Cezanne and His Place in Impressionism

Cezanne and His Place in Impressionism
Source: Fine Arts Journal, Vol. 35, No. 5 (May, 1917), pp. 325-339
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PORTRAIT
OF
By REMBRANDT
GENERAL
PEALE
GEORGE
WASHINGTON
The portrait and mtiniature and seal of this great

man. are from, one of the most remarkable
collections
of Washnigton
relics ever gathered
together.
These
are now on exhibition at the Anderson
Galleries, New
Lanier
a direct
Willicam
Y'ork, by MrI17.
Washington..
of two brothers of the great general, who
descendanlt
has intherited many of these relics from, his family and
collected
the rest from mnost reliable sonrces, and who,
to intherit,
beintg chil(dless anzd having no near relatives
the collections
h1as decide(d to disperse
that they may
be care(d for permanently
by public
or
institntions
private collectors.
They should
cher ished by patriotic
or to
by the government
be acqu.ired
for aC museun
enrich Mlt. Vernon, where
alonte can things to mnatch
them be observed.
as theJ (1o, a national
Possessing,
they ar?e like crownt jewcls,
charaxcter,
thin2gs whicht
sholo1d belontg to thze State.

LEDA
By Pautl Cezanne
Cezanne
-Collection
and His Place

By THE
IN
view of the -arious exhibitions of the

work of Patil Cezanne now being held in
the east, itw ould seem that the FINE ARTS
Pellerin
in Impressionism
EDITOR
reading AMr.Huneker's present article w-e can

see how admirably MAr. Borgmeyer succeeded.
In neither case has there been any pretense
JOURNAL'S
effortsin I9I3 to create an inter of startlingdisclosures. Both critics have
est in impressionism, were, perhaps, a little
too early. However, detailed reviews of MIr.
Charles Louis Borgmeyer's great work, "The
Master
Impressionists," which originally ap
peared in serial form in this magazine, have
made it well known to the discerning public
both in this country and France.
It became a
classic
the moment
it appeared
and we have
no hesitation thereforein reproducingfrom

it excerpts and illustrations in connection
with reviews of the works of Patil Cezanne.
Mr. James Huneker, writing in the NTe
3'ork Suni., discusses Cezanne at length, and
his impressions are herewith republished for
the sake of their analvtical and critical excel
lence. W"Tecannot forget, how6ver, that Mr.
Borgmeyer
to visualize
undertook,
as far back as I9I3,

for uts this elusive genius, and in
evidently made as careful a study -of the avail

able works of Cezanne as was possible under
each man's opportunities.
The result in each
case is a frank appreciation of Cezanne's art.
Perhaps because of the earlier effort and the
accessibility of illustrations for use Nith his
text MIr. Borgmeyer makes his stubject ap
pear more picturesqtue, more romantic and
more vigorous.
In any case we av,ail otur
selves of AIJr.Borgmeyer's courteous permis
sion to illustrate Mr. Huneker's
text with
illustrations used in his book, "The AMlaster
Impressionists,"
and, since-;we know of no
more logical or lucid discussions of the essen
tial facts and problems which confronted the
artists of this little pioneer band, viz., Manet,
Clatude MNTonet,Degas, Renoir, Pissaro, Sisley,
Raffaelli, Berthe AMorisot, Armand Guillau

''A'k
'
-Collection
DE NEIGE
EFFET
By Paul CUzanne
Clautde
liontet
ir(
PLA YERS
CARD
THE
By Paul Cezauxne
Collectionl

