Czanne and Poussin Author(s): Theodore Reff Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,

Vol. 23, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Jun., 1960), pp. 150-174 Published by: The Warburg Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750585 . Accessed: 30/11/2011 12:02
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Warburg Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.

http://www.jstor.org

CEZANNE AND POUSSIN

By Theodore Reff 1905, having already produced paintings so advanced in style as to be linked with Cubism, Cezanne himself wrote: "Dans ma pensee on ne se substitue pas au passe, on y ajoute seulement un nouveau chainon."1 Both his admiration for older art and its affinities with his own have since been widely discussed, but rarely with sufficient care in distinguishing the several types of relation-direct copy, borrowed motif, stylistic influence-or in appraising the evidence within each type. Nor has this material been correlated with the literary sources, which must themselves be evaluated as to origin and reliability. One of the most popular recent monographs, for example, presents an anthology of quotations supposedly representing "Cezanne's Opinions" but in fact excerpted uncritically from secondary sources which are obviously foreign to the language and spirit of the artist.2 Its counterpart in the visual sphere is a recent article comparing him with an unintelligible series of older masters-including Fouquet and Watteau, although he never mentioned or copied them-by means of examples in London, Washington, and Rome that he certainly never saw.3 Among these quotations and parallels, none are more familiar than those referring to Poussin; that he wished to "do Poussin again after nature" is traditionally accepted as a description of his achievement and historical position. Typical of the numerous demonstrations is this one: "Cezanne has overcome the shortcomings of Impressionism, especially its loss of structure, and yet has here come as close to nature as ever in his work. It may be said that space, volume, rhythmic tension, and colour are built up as concisely in the 'Grandes baigneuses' as they are in the 'Triumph of Flora', and it is hardly an exaggeration to assert that over a distance of three centuries the same type of painting has come back."4 The arbitrary distinction between Cezanne's "structure" and impressionism's"loss of structure", the untenable equation of baroque and modern styles, even the choice of example, which is neither typical nor "as close to nature as ever in his work"-all this, prefaced by the statement on redoing Poussin, constitutes a formula that is now quite familiar.5 But the origin of that statement has never been investigated, nor has it been compared with other signs of his interest in Poussin to determine its significance for his work as a whole.6
1

Jn

Paul Cezanne, Correspondance, John Reed.

wald, Paris, 1937, p. 273. 2Bernard Dorival, CGzanne, Eng. trans., The majority are Boston, 1949, PP. I09-I3.

Letter to Roger Marx, January 23, 1905;

Ckzanne", L'Amour de l'art, XVII, May 1936, pp. 189-93XIX Century", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6e p'r., XLV, March 1955, pp. 161-70o.

4 Klaus Berger, "Poussin's Style and the 5 See also K. von Tolnai, "Zu Cezanne's

quoted from Gasquet's recollections, which are among the least reliable. 3 Theodore Rousseau, Jr., "Cezanne as an
Old Master", The Art News, LI, April I952,

pp. 28-33. Moreover, the identification of Cezanne's 'Baigneur' with a figure from El Greco's 'Laoco6n' is unnecessary, for John Rewald has shown that it derives from a Signorelli drawing: "Sources d'inspiration de

geschichtlicher Stellung", Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fir Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, XI, 1933, PP- 78-93; and Charles La Renaissance, XIX, May-June 1936, pp. 7-

Sterling, "Cezanne et les maitres d'autrefois",

156 The only annotated bibliography of C&zanne sources-John Rewald, The Historyof

150

CEZANNE AND POUSSIN

151

Such is the purpose of this study, which, because it traces an idea through an accumulation of distortions, is necessarily detailed in discussing certain texts. At the same time, two broader problems are involved: the character of Cezanne's interest and taste in older art, and the value of all literary sources employed in its study. Reported by several of the most prominent eye-witness sources-Bernard, Vollard, Gasquet, and Larguier-Cezanne's famous statement on Poussin is apparently well documented. Upon examination, however, every one of these sources becomes suspect, and the statement loses that programmatic significance which it is generally given. Its lack of authenticity cannot of course be proven conclusively, nor is it without an element of truth, as we shall see; but Cezanne's personal conception of classicism can be clarified through a more critical study of its origins. In what has subsequently become its most familiar form, this statement derives from a conversation reported by the painter and theorist Emile Bernard
After describing the obstacles preventing him from posing nude

