Cezanne’s thoughts on painting
I like to accumulate quotations from the Masters and other statements concerning their work. One can learn so much from their letters written to others that contain their thoughts about their work and what they thought about painting and painters in general. I thought I would write out some from my collection. Maybe there is a gem in here that might be relevant to your own efforts. Cezanne was the greatest.
Grappling directly with objects . . . they buoy us up. A sugar bowl teaches us as much about ourselves and our art as a Charden or a Monticelli. People think a sugar bowl has no physiognomy, no soul. But that changes every day too, as with people. You have to know how to take them, coax them, those fellows. Cezanne
To paint from nature is not to copy an object, it is to represent its sensation. Cezanne
You know, all the paintings done indoors, in the studio, will never be as good as things done outdoors. In showing outdoor scenes, the contrasts between the figure and the ground are astonishing, and the landscape is magnificent. I see some superb things, and I must resolve to paint only out of doors. Cezanne.
“You know Monsieur Vollard, the grandiose grows tiresome after a while. There are mountains like that, when you stand before them you shout, ‘Nom de diem …’ but for everyday a simple little hill does well enough.” Cezanne
“The painter should devote himself completely to the study of nature and try to produce paintings that will be an education. Talking about art is virtually useless. Work that leads to progress in one’s own métier is sufficient recompense for not being understood by imbeciles.” Cezanne in letter to Bernard, 26 May 1904.
“Lines running parallel to the horizon establish the lateral extent of the scene cut out from nature. The lines that run at right angles, vertical to the horizon establish the depth. Now, for man, nature is more an affair of depth than of lateral surface, and that is why it is essential to add sufficient blue to the reds and yellows we use to convey the vibrancy of the light, in order that the air become palpable.” Cezanne
Cezanne does not paint objects but rather his visual experiences of them – his sensations. He is a constructor certainly, but he finds structure in painting and in nature; he is not a ‘maker’ who imposes order on what he sees. He seems hardly to arrive at his comprehension of his theme till the very end of the work; there is always something … he would grasp if he could.” Roger Frey
For Cezanne painting was capturing the present moment. “there is a passing moment in the world. Paint it in all its reality. Forget everything else for that.” Cezanne
“It’s because I cannot capture my sensation at the first go; I lay in some color; I lay it in as I can. But when I start, I always try to paint with a thick impasto like Monet, giving form with the brush.” Cezanne
“There are no lines, there is no modeling, there are only contrasts. These contrasts are produced not by black and white, but by color sensations. Modeling results from precise relations between tones. When they are juxtaposed harmoniously and are all present, the picture, by itself, takes on modeling.” Cezanne,
“Drawing and color are not distinct, when one paints one also draws; the more the colors harmonize, the more precise the drawing. When color is at its richest, form is at its fullest.” Cezanne.
“One is the master of one’s model and above all of one’s means of expression. Penetrate what is before you, persevere in expressing yourself as logically as possible.” P Cezanne
“He must be lacking in character; you dread failure of any kind, in thought as well as in action; your main principle is to let things take their course and to leave yourself at the mercy of time and chance. One thing or the other really, be a lawyer or else really be an artist, but do not remain a creature without a name, wearing a toga dirtied by paint.” Emile Zola referring to Cezanne.
“I do not understand the world, that is why I have withdrawn from it.” Cezanne
“Surely this man has lived and lives a beautiful interior novel, for the demon of art lives in him.” Gustave Geffroy, Le Journal, March 25, 1894.
“Whoever your favorite master might be, he should only be the orientation for you. The advice, the method of another, should not make you change your own way of feeling.” Cezanne
“To make progress there is only nature, and the eye is trained through contact with her. It becomes concentric through looking and working. I mean to say that in an orange, an apple, a ball, a head – there is a culminating point; and this point is always- despite the tremendous effect- light and shadow, color sensations- closest to the eye, the edges of objects flee toward a center placed on our horizon.” Cezanne
Cezanne said of an olive tree in his old age, “It’s a living being, I love it like an old colleague. I’d like to be buried at its feet.”
Cezanne upon viewing the “La Source” by Ingres in 1856. “Ingres is just the same, parbleu, bloodless. He’s a draftsman. The primitives were draftsman. They illustrated. They made great big illustrated missals. Painting, painting worthy of the name, only began with the Venetians. Taine tells us that in Florence all the painters started out as goldsmiths. They were draftsmen, like Ingres.” Cezanne.
“Pissarro’s landscapes are populated. People, often working people, naturally find their place. They strain with effort; they bear their burdens. Cezanne’s landscapes are depopulated. Neither peasants nor nymphs make an appearance. . . . He displaced the despoiling of landscape with cityscape. ‘unfortunately, what is called progress is nothing but the invasion of the bipeds.’” Cezanne, A Life, pg 193
Cezanne said that every painter should read Honore’ de Balzac’s “Le Chef d’oeurve inconnu” at least once a year.
“ The moment an artist begins to explain his work he is done for; painting is concrete literature deals with the abstract.” Cezanne
“There are no schools a priori, what counts is the art that is produced as such. A picture is either good or bad. “ Cezanne
Emile Bernard while watching Cezanne paint described his technique, “He had an idiosyncratic way of working, quite unlike what is usual and immensely complicated. He began with an area of shadow, and with one dab to which he would add a second, bigger dab, then a third, till all the tones, covering each other, modeled the object in question through their colors. Then I grasped that his labours were guided by a law of harmony and that all these modulations followed a course that was fixed in his mind in advance. “ Bernard, Conversations with Cezanne
Cezanne’s compositional principles. “Not a stitch must be loose. There must not be a single gap for the Cezanne’stension, the light, the truth to escape by. I have all the parts of a canvas under my guidance simultaneously. With the pressure and like beliefs, I connect whatever is tending to split asunder. Nature is constant, but none of nature’s visible phenomena endure. Our art must present the destruction of permanence, with the constituants and appearances of all its changes. In our imaginations, art must make permanence eternal.” Cezanne
“to paint from nature is not a question of copying the subject, but solely the realizing of its sensations.” Cezanne