Pellet
in
AND
CEnZANNE
HIS
IN
PLACE
32 7
IMPRESSIONlSM1
hear
tlhem. Either
or a plagiarist!
-whose
-
heartily
de
so-called
son and now this. His
followers raise a clamor over the
banality of 'representation' in art,
and their master is the one man in
I~~~~~~~I
Collection
was
but truth is
tested by Cezanne;
ever mediocre, whether it resides
at the bottom of a well or swings
on the cusps of the new moon.
is the truth about Cezanne'
What
The qtiestion bobbed up last sea
MOUNTAIN
THE
By Paul Cezanne
work
a revolutionist
cried Paul Gauguin
Vollard
the history of art who squandered

on canvas a startling evocation of
actuality, whose nose was closest
wsas called
to the soil. Huysmans
an 'eye' bv Remy de Gourmont.
is also an eve.
Paul Cezanne
"In I9OI we saw at the Champs
and, of course, Paul

E-va Gonzales,
de Mlars Salon a picture by Alaurice Denis
the idea of
'a Cezanne,'
"The MAas
than M-Ir. Borgmeyer's
entitled 'Hommage
Cezanne,
inspired by -Manet's
we
republish from it which was manifestly
ter Impressionists,"
The canvas de
Hommage
to Fantin-Latour.
such excerpts as relate to Cezanne.
on a chevalet
picted a still life by Cezanne
raises,a qtiestion in the case of
Huneker
and surrounded by Bonnard, Denis, Redon,
Paul Cezanne:
Roussel, Serusier, Vuillard, AMlellerioand Vol
"Is he a stupendous nobody or a surpassing
is
(as they say in Ireland)
lard. Himself
genius-'
and further elucidates it as follows:
em
shown standing, and apparently unhappy,
"The critical doctors disagree, an excellent
firom barrassed. Theni came the brusque apotheosis
omen for the reputation of the man
'do not discuss a
We
Provence.
min,
died
though Cezanne
is still a living issue
Every
among artists and writers.
exhibition calls forth various comil
fair, unfair, ignorant and
ment;
corpse, and
in I906 he
seldom
question
solve.
man
the Cezanne
Yet
just.
is not so difficult to re
the French
Like Brahlms
is often misrepresented;
known now as a belated

writing within the walls
of accepted forms, neither a ped
ant nor a revolutionist; C&ezanne,
not 'a revolutionist, not an inno
Brahms,
Romantic
vator, vastly interested' in certaini

'clhef
problems, has been made
d'ecole' and fathered with a lot of
theories which would send him into
one of his famous rages if he could
LE
By
JAS DE BOUFFAU
Paul
Cezanne

-Collection
Vollard
328
CEZXA,-1 \TrE
-D HIS
PLACE
I,N\
prices.
IMIPRESSION,-ISM1I
Why
not?
posed with most

tures make
When
painters
the others
juxta
his pic
look
like
linoleum or papier mache.

'He did not occupy himself, as
the manners,
with
did Mianet,
ideas and aspects of his genera
tioni. In the classic retort of MA/anet
he could have replied to those wlho
4,
taunted him with not 'finishing'

'Sir, I am not a his
hiis pictures:
Nor need we be
torical painter.'
in
any estimate of
disconcerted,
him, by the depressing snobbery

of collectors who don't know B
from a bull's foot, but who go off
a hint is
at half trigger when
dropped about the possibilities of a
painter appreciating in a pecuniiary
sense.
is the painting
Cezanne
idol of the hour, as were M\Ianet
and Vllonet a decade ago. These
fluictuations muist not distract us,
:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
and
Cabanel, Bouguereau
once
ivere
idolized
too,
Heinier,
upon a time, and served to make
a millionaire's holiday b)y hanging
It is the
in his marble bathroom.
because
SELF
PORYTRAIT
C(zaieve
By Paul
-Collection
Pellerin
of I904 at the Auitumn Salon, the most reve

latory of his unique gift thuls far mnade. Puvis
had a special Salle, so had
de Chavannes
was
given the
Cezanne
Eugene
Carriere;
utnrdeniable truthl that Cezaniie has become a