models outdoors, Cezanne concludes: "Je me suis donc vu forcer d'ajourner mon projet du Poussin entierement refait sur nature, et non point construit de notes de dessins et de fragments d'etudes...."7 These words do not appear in his collected correspondence, as has been suggested,8 nor is there any mention in it of Poussin. Moreover, upon examination the entire conversation becomes suspect: it is not a faithful transcription-remembered verbatim seventeen years after their contact in 194---but an imitation of a Platonic dialogue in which Bernard argues for a traditional and Cezanne for a modern theory of art. Bernard takes his motto from Baudelaire: "L'Vtat actuel de la peinture est le rdsultat d'une liberte anarchique qui glorifie l'individu, quelque faible qu'il soit,"9 and then, using the Socratic method, questions Cezanne about beauty and nature. Later in the dialogue, he quotes Plato and refers to Francisco da Hollanda's conversations with Michelangeloo0-his evident
contains appraisals which are just, but too brief to be useful here. Rewald had, however, already emphasized the unreliability of several famous sources-Bernard, Vollard, and Gasquet-in his fine review, "A propos du catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre de Paul Cezanne et de la chronologie de cette oeuvre",
Impressionism, New York, 1946, pp. 453-4-

in 1921.

Incidentally, Rewald's transcriptions in Correspondanceoccasionally distort Cezanne's meaning to achieve grammatical correctness; for an accurate edition of his letters to Bernard, see Mus6e de l'Orangerie, Impressionistes
de la CollectionCourtauldde Londres,Paris,

Paul CUzanne, Paris [I925],

1955. 9 Souvenirs,p. 98, quoting part of this from the Salon de 1846: "Les singes sentence La Renaissance, March-April 1937, sont les republicains de l'art, et l'etat actuel p. 53. 7 "Une Conversation avec Cezanne", Mer- de la peinture est le resultat d'une liberte cure de France, s&r. mod., CXLVIII, June I, anarchique qui glorifie l'individu, quelque 1921, pp. 372-97; reprinted in Souvenirs sur faible qu'il soit, au detriment des associations,

The quotation is from pp. 122-3.

which all subsequent references will be made. 8 Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves,

PP- 98-135,

to

Artists on Art, New York, 1945, P. 363, appear-

ing directly below the introductory remark: "These letters constitute the one body of theory we have from Cezanne's own pen."

context, a discussion of "Des ecoles et des ouvriers", Baudelaire'sremark applies only to those who would have been journeymen, as distinct from masterssuch as Ingres and Delacroix.
10

c'est-a-dire des ecoles"; Curiosite'sesthdtiques, ed. Jacques Crepet, Paris, 1923, p. 195. In its

Souvenirs, pp. Io7 and 124, n. I.

152

THEODORE REFF

sources of inspiration-in presenting the doctrine of ideal beauty to his opponent, who is reduced to a servile imitator of nature. But that Cezanne never desired this imitation we know from his letters, including one to Bernard himself: "On n'est ni trop scrupuleux, ni trop sincere, ni trop soumis &la nature; mais on est plus ou moins maitre de son moddle, et surtout de ses moyens d'expression."11 That Bernard had already formulated a mystical, Neoplatonic aesthetic we know from his own earlier writings; by 1895 he defined "Ce que c'est l'Art mystique", referring frequently to Byzantine mosaics and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite.12 Hence his reply to Cezanne: "J'ose croire que Poussin refait sur nature serait moins beau que sorti de l'imagination de Poussin."13 Cezanne's statement also occurs in a much earlier and more reliable article by Bernard, his "Souvenirs" of 1907, but in a different form: "Imaginez Here Poussin refait entierement sur nature, voila'le classique que j'entends."''14 the programmatic character of the later version is absent, Poussin appearing only in an hypothesis about a new classicism based on nature. Yet even this acquires a different meaning when understood in what must have been its context-a conversation in which Bernard proposed a return to tradition, to redoing Poussin, and Cdzanne replied: yes, but redone entirely from nature. That Bernard, before visiting Aix, had identified Poussin with the academic tradition is apparent from a poem written while he was in Egypt:
Qu'importe qu'un tableau soit noir, olive ou brun! Il faut aimer Poussin, et Carrache, et Lebrun, Il faut savoir gofiter a toute oeuvre puissante.15

