By Krystin Arneson, to Museum Spotlight Europe
Experience Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) at Tate Modern’s exhibition, The Ey Exhibition: Cezanne, open from October 5 2022 to March 12 2023. This retrospective demonstrates how Cezanne — the “artist’s artist” — would draw from popular styles at the time, namely Impressionism, to lay the foundations of what we know as modern art. While his paintings are often considered “traditional,” that assessment is only accurate in hindsight. In actuality, Cezanne was a pioneer of modern art, whose brushstrokes created a ripple effect across other landscape paintings of the 20th century. The Tate claims, “Cezanne is one of the most highly regarded and enigmatic artists of the late 19th century” and supports this claim in the extensive details of the exhibition.
The EY Exhibition: Cezanne demonstrates how he utilized materials, redefined painting with his own vision and expanded the possibilities of painting for future generations of artists. Gone was the Renaissance’s painterly inheritance of linear perspective; for Cezanne, painting wasn’t the form of the object depicted, but rather a “realization” of his personal experiences or “sensations.” This approach would resonate with painters for years to come and consequently provoked harsh scrutiny among contemporary art critics.
Explore Cezanne’s “sensations” in 65 oil paintings and 17 paper works; The exhibition’s wide scope makes it the artist’s most significant display in 25 years. While this is a considerable quantity of art, it doesn’t overwhelm the viewer; The show is divided into a first and second half. The first provides an overview of Cezanne’s biography, outlining his life, friends, family, contemporaries and places lived. Like many artists of his time, Cezanne found himself working and living in one of Paris’ headiest eras, the Belle Epoque. Cezanne spent much of his time in the French capital developing his own style and forming relationships with other artists.
Moving into the second half, themed groupings represent common motifs from his work. The Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) depicts nude bodies near the water in a symmetrical composition. This painting is arguably one of his most impressive works because, in a counterpoint to many of his fellow artists, he painted the bodies from imagination rather than life. As the exhibition advances, it becomes simple to trace a line from Cezanne’s turn-of-the-century work directly to Fauvism, Cubism, and more of the avant-garde movements we now see as valuable chapters of our collective art history.
Paul Cezanne
The Bathers, 1894-1905
Oil paint on canvas
210.5 cm × 250.8 cm
In celebration, some of Cezanne’s works are on display for the first time in the United Kingdom. Nine artworks come from private collections, which enrich the retrospective and create an utter, immersive treat, especially if you’ve seen his work in piecemeal with a painting here or there at other museums. These collectors are the latest in a long line that goes back to Cezanne’s contemporaries and the creme of the Western classical art canon: Pissarro was his comrade-in-arms to drive the Impressionist movement; Monet once owned 14 paintings by him; Matisse and Picasso referred to him as “the father of us all” — and Picasso even purchased land on Mont Sainte-Victoire to be spiritually closer to Cezanne.
Seeing much of his work in one place — and this is true of any artist, but it seems especially so with Cezanne in this particular exhibit — saturates the viewer in the life of the painter and challenges one to seek out narrative threads, similarities, and indications of style development in a way that solidifies one’s understanding of Cezanne with nuance and colors in the details. The François Zola Dam (Mountains in Provence) is a landscape painting hinting at Cubist undulations in a symphony of wheat-gold hillsides and tree branches dripping with the weight of their greenery.
Paul Cezanne
The François Zola Dam, 1877-78
Oil paint on canvas
54.2 cm x 74.2 cm
In the exhibition, certain instances of his development are isolated, providing a flash-frozen moment for a deeper examination. For example, a room features a display of the art created in L’Estaque at the cusp of his artistic maturity; It was here that he made an effort to avoid being conscripted into the Franco-Prussian War. The exhibition room lends viewers a sense of what it was like to be observing the scenery from his easel. In Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902-6), the landscape is made of thick, rectangular strokes, giving an angularity to what one otherwise assumes to be flat plains before the mountain. The color palette includes goldenrod, a vivid verdant green, and soft shades of blue and purple indicating more mountainous terrain. The composition effortlessly combines the various terrains: the green of the earth running along the purple peak, which interrupts the icy blues of the sky.
On an interesting note, you may notice that the accent on Cezanne is omitted in the text of the show. This is because the accent wasn’t used in his home region; he had to adopt it to guide Parisians on how to properly pronounce his name. It was omitted once again from this show at the request of his great-grandson, Philippe Cezanne.
Overall, the Tate Modern’s excellent exhibition positions Cezanne firmly in his own time, as a product of his contemporary world — and examines with clear eyes the legacy he left for future generations, not just in how we depict art, but how we conceive of representation itself.
Cover image: Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902–04, oil on canvas, 73 x 91.9 cm (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Photo: Steven Zucker.)