tower of strengtlh in the eyes of the younger
generation of artists that intrigues critical
fancy. Sincerity is strength; Cezanne
is sin
the
You
cei-e
to
the
but
even
stark
of
core)
sincerity does
place
honior.
may readily fancy
imply the putting forth of
jockeying and official intrigues coupled wvith not necessarily
masterpieces.
Before he attained his original
the wire pulling of interested picture dealers
synthetic power he patiently studied Dela
that ivent to secure this triumph. The crit
Poor
ical press was hostile or half hearted.
croix, Courbet and several others. He has
achieved the foundational structure of Cour
Cezanne, wvith his naive vanity, seemed daz
zled by the uproarious championship of 'les bet, but his pictures, so say his enemies, are
sans composition, sans linear pattern, sans
jeunes,' and, to give hiim credit for a peasant
charm.
personal
'Popularity
is for dolls.'
like astuteness, he was rather suspicious and
always en his guiard. He stolidly accepted the criedEmerson.
"Cezanine's was a twilight soul. And a
frantic hoTi1age of the youngsters, looking all
humorless one. His-early modeling
in paint
In The
the wvhile like a bourgeois Buddlha.
Always
the architec
Sun(t of 190I, 1904 anld I9o6 (the latter the was quasi-structural.
tural sense, though his rhythms are elliptical
year of his death) appeared lengthy articles
on Cezanne, among the first, if not the first, at times and be betrays a predilection for the
asymmetrical.
Nevertheless,
a man wNho has
Since
that were printed in this country.
given to an art in two dimensions the illusion
then he has been hoisted to the stars by his
of a third; tactile values are here raised to
his
admirers. and w7ith him lhave mounted

C 1E Z
\
N1E
the nth degree.
ANA\D
His
color
I S
L A
C E
is personial and
rhythmic. Huvsmans
was clairvoyant when,
nearly a half century ago, he spoke of C&
zanne's work as containiing the prodromes of
a newr art. He wras absorbed in the handling
of his miiaterial, not in the lyric, dramatic, an
IM
3 2 9
l S31
PRESSi
can't cut butter. Let us therefore be h1os

pitable to new ideas; even Cabanel has his
good points.
"The tang of the town is not in Cezanne s
portraits
of
places.
leaden
His
landscapes
do not arouse to spontaneous activity a jaded

retina fed on Fortun. MX[onticelli or Mlonet.
As for the groups of bathing w-omen, how
ecdotic or rhetorical elements. His portraits

are vital and charged withl clharacter.
thev must
vound the sensibilitY of George
"WVhen you are y-oung your foregrouind is
it is the desire for miiore space that Moore, Professor of Energy at the lUniver
huddled:
It is related of the Empress
sity-of Erotica.
grows revoltutionists, not unlike a big man
'Les Baig
elbowx-inghis wNay in a crowd. Latudable then Eugenie that in front of Courbet's
'Est-ce
(Salon.
185"3) she asked:
neuses
are all these sporadic outbursts; and while a
the heavy
aussi
Of
unie percheronne
creative talent may remain provincial, even
flankled Percheroni breed of horse are the la
parochial, as wNas the case with Cezanne, a
The re
dies on the canvases of Cezanne.
critic must be cosmopolitan or nothing. An
artist may stay rooted in hiis own bailiwick
mlark of the Emlpress appealed to the trticu
It might not have
lent v anity of Courbet.
his life long, yet paint like an angel; lbut a
provincial critic is a contradiction in terms. pleased Cezanne.
WVith beauty, academic or
He
reminids one of a razor so dull that it operatic, he had no traffic. If you don't care
THE
AUJVERS:
By Paul
Cczanve
1YALLEY
-Collection