Presenting this view of classicism in his souvenirs, he links it with Cezanne, whose prestige in 1907 was already great: "Classique signifie ici: qui est en rapport avec la tradition. Ainsi Cezanne disait: 'Imaginez Poussin rethe logical expression of his sensations, inspired by the systematic methods of earlier artists. The preceding year, he had explained to Bernard: "Je crois au developpement logique de ce que nous voyons et ressentons par l'etude sur
nature. .
.

fait . . .' " But for Cezanne classicism meant not a return to tradition, but

This conception was alien to Bernard, for whom classicism and nature, traditional and impressionist art, were fatally opposed, an admiration for one
11Letter of May 26, 1904 ; Correspondance, references will be made. The quotation is from pp. 87-88. p. 262. 15 From Extases et luttes, written under the 12 Mercure de France, str. mod., XIII, Janu-

. Les grands que nous admirons ne doivent avoir fait que ga."16

in 1894-95 and reprinted in 1902 as Reflexions ber i6, 1911, pp. 255-74. On his poetryd'un temoinsur la dicadencedu beau. characterized, significantly, as a drama of 13 Souvenirs, p. 123. spiritual anguish in which mysticism and gross
14

ary 1895, pp. 28-39. It is one of a series on pseudonym of Jean Dorsal; quoted in Emile the superiority of traditional to modern art Bernard, "Refutation de l'impressionisme", de published by Bernard in the Mercure France Mercure de France, ser. mod., XCIII, Septem-

"Souvenirs sur Paul Cezanne et lettres

Souvenirs, pp. 5-88, to which all subsequent

in'dites", Mercurede France, ser. mod., LXIX, October I, 1907, pp. 385-404, and LXIX, October 16, 1907, pp. 606-27; reprinted in

XVIII, July-September 1909, pp. 117-28. 16 Letter of September 21, 1906; Correspondance,p. 291.

sensuality conflict-see Milos Marten, "Sur l'oeuvre d'Emile Bernard", Vers et prose,

CEZANNE AND POUSSIN

153

involving a rejection of the other.17 In this, too, he attempts to gain Cezanne's support: "Lorsque je lui parlais des impressionistes, je sentais bien que, par bonne camaraderie, il n'en voulait pas dire de mal ... mais qu'il considerait qu'il fallait aller plus loin qu'eux,"18 and again it results in a distortion. Far from rejecting impressionism, Cezanne wrote in one of his last letters: "I1 est malheureux de ne pouvoir faire beaucoup de specimens de mes idles et sensations, vivent les Goncourt, Pissarro, et tous ceux qui ont des propensions vers la couleur, representative de lumiere et d'air."19 Bernard's first account of his visit to Cezanne, written in March-April 1904, while he was still in Aix and apparently under the older artist's temporary influence, is least biased by his own views and most consistent with what is known from other sources; it is also the only version Cezanne himself read and approved.20 Significantly, there is no mention of redoing Poussin and no rejection of impressionism, Cezanne referring to Courbet, Manet, and Monet as "les meilleurs peintres", and adding that "Pissarro a ete tres pres de nature".21 As for tradition, "ce qu'il croit qu'on doit demander aux anciens, c'est leur fagon classique et sdrieuse de logiquement organiser son ceuvre."22 These ideas are confirmed by even the most spontaneous and informal of Bernard's souvenirs-a letter to his mother written in February 1904 after his first contact with Cezanne.23 Thus the several versions of Cezanne's statements on Poussin and classicism reflect the changing attitudes of their principal narrator, and cannot be accepted independently. This is further demonstrated by Bernard's earliest article, a brief biography published in the "Hommes d'Aujourd'hui" series in 189 .24 Written at the height of the symbolist period, when he was a leading figure in the Pont-Aven group around Gauguin,25 it reflects a characteristic taste for styles of decorative refinement and naivete. Of one canvas he says: "I1 va sans dire que le dessin en est nailfau possible, que seul une ancestrale image populaire pourrait en donner une idde," while another is "essentiellement hieratique et d'une purete de ligne connue seule des purs maitres primitifs." A similar preference for early to late Renaissance and mediaeval to baroque art informs Bernard's other writings in the early 1890s.26 Later
17 His most virulent attack on modern art is the "Refutation de l'impressionisme" just cited. 18 Souvenirs, p. 38. 19 Letter to his son, August 3, 1906; Corre-

selon sa personnalit6 et non selon l'art luimeme."

