Frenchman.
In "The Artist's Father, Reading L'Evenement," 1886, Cezanne
depicted his parent, seated in a huge chair, perusing an
unlikely newspaper. National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr
and Mrs Paul Mellon.
Marking the centennial of his death, "Cezanne in Provence,"
on view at the National Gallery of Art through May 7, explores the
artist's deep attachment to his region and the masterworks he
created there. More than 120 paintings and works on paper, ably
selected and organized by Philip Consisbee, senior curator of
European paintings at the National Gallery, and Denis Coutagne,
director of the Musee Granet, are displayed largely by sites and
themes. Original site photographs taken in the 1930s by the late,
preeminent Cezanne scholar John Rewald help put the artwork in
context. The exhibition is comprehensive, informative, moving,
intriguing and challenging.
The son of a strong-willed hatmaker who bought the only bank in
town, Cezanne was born, raised and died in historic
Aix-en-Provence. Growing up, he roamed the countryside with his
chum, future literary giant Emile Zola, who encouraged him to
became a painter against the wishes of his father, who wanted him
to be a lawyer. Painted many years later, "Large Pine and Red
Earth," 1895, symbolizes Cezanne's nostalgia for the natural
beauty to which he was exposed as a carefree youth.
In deference to his father's wishes, Cezanne briefly studied law
in Aix. Breaking away for several visits to Paris in the 1860s,
the shy, awkward provincial hobnobbed with Zola and aspiring
artists, such as Edouard Manet, Claude Monet and Camille
Pissarro, seeking to participate in the lively art world of the
city. But he was twice rejected for admission to the prestigious
Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Copying works in the Louvre by Poussin and
Rubens laid the foundation for an art based on scrutiny of the
past.
Cezanne was deeply wounded when his early Gustave Courbet-like
paintings - filled with restless energy and angst - were rejected
by the annual Salon - as were all others throughout his career,
and were harshly judged by critics and the public.
Cezanne's numerous unsparing self-portraits emphasize his bald
pate, scruffy beard and baleful look. It is hardly the image of a
successful, debonair Parisian artist.