Vollar
330
CEZ ANTNE
ANTD HIS
PLACE
IN
IMPRESSIONVISMS
ties in Cezanne
are volume,
pon
derability and his entrancing color

scheimie. What's
the use of asking
whliether he is a 'sound'
man ? He
is a master
in his
and a magician
Huysmans
spoke of his
draughts
of edges
tonalities.
defective
eyesight; but disease boasts its dis

coveries, as well as healtlh. The
abnormal vision of Cezanne gave
him glimpses of a 'reality' denied
to other painters.
He
advised
Emile Bernard
to look for the
contrasts and corresponidences of
tones.
He
lie
practiced
w-hat
preached. No painter wras so little
affected by personial moods,
by
those variations of temperamelnt
dear to the artist. Had Cezanine
the 'temperamelnt' that he w-as al
wavs talking about?
If so, it was
not decorative
in the rhetorical
sense. An unwearying experimen
CHILD
IVO-11AN AND
Cezanne
By Paul
for his nudes you may console yourself that

the taste
there is no disputing tastes-with
less. They are uglier than the females of
Degas, and twice as truthful.
"WVe have seen some of his still
ter, lie seldom 'finiished' a picture.

His mor-ose landscapes wvere usually painted
from one scene near his home at Aix.
I vis
ited the spot. The pictures do not resemble
life pieces so acid in tonal quality

as to suggest that divine disso
nance produced on the palate by a
slightly stale oyster, or akin to the
rancid note of an oboe in a score
thrice
by Strav-inski. But what
subtle
sonorities, wvhat color
I
chords are in his best work.
once wrote in the 'Promenades of
that hiis fruits
an Impressionist'
and vegetables savor of the earth.
Chardiin interprets still life with
realistic beauty; wvlhen he painted
a certain
it revealed
an onion
V ollon wN-ouldhave dram
grace.
atized it. When Cezanne painted
one you smelt it. A feeble witti
cism, to be sure, but it registered
the reaction on the sounding board
of my sensibility.
"The
supreme
technical
quali
THET BATHERS
By Paiul Cezavne

AND
CEZANNTE
HIS
IN
PLACE
shamelessly
VILLAGE
By Pautl
BANKS
OF
THE
RITVER
it; which simply means that Cezanne had the

vision and I had not. His was a polyphonic
brain. A few themes with variations filled
his simple life. And he had the centripetal,
not thecentrifugal,temperament.
"In his rigid schematology there was no

room for climate, personal charm, not even
for stinshine. Think of the blazing blue sky
the romantic, semi
anid stin of Provence;tropical riot of its vegetation, its gamuts of
green
and
scarlet,
the search
her
bare
rocky pate and graveled
feet. The
illusion is not to be es
As
drab as the orchestra
tion of Brahms, and as austere in

linear economy; and as analytical
or Ibsen, Cezanne
as Stendhal
never becomes truly lyrical except
in his still life. Upon an apple he
lavishes his palette of smothered
jewels. And, as all things are rel
ative, an onion for hiim is as beau
'
ON THE
Cezanne
exposing
ribs, bald
caped.
331
IMPRESSIONISi1I
tiful as a naked woman.

of
"The chiefest misconception
is that of the theoretical
Cezanne
fanatics who not only proclaim
him their chief of school, Which
may be true, but also declare him
to be the greatest painter that ever
wielded a brush since the Bvzan
tines. The nervous, shrinking man I saw at
Paris would have been astounded at some of
the things printed since his heath; wrhile lie
yearned for the publicity of the official Salon
he
(as did Zola for a seat in the Academy)
loved work, above
disliked notoriety. He
all, solitude. He took with him a fresh batch
of canvases every morning and trudged to
hiis pet landscapes, the '-Motive' he called it,
and it wvas there that he slaved away with
for
this mellow richness and misty
7~~~~~A
J~~~~~~~~~
golden air in the pictures *of otur

find them,YAla~~~~~~~~~
You
won't
master.
though a strange light permeates
the entire series. He did not paint
portraits of Provence, as did Dau
det in 'Numa Roumestan,' or Bizet
He sought for
in 'L'Arlesienne.'
profoundermeanings. The super
ficial, the facile, the brilliant, re

pelled him. Not that he was an
the jargon
'abstract' painter-as
goes. He was eminently concrete.
a
'trompe
legitimate
He
plays
d'oeil' on the optic nerve. His is
not a pictorial illustration of Prov
TH
Pat
By
LINA
Uan
ence, but the slow, patient delinea