24

20 See the letters to Bernard of May 26 and dated I892 by Venturi (op. cit., I, p. 366), it July 25, 1904, referring to this article; Corre- must have appeared earlier, for in a letter of spondance, pp. 262, 265. The same view is May 2, 1891, Pissarropromises to send a copy

spondance,p. 281.

d'hui, VIII, No. 387-a pamphlet of four unnumbered pages with an etched portrait by Pissarro on the first. Although previously

"Paul C6zanne", Les Hommes d'Aujour-

expressed by Lionello Venturi: Cezanne,son to his son; Camille Pissarro, Lettersto His Son
art-son wuvre,2 vols., Paris, 1936, I, p. 28. 21 "Paul Cezanne", L'Occident, VI, July 1904, pp. 19, 2422 Ibid., p. 28.
23

Lucien, ed. John Rewald, p. 165.

25

New York, 1943,

"Un

extraordinaire document sur Paul

"En art, il ne parle que de peindre la nature

Cezanne", Art-documents,No. 5o, November 1954, P. 4. Among his first impressions is:

John Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York, 1956, pp. 271-312.
26

For a detailed account of this group, see E.g., "Les Primitifs et la Renaissance",

Mercure de France, s&r. mod., XII, November 1894, Pp. 224-31.

154

THEODORE

REFF

his taste changed, paralleling and supporting his own stylistic development, and with it his interpretation of Cezanne. By 1926 he had so completely rejected the latter's notion of "redevenir classique par la nature", which had seemed "la plus saine, la meilleure, le plus meconnue" in 1904, that he wrote a detailed demonstration of its inherent contradictions. Now he stresses the differences between Cezanne and Poussin, quoting at length from Frdart and concluding: "L'affirmation de C6zanne est donc anti-classique. Elle n'a pour but que de ramener la peinture dans l'esclavage des apparences," which leads ultimately to academicism.27 This is also the attitude that transforms the conversation reported in 1921 into a Platonic dialogue. The statement on Poussin is also quoted by three other writers generally considered authentic sources: Vollard, Gasquet, and Larguier; but in each case it is either copied literally from Bernard or adapted to the author's conception of Cezanne. After organizing his first major exhibition in 1895, Ambroise Vollard was in frequent contact with Cezanne and apparently gained his esteem.28 Instead of the valuable source they might have been, however, his souvenirs are little more than a collection of unrelated anecdotes-those colourful bits of gossip for which Vollard was famous among artists.29 Their content is either invented or drawn-without acknowledgement and often without understandingfrom Bernard's article and from letters in the possession of Cezanne's son.30 Thus three passages from a letter of 1906 are presented as a conversation that occurred on the banks of the Arc, or Cezanne describes the crowds gathered before Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' and his own discomfort there, though he was never in Amsterdam.31 In another conversation, he suddenly explodes upon hearing the word "professeur", breaking his glass on the table and crudely attacking Gustave Moreau; it is distorted both in fact-the letters Vollard copied refer to Bernard-and in spirit, caricaturing Cezanne as a vulgar, volatile eccentric.32 With several similar stories, in which he throws canvases out of windows or burns quantities of water-colours, this episode created a myth that is still current. Vollard's version of the statement on Poussin is simply another distorted adaptation, Cezanne crying: "On se
27 "L'erreur de C,6zanne", Mercure de France, s6r. mod., CLXXXVI, May I, 1926, pp. 513-28; the quotation is from p. 522. 28

this book for all his later articles: "Cezanne's

Studio", The Soil, A Magazine of Art, I, March 1917, pp. 102-II; "Quelques souvenirs sur Cezanne", Exhibition Cdzanne,Galerie Pigalle,

See Cezanne's letters to Vollard of

January 23, 1902 and January 9, 1903; Correspondance,pp. 243-4, 252. Verit6 sur Vollard", Les Cahiers de BellesLettres, I, No. 3, May 1944; also Vollard's Recollections of a Picture Dealer, Eng. trans.,
30

On Vollard's eccentric personality and manner of life, see Jacques Guenne, "La
29

Minotaure, II, No. 6, Winter 1935, pp. 13-16. 31 Compare Paul Czanne, pp. 86-88 and the letter of September 8, 19O6; Correspondance,

Paris, pp. 5-15; "Souvenirs sur Cezanne",

pp. 287-8. Another example: Cezanne's comment on Baudelaire: Vollard, p. 77 and 'Night Watch' is on p. 78. 32 Ibid., p. 76. For the words on Moreau, see Cezanne's letters to his son, September 13
and 26, I9o6; Correspondance, 289, pp. 293. Correspondance, 29o. The description of the p.

