Cezanne

by Meyer Schapiro

Beautiful color reproductions and their analysis trace the evolving style of this creative French painter

Genres: Art, History, Art History, France, Nonfiction

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian.

Schapiro was a proponent of modern art, on which he published essays alongside books on Van Gogh and Cézanne. He was a founder of Dissent, along with Irving Howe and Michael Harrington. From 1966–1967 Schapiro was the Norton professor at Harvard University.

Reviews

[Shainlock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my professors loved Schapiro and this book was a good source for some classic Cézanne. The painting on the cover is one of his most often seen and I’d recognize it anywhere. He depicted many like this one; fruit and bottles of wine in an impressionist way without much dimension, but with obvious painterly brush strokes.
The book does go into much more detail about how he develops as an artist alongside contemporaries such as Gaughin.

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

[I read this book 8 years ago. But now that I am working through these paintings carefully, one-by-one, I am going to reread sections of this — focusing primarily on landscapes. On this reread, I lowered by rating by one-star, as Schapiro, for all his sensitivity, sometimes lets his adjectives do too much of the work — which is an easy way out. A more sustained focus on technique and/or composition (which latter is, after all, Schapiro’s primary interest — and which, when he’s at his best, is superbly analyzed in this book) would have improved this an extra star


[It was good finally to finish this. Parts of it were difficult to read, as S.'s prose tends at times to be over-wrought. There are other pages that show signs of true genius. I haven't much to add to what I've already written below.:]

Where the Impressionists were concerned with light, and atmosphere… and with impressions, of course…, Cézanne was an artist of construction. As such, though he had no great interest in 'theory', he was a far more intellectual (and cerebral) a painter than, say, Monet. Consider…


Cézanne, House in Provence. c. 1886. Oil on canvas. Indianopolis Museum of Art

As in many of his works, Cézanne was preoccupied here with the interplay between horizontal and vertical. There is much going on in this painting. The artificial (house) is contrast with the organic (mountains), as warm and cool…. But while one is struck immediately by the horizontals -- of the mountains, of the road…, and the bands of color…, there is nonetheless a subtle curving vertical very much in play, if one simply follows the line of the door to the window above it… to the chimney, the tree (that seems to be growing out of the chimney), to the puff of white in the mountains just above that tree…. To gain this effect, Cézanne had to depict a house whose windows were quite off-center…. But the lopsided view is barely noticed -- as the over-riding harmonies obscure it.

The opposite -- a stark vertical, in front of more subtle horizontals, can be seen here


Mont Sainte-Victoire. c. 1885. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art

It took me awhile to understand this difficult painting. Far more haunting and beautiful, perhaps, is the Chestnut Trees at the Jas de Bouffan (1885-1887) at the Minneapolis Institute of Art



Here the two rows of verticals rise up to the winter sky, each trunk of different sizes… their branches curling up and outwards like an arabesque or a Gothic vault (as Schapiro sees it), while the horizontals are provided by the bands of color, the old medieval wall…, and the mountain hill, achingly out of reach beyond the trees…

One last -- the same scene as the Mont Sainte-Victoire above, but this time the artist is sitting just BESIDE the tall tree. Notice the horizontal flows of the mountain and the land beneath it, "built up in broad layers intricately fitted and interlocked, without an apparent constructive scheme"…, and "the dialogue of the great gesticulating fronds from adjoining trees that cannot meet…". It is a painting that for all its serenity, is turbulent, "traversed by restless forms".




There is much more in this volume, but I hope this gives a flavor of it -- Cézanne is a painter that requires some study and a more practiced eye -- but I am at least beginning to understand why he was such a god-like presence for the early modernists like Picasso and Braque and Derain...





{{(http://www.paul-cezanne.org/the-compl...)

Meyer Schapiro is alleged to have been a genius. Though he did not publish extensively, those who knew him personally or took courses with him at Columbia testify to his remarkable classroom presence. This book contains an introduction plus plates with commentary. The first six or seven plates are out of chronological sequence and in black-and-white, though the commentary refers to the color plays. Something has gone wrong at the editor's table.

Schapiro's prose is somewhat idiosyncratic and there are passages I do not understand. Partially, it is because he talks about color, and I do not understand anything about color. Like many writers on art, moreover, he uses adjectives -- as if they were meaningful (whereas I had been taught to write without any adjectives -- they were all to be evacuated from the arena of my prose...). But when I do understand it, the commentary is illuminating. And there is something about Cezanne that is more than Manet or Monet or (to say the least!) Renoir...}}

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 128 page book features only 40 color images of his portraits, still lifes and landscapes. Cezanne loved the work of Poussin, Delacroix. In 1866 Cezanne promised that he would work only in the open air to capture the "true and original aspect of nature" which he thought was missing in the old masters. In 1872 he apprenticed with Pissarro. In his later work, 1890, his work changes and becomes intense with deep feeling and multiple brush work.


L’estaque, Melting Snow, 1870-71, oil on canvas, private collection


Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1882-85, oil on canvas, MET


Women Bathers, 1898-1905, oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art


Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1904-06, oil on canvas, private collection

[Amy in the Desert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely book with great commentary

[Ci · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have stayed in Aix-en-Provence for long duration, lodging in a house with a patio facing Mont Sainte-Victoire, and afternoons watching the changing shades of the mountain ridges. I even hiked up its peak, joining the local's weekend climbing ritual of carrying two baguettes, one liter of water. Once I even visited some people lived in Chateau Noire, who entertained with food and wine and poetry. I get all my foodstuff from the local farmer's markets, and watch old people spending their days in the town square. All should have prepared me for Cézanne; but did not. I could not see the world through his eyes, not his attentive, meditative, intellectual art sans ornamental beauty and human's clamoring desire. My Aix-en-Provence was all Monet, Pissarro, with occasional splash of Van Gogh. I don't get Cézanne, perhaps never will. But my own preference is of no matter here, because "I don't like it" gets no where except staying in the same space of self-view.

Still, I want to keep notes from what Schapiro told us: the painter's grave, robust, serious personality; his achievement of fusing "Nature with Self", his still life "solid as to the blind" (which is palpably true, with his apples and potteries), his rejection of sensuality, violence, as well as his detachment from what is ornamental and formulaic.

I shall return at some later point to review these notes.

[Grace Raper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the creative process, the concept of what it means for something to be “finished,” and how easily we can feel burnt out in a social media driven world that constantly demands “finished” content, whether that’s a set in stone opinion, a polished personal style or a cohesive Instagram aesthetic.

This focus on the end product can easily cause us to overlook the journey of creativity itself.

Cézanne’s body of work serves as a powerful reminder to slow down and appreciate the beauty inherent in the process. He made his creative process visible, shifting the focus from merely rendering objects to showcasing the exploration and ongoing study that went into his work. Through his paintings, he invites us to join him in his process, the painting often present as if Cézanne is still actively engaged in the act of creation, with us the viewer right next to him. No matter how “finished” a Cezanne painting may appear, it feels alive and in conversation with us.

If Cézanne, who can be considered one of the greatest painters of all time, got there by being candid about creative process, why shouldn’t we?

On the book itself - it’s a decent survey of Cézanne and the prints are great quality.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably shouldn't base my review of the book on its subject matter, but the fact is I don't like Cezanne as much as I do Van Gogh. Compared to Van Gogh, Cezanne is boring.

That said, the analysis of his art is spot on. I would recommend this book if just for the intelligent commentary.