tion by a geologist of art of a cer
tain hill on old Mother
FEarth,

332
C12ZAN-A-
THE
JUDGMENT
By Pautl Cezavne
OF
AN
HIS
PL/A
CE
I.V
I M1PRESSJNI
IStll
PARIS
teclhnical heroism, thouglh he didn't kill him

self wvith his labors as some of his fervent
He died of unro
disciples have asserted.
mantic diabetes. He was personally a 'crank'
in the truest sense of that short, ugly word.
WhIien I first sav him he ras a queer, sar
doniic old gentlemani in ill fitting,clothes, with
the shrewd, suspicious gaze of a provincial
notary. A rare impersonality, I should say.
"There is a lot of inutile talk about 'sig
nificant form' by propagandists of the New
,Esthetic. As if form has not always been
significant. No one can deny Cezanne's pre
occupation with form; nor Courbet's either.
the Ornans
landscapes, with their
Consider
somber fltuxof forest, by the coarsest realist
among French painters (he seems hopelessly
romnaniticto our sharper modern mode of en
there is 'significant
the world);
visaging
form,' and a solid, structural sense.
But Ce
zanne quite o'ercrows CouLrbet in his feeling

for the massive.
Sometimes you can't see
the ribs because
of the skeleton.
"Goethe has told us that because of his lim
itations we may recognize the master.
The
limitations of Paul Cezanne are patent to all;
but his gift is not so easy to define. He is a

profound investigator, and if he did not deem
it Nvise to stray far from the territory he
called his owrn then we should not complain,
for therein he wvas monarch of all he sur
veyed. His nonconformism defines his ge
nius.
Imagine reversing musical history and
finding Johann Sebastian
Bach
following
Riclhard Strauss!
The idea seems monstrous.
Yet this, figuratively speaking, constitutes the
case of Cezanne.
He arrived after the classic,
romantic, impr-essionistic,
symbolic schools.
He
is a primitiv-e, not made, like Ptivis, but

one born to a crabbed simplicity. His veiled,

CJE Z.1A
NATA E
cool harmonies
organ
A XD
I S
L A
C E
recall the throb of a deep bass
pipe.
Oppositional
splendor is there,
and the stained radiance of a Bachiani chorale.
The music flowN7s
like a secret, serene spring.
'WN7hatpoet asked:
'When we drive out
from the cloud of steam majestical
white
horses, are we greater than the firstmen, who
led black ones by the mane?'
Why can't we
be truly catholic in our taste? The heaven
of art contains many mansions, and the rain
bow more colors than one.
Paul Cezanne
will be remembered as a painter wvho re
spected his material, and as a painter, pure
and complex.
No man wlho wields a brush
need wish a more enduring epitaph."
"Cezanne,"
says MIr. Borgmeyer, "painted
what he sawr, no abstract sentiments, no emo
tions. A painter by instinct, untrained, faulty
as a draftsman.
In a great measure it is due
to his peculiar draw7ing that the reproach of
IN
IM
P RE
S S
ION
I S Ml
3 3 3
in one of the first essentials of

carelessness
art was called down upon the whole group.
,Nevertheless, Cezanne was honest, and his
very lonesty sometimes makes a greater im
pression upon us than the finer gifts of milany
other men.
"The quality of the painting in itself, in
wlhich Cezanne's
superiority lies, is beyond
most of us to see. The features that wve do
see appear to be little less than monstrous.
His best work is to be found in his still-life,
exact studies of nature, exact sometimes to
excess. Often his cups do not stanid in their
saucers, and his bottles are tipsy; his fruit
and dishes are sliding from the table, and
suggest the beginning of an earthquake.
His
attempts have been earnestly made, and wve
feel that they should be met in the same spirit.
At the same time it mtust be owned that we
feel like agreeing with Puvis de Chavannes
AT MELUN
THE BIRIDGE
Ckzaiine
By Paul