Boston, 1936, which is dominated by piquant and fantastic anecdotes. productions of several such letters. Without acknowledging it, Vollard draws entirely on
Paul Cdzanne, Paris, I9I4, contains re-

CIZANNE AND POUSSIN

155

begins with Bernard's version: "Imaginez

f... dedans avec les impressionistes; ce qu'il faut, c'est refaire le Poussin sur nature. Tout est 1%."33 For this phrase, coupled with a rejection of impressionism, he obviously relied on Bernard's Souvenirs, just as, in discussing the bather compositions, he used another passage, and in describing the artist's palette, quoted it directly.34 In Joachim Gasquet's reminiscences, Cezanne appears loftier in thought, more poetic in speech-indeed, much too eloquent to be authentic. The son of his lifelong friend Henri, the young Gasquet knew Cezanne well in the late I89os,35but in transcribing their conversationson art and nature some twentyfive years later, he so thoroughly projected his own philosophy that little remains of the artist's.36 A disciple of Charles Maurras and the F'librige poet Mistral, a leader of the neo-classical revival in Provengal poetry around I900, Gasquet wrote rather conventional pastoral verse; but unlike the strict classicists, he conceived of art as a demonstration of the mysterious interpenetration of human and natural forces, hence a means of elevating mankind to a new awareness of nature.37 These sentiments, interwoven with passages from the published letters of Cezanne and the souvenirs of Bernard, occasionally also from those of Vollard and Maurice Denis, pervade the conversations he reports.38 In a typical passage on the significance of colour, phrases taken directly from Bernard and a letter published by him are subtly blended with Gasquet's notion of colours as "idles vivantes, des etres de raison pure" to create a poetic discourse entirely alien to Cezanne.39 Other statements attributed to him are pure inventions, as when he discusses prehistoric cave paintings that became known only after his death or describes the colours of a Titian in Milan without having been in Italy.40 The pages on Poussin are a characteristic mixture of borrowed and projected ideas. Gasquet
Poussin refait . . ." and then

elaborates in his own terms: "I1 est un morceau de la terre frangaise tout entiere realisee, un Discours de la methode en acte, un espace de vingt,
p. 96, and Souvenirs,p. 27 on the bathers; see Vollard, p. 98 on the palette. These are but two of many instances. 35 In his last years, Cezanne seems to have lost contact with Gasquet, for in 1904 he remarks: "Gasquet, qui vit complktement a la campagne, je ne l'ai vu depuis longtemps": letter to their mutual friend Louis Aurenche,
34 Compare ibid.,

33 Ibid., p. 78.

by his friend Marc Lafargue: "La nouvelle

38 He admits using letters to himself and Bernard, but denies adding anything; Cdzanne,

Pleiade", La Revue universelle, VI, September I, 1921, pp. 607-12.

copied from Bernard: p. 140 on "redevenir classique" and p. 191 on Puget; compare Souvenirs, pp. 38, 77. Passages from Denis:
p. 170 on Degas and p. 201 on Tintoretto; compare Maurice Denis, Thdories, z89o-i9Io, Paris, 1913, pp. 256, 259 n. I, the latter not

Paris, 1926 [first ed. 1921], p. 193. Passages

January 25, 1904; Correspondance, 257. p. 36 This was observed already in 1932 in an

schaft, XXVI,
37 His

excellent review of Gasquet's book by Fritz Novotny: "Das Problem des Menschen C&- even quoting Cezanne but describing part of zanne im Verhailtnis zu seiner Kunst", Zeit- a Tintoretto rediscovered in 1905. schrift fiir Aesthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissen39Czanne, pp. 150-I. Compare the letter doctrine is summarized in "Du r61le Souvenirs, p. 37. 40 Cezanne, pp. 138-9. He also has Cezanne positif et de l'avenir de la poesie", a preface to La Pldiade, Paris, 1921, the collective an- speak of works in Rouen, Lyons, Nantes, and thology of Gasquet, Magallon, and others of Besangon which he probably never saw; ibid., this ephemeral neo-classicist movement. Al- pp. 180-2. though unsigned, it is identified as Gasquet's
1932, pp. 268-98. of April 15, 1904; Correspondance, 259; also p.

156

THEODORE

REFF

cinquante ans de notre vie tout entiere portee sur la toile.. .. " There follow two unrelated sentences from Cezanne's letters, concluding: "Les progres a faire sont incessants, sans que j'aille y meler encore un r&vede raison."41 The last words, however, are Gasquet's, as are the increasingly lyrical words that follow: "Je voudrais, comme dans le 'Triomphe de Flore', marier des courbes de femmes a des epaules de collines.... Je voudrais, comme Poussin, mettre in Gasquet's poem Nicolas Poussin,published in 1903 with a similar poem on
Descartes.42

de la raison dans l'herbe et des pleurs dans le ciel. .. ." All this is suggested

Among the poets whom Gasquet introduced to Cezanne was Leo Larguier, who remained in close contact with him during a year of military duty in Aix; his reminiscences, however, were published in 1925, later than those already discussed.43 Interested primarilyin creating a series of charming reminiscences of the artistic and literary life of his youth, often vague and nostalgic in tone, he draws freely on his predecessors,particularly Bernard and Vollard, whom he also quotes on several occasions.44 Even statements on art which he insists were faithfully transmitted by Cezanne's son are suspect, for several recall Bernard's article in both content and phrasing, and the most important one, on drawing and colour, contains passages copied literally from that source.45 Like the other narrators, Larguier cannot resist inventing a few bizarre incidents, such as Cezanne's conversation with Camoin in Marseilles; its source is the statement on Poussin-the only such reference to an old master-appears in a sentimental reverie: "plus de vingt ans apres, il me plait d'imaginer la priere qu'il disait, sans remuer les libvres: 'Seigneur ... faites que je realise ce Poussind'aprisnature pour quoi vous m'avez sans doute mis au monde: Vivifier . .Ainsi soit-il!' "147 Yet this single phrase, obviously derived from Bernard's, . means has been compared with that and found more authentic because vivifier different from refaireand also occurs in one of Cezanne's something quite letters.48 In a later version, Larguier transforms the prayer into a poem, adding the lines on drawing and colour:
41 Ibid., pp. I92-3. Compare the letters to Bernard, October 23, 1905, and May 12, pp. 1904; Correspondance, 276, 261. 42 Les Chants siculaires, Paris, I903, pp. 14I9;

a letter by Cezanne published in 1912.46 Characteristically, his version of

from Zola's novel L'Oeuvre(pp. 76-79) and from tElie Faure (pp. 27-28). That this is characteristic of Larguier's approach is evident from his collection of souvenirs: Avantle 45Compare Le Dimanche,pp. 135-6, and Souvenirs, 37. p. Cezanne, "Quatre lettres sur la peinture", ed. Guillaume Apollinaire, LesSoiriesde Paris,
46 Compare Le Dimanche, p. I24, and Paul diluge, Paris, 1928.

both reprinted in La Pldiadein 1921. On Gasquet's poetry, see Xavier de Magallon, "A Propos de la 'P16iade'et de Joachim GasVIII, March I, quet", La Revue universelle,
1922, pp. 661-7o.

43Le Dimanche avec Paul Cezanne, Paris,

His later books contain the same

material with slight modifications: Cizanne, listed as 1904 in Venturi, op. cit., I, p. 368). ou le Drame de la peinture,Paris [I936]; and 47 Le Dimanche, pp. 37-40. 48 Venturi, op. cit., I, p. 54. Rightly sceptiCezanne,ou la Lutte avec l'ange de la peinture, cal about Bernard, Vollard, and Gasquet, he Paris, 1947. 44Passages from Bernard appear in Le errs in accepting Larguier as readily as Cezanne's letters; ibid., p. 42. Dimanche, pp. 124-6; from Vollard in pp. I12, 116-17. There are also extensive quotations

1925.

No. 2 (March I912), pp. 42-47 (incorrectly

CEZANNE AND POUSSIN

Vouloir vivifier Poussin d'aprds nature Ne devrait attirer cependant nulle injure. Tout est ombre, lumiere et colorations ... La ligne et le dessin sont des abstractions.49