-Collection
Vollar d
334
C.EZANNE
AND
AUVERS:
By Pautl
IllIS
PLACE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-7
THE
VILLAGE
Cezawne
-Collection
when he tells his pupil to 'First of all place

your scene so that it does not dance, that is
the first demand of the eye; after that you
can embellish,!etc.
"Duret, in speaking of Cezanne, says, 'The

distinctive and isolated nature of Cezanne's
art was due, first of all, to the circumstance
that he had never received a regular course
of training in any of the ateliers of the fa
mous painters of the day. Hence
his style
appeared
by his unique
tunusual. Cezanne,
and very pronounced
style. gave a violent
shock to the public taste. He was before all
things a painter; his drawing had none of the
rigidity of lines and contours which was to
be found in the works of other artists. His
metlhod was peculiar
touches to the canvas,
one upon the other.
even be said that he
INT IM1PRESSIONISM25
to himself; he applied
first side by side, then
In certain cases itmay
plastered
his pictures.
Vollarcd
For
those who had eyes to see, the different

the contours, the modeling, disengaged
themselves from the juxtaposition and super
position of touches of color, but for others
they remained confused in a uniform mixture
of color.
To
those w-ho only understand
planes,
drawing unider the form of an arrangement

of fixed and precise lines, he did not draw
at all.
"'One
quality his pictures have of very
high merit; it is the value of the pigment in
and for itself, the strength and harmony of the
color. Now Cezanne's pictures offer a range
of color of great intensity and of extreme
luminosity. From this the picture derives
a strength independent of the subject, so much

so that a still life of a fewNapples and a nap
kin on a table assumes a kind of grandeur, in
the same degree that a human head or a land
scape with sea would.'

CEZANN`E
AND
HIS
PLACE
"Cezanne
stands forth as a big figure in
modern art, judge his art as we may. We are
IiN
335
IMPRESSIOINISMI
a section. By this I mean that the average

man or faddist would try to make, for ex
compelled to pause before his grim and reso

ample, a-thing appear forcibly under a green,
lute interpretation from which all emotion is an orange or a purple light, while a genius
banished, and are forced to admit his u(nre
makes it take its place among the others as
lenting strength and directness, although it a whole, to make a unit. A genius is gener
may not be altogether pleasant to us.
ally a complete article, while a faddist may be
"He shows us the backbone and the skele
likened to the man who uses one finger in
ton of a bit of nature, and wvhilehis version
stead of the whole hand.
of nature is a powerful one, often a cruel,
"There is no denying that Cezanne's
inde
uncompromising statement of bald facts, it is pendent effort exercised a very notable influ
too austere to charm. There
is no joy or
ence on the Impressionists evolution.
His
gaiety in it.
simplification of colors, surprising in a painter
who was so in love with reality and analysis as
"Cezanne's
offering to Impressionism was
neutral color, and it was a great gift. He
his
luminous shadows, deli
wAas Cezanne,
used the neutral color purple, as a compromise
catelvJ tinted, made a valuable addition to the
of red and blue.
commonfund.
faddists
Some Cezanne
and there are Cezanne
faddists for fair-say
he is the founder of the whole school, but,
after all, he represents but a section of the
movement, and all fads are exaggerations of
LIFE
STILL
By Pautl Cezawne
"Cezanne was the last to be received by

the public with favor, and then his public was
m a d e up of artists a n d connoisseurs who
placed him in the front rank.
Collectin

Joseph Hessel
336
CE8ZA1 VXNE AND
HIS
PLACE
IN
IMPRESSIONYvISMI
LANDSCAPE
BY Paul Cezanne
"In Cezanne's
estate at Aix was a little
park that he went to every afternoon, rain or
shine, during the last years of his life. For
years he painted the landscape of low moun
tain and beautiful valley that he could see
from this park. He called it his motif. A
wveek before his death he was in the park,
painting in the rain, when he had a sudden
chill, and had to be carried home. Two days
after he was back again, putting the finishing
touches to a portrait of an old sailor. Again
he was taken ill and carried home, this time
to be put in bed, but the passion of painting
was so strong in this seventy-year-old man
that up he would jump and put a touch here
and there on a water-color that he kept at the
side of his bed. He
inihis hand.
"It
is almost
literally died with a brush
zanne's
'harsh and glaring ugliness, to his
bright and discordant color, antagonistic to
the accepted canons of beauty, yet opening
avenue of vision and emotion palpitating, with
vivacity even if they lead only to precipices.'
That sounds fine; here is some more.
'Mas
sive and well-balanced.
He
feels the empty
spaces.
fi r s t impression of
Instantaneous
life. Cezanne's
great quality is his equilib
rium.'
(It seems to me his knife and apples
have that quality rather than he.)
The en
thusiasm for Cezanne
is like a disease or a
new religion.
It grows and grows until Ce
zannites see his influence in the whole world
of painting and use him as a rule to measure
all other work by. We will hear more of
Cezanne
in America
during the next few
years
a relief to get back
to Ce
than we have as yet. The disease is

spreading, but does not take with everyone.

CEJ.ZANNE
A4
AND HIS
PLACE
INV IMl1lPRESSIOiN
ISSM
337
Some
people, critics among theem,still see red

they think of his work and speak of the
shameful nullity of his canvases, the hate and
triviality with which he treats his nude.
'His
unformed nudities and savagely rustic por
traits belong on the.bargain counter of a dry
when
goods shop,' one man wrote recently. An

other said, 'Cezanne could never have been
a leader; the less said of him and his painting
the better. He was quietly buried and pass
ing into oblivion; this rapid exhumation and
exhibition of soulless remains reeks of the
odors of commercial charlatantry.
Let
tus
leav-e the noisome thing to the resurrection
ists and those hirelings who get what they
can out of it; there is healthier work among
the quick.'
"There seems but one thing to do about
Cezanne's work, and that is to form one's own
opinion, remembering that he worked out a
THE
BEADS
means of expression which, though hinted at WOiMIAY WITH
M. E. Druet
By Paul Cezanne
-Collection
by many an artist before him, had never be
fore been systematized. Many of his most
"His tlhree portraits were of tlhreewidely
appreciated elements were brouglht together
in this exhibition; nine or ten landscapes that, different types of people; the onie of himself
was a good piece of realism, where the han
to me, showed his understanding of construc
dling undeniably helped the uncanny char
tion, but also his fatality to leav-e it tunaccoil
acter of the head. His flowers and anything
plislhed.
bltt the still-life we have spoken of. There
\were eight of them, dating from the t im e
w h en Manet's
influence dominated, to the
hotlr wvhen his own somber azures and sad
purples 1made them easily recognizable as com
inig from his palette.
"I have talked a great deal about CGzanne
but do not know that at any time have I sug
gested that lhewas not in perfect accord with
the Impressionists, or that his standpoint was
different from theirs. In their meetinas
at
the Cafe Guerbois he ofteni grew dissatisfied
I
l,
,
with himself, feeling that he was wandering
I
*
too far from the principles of the greatest art
of the past, and when they argued that paint
ingo,had not as yet been born, he would dis
agree w^itlh them and wander off to the Lotivre
-~~~~~~~~~
OF MADAME
PORTRAIT
Cezanne
By Paul
C6'ZANNE
-Collection
Vollard
bv hiimself, wvhere he would strengthen his

faith in the men whose work seemed imper
ishable to hinm. He was of the Master
Im
pressionists only during a transitory period.
About 1873, when he was wvorkingwNith Pis
sarro out of doors, he commenced to develop

338
CEZANINTE
AND
HIS
PLACE
IN
IMPRESSIONlISM
-Collection
A UTOPSY
By Paul Cezanize
a range of color that was strong, unexpected

a n d absolutely original.
By I877 he wva s
Cezanne who was regarded with horror by
the ptublic.
"In I879, after having endured every in
dignity that the public could throw upon him,
feeling
he left Paris, unhappy, discouraged,
that the more he understood the less was he
unlderstood even by his friends. Among these
friends who ranked him as master were Pis
sarro, Claude MNIonet,Renoir and Guillaumin.
"Just about this time, when it seemed as if
the whole art world had gone over to the
masters who worshipped
light, wvh e n the
of colors, influenced by
clever graduation
light, was taught in all the academies, and
light -was the principal personage in each pic
ture, there arose a certain reaction, an agita
tion belowr the surface.
is always spoken of as one of
"Cezanne
the three wvhowere the leaders in this move
ment that has recently been called Post Im
It is certain that Paul Gauguin
pressionism.
and V7incent Van Gogh. the other two. owe
Pellerit
mutch to him, although Cezanne said of Gau

guin that he misunderstood him and travestied
his thought.
"Itwas only a few years ago that the actual

name of Post-Impressionist was given to the
moveement of which Cezanne, Gauguin
and
Van Gogh are the sponsors. There was held
at that time in London an exhibition of their
work wvith that of Henri Matisse,
leader of
the contemporary movement.
This London
exhibition was followed by another this year,
and so soon has the eve accustomed itself to
niew ways of seeing that this exhibition looks
less sensational than the last, almost to the
poinlt w h e r e the conventions of Cezanne,
Gauiguin and Van Gogh seem positively sim
ple, especially in comparison with what has
been sprung uponl the public very recently by
their offspring. Pages and pages have been
written, days 'and nights hav-e been consumed
in discussions over what the Post-Impression
ists are trying to do. We have not the time
today to even -relntion the namiies of those who
are in the Post-Tmpressionist vagon."

7x
THE
CARD
PLAYERS
Byj Paul C6zanne
-Collection

Pellerin

Cezanne and His Place in Impressionism

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Cezanne and His Place in Impressionism

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

The portrait and mtiniature and seal of this great

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

and His Place

view of the -arious exhibitions of the

reading AMr.Huneker's present article w-e can

no hesitation thereforein reproducingfrom

as far back as I9I3,

evidently made as careful a study -of the avail

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

cried Paul Gauguin

the history of art who squandered

and, of course, Paul

known now as a belated

vator, vastly interested' in certaini

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

posed with most

linoleum or papier mache.

taunted him with not 'finishing'

him, by the depressing snobbery

of I904 at the Auitumn Salon, the most reve

utnrdeniable truthl that Cezaniie has become a

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

the nth degree.

can't cut butter. Let us therefore be h1os

do not arouse to spontaneous activity a jaded

ecdotic or rhetorical elements. His portraits

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

derability and his entrancing color

eyesight; but disease boasts its dis

for his nudes you may console yourself that

ter, lie seldom 'finiished' a picture.

life pieces so acid in tonal quality

sonorities, wvhat color

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

it; which simply means that Cezanne had the

"In his rigid schematology there was no

rocky pate and graveled

drab as the orchestra

tion of Brahms, and as austere in

tiful as a naked woman.

this mellow richness and misty

golden air in the pictures *of otur

profoundermeanings. The super

ficial, the facile, the brilliant, re

ence, but the slow, patient delinea

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teclhnical heroism, thouglh he didn't kill him

zanne quite o'ercrows CouLrbet in his feeling

but his gift is not so easy to define. He is a

is a primitiv-e, not made, like Ptivis, but

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

recall the throb of a deep bass

in one of the first essentials of

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM

when he tells his pupil to 'First of all place

"Duret, in speaking of Cezanne, says, 'The

those who had eyes to see, the different

drawing unider the form of an arrangement

luminosity. From this the picture derives

a strength independent of the subject, so much

This content downloaded from 187.58.252.196 on Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:30:27 PM