157

Imitated from a similar "Priere de Paul Cezanne" published some years earlier by Henri de Regnier, it is no more original as verse than it is authentic as a souvenir.50 During the last decade of his life, Cezanne's reputation increased rapidly among artists and writers of the younger generation; some made the pilgrimage to Aix from Paris, and those who lived in Provence were usually introduced by Gasquet. Of their conversations with Cezanne, several have left no record: the painters K. X. Roussel and Hermann-Paul, the poets Joseph d'Arbaud, Emmanuel Signoret, and Xavier de Magallon, and the writer Louis Aurenche.51 Others who knew him in Aix or in northern France-his friend Emile Solari, the painter Louis Le Bail-communicated their recollections verbally to his biographers.52 Of the published reminiscences, three are of virtually no value: articles by the poets Edmond Jaloux and Marc Lafargue-the former one page long, the latter one paragraph53and a collection of legends by Gaston Bernheim de Villers, a minor artist who later handled much of Cezanne's work as the art dealer Bernheim-Jeune.54 Apart from Maurice Denis and Jean Royere, who will be discussedlater, there remain four sources of some interest for the study of Cezanne's ideas on tradition: the painters Charles Camoin and Henri Riviere, the archaeologistJules Bordly, and the museum-director Karl Osthaus, all of whom were in Aix
between I901 and 1906. service in 1901-2, and later a regular correspondent, to whom Cezanne wrote

Like Larguier, the young Camoin was a frequent visitor during his military

some of his most revealing letters on art.55 Unfortunately, his souvenirs, written some twenty years later and based almost entirely on those of Bernard and previously published letters, provide little new material. For Cezanne's
49 "La pribre de Paul Cezanne", L'Art p. 402: " 'Allez voir Veron6se au Louvre et sa manidre de proc6der'-disait-il au peintre Louis Le Bail, en parlant de la vibration des tons-et il aimait beaucoup parler de Chardin, des Le Nain, de Poussin, Veronkse, Bever and Paul Leautaud, Poetes d'aujourd'hui, Rubens, et particulierement de Delacroix." 3 vols., Paris, 1929, II, pp. 92-I03, including 53Jaloux, "Souvenirs sur Paul Cezanne", L'Amour l'art, I, December 1920, pp. 285-6; de examples. 51 Gasquet (Cdzanne, pp. 97-99, 117) menLafargue, "Opinions sur Cezanne", ibid., II, tions all but Aurenche, who is mentioned by January 1921, p. 27. Larguier (Le Dimanche,pp. 32, I Io). 54 Un Ami de CUzanne,Paris, 1954. Equally 52 On Solari, see Gerstle Mack, Paul Cd- useless are his earlier souvenirs: Little Tales of
vivant, No. 116, October 15, 1929, p. 827. et 50 Fdlix Fen0on, ed., L'Artmoderne quelques aspects de l'art d'autrefois, I, Paris, 1919, pp. 1920. On Larguier's poetry, see Adolph van Cezanne Great Artists, Eng. trans., Paris, 1949, pp. 2865 As late as I906, Cezanne writes: "Carlos Camoin est ici, il vient me voir de temps en temps": letter to his son, September 28, 1906;

is merely mentioned in Solari's article: "Circonstances dans lesquelles Zola composa ses oeuvres", La Grande revue,CXIV, June 1924, pp. 603-28. On Le Bail, see John Rewald, son Paul Cizanne,sa vie, son oeuvre, amitidpour
Zola, Paris, 1939, pp. 240-I, 387-8, 402-3, esp.

zanne, New York, 1935, PP- 327-9.

34-

Correspondance, 294p.

158

THEODORE

REFF

ideas on temperament and the relation of theory and practice, he quotes directly from two such letters; for his judgments of Renoir and Tintoretto, from Bernard.56 However, those of Corot and Courbet seem authentic, and with the others he mentions-Delacroix and Diaz-suggest Cezanne's interest in the Venetian Renaissance and the French romantics, with no mention of classicism.5 This is also the theme of Bordly'sarticle, published in 1926 but supposedly written in 90o2 after a visit the preceding year; authentic in tone and apparently uninfluenced by other writers, it is among the most valuable sources. Here Cezanne speaks only of Delacroix and the impressionists, especially of Monet, who has "cette facult6 f6conde, il regarde et, du coup, dessine avec proportion. 11prend ici pour mettre lit; c'est un geste de Rubens."58 Renoir too is praised, though not as highly, and Pissarro's personal significance emerges clearly: "Ce fut un pere pour moi. C'6tait un homme a consulter et quelque chose comme le bon Dieu." As for tradition, in a manner reminiscent of Pissarro he opposes museum art to that based on nature.59 Quite different are the souvenirs of Osthaus, containing references to Although based on Michelangelo, Holbein, Gauguin, and-finally-Poussin. a visit made in 19o6 to obtain some canvases for the Folkwang Museum, of which he was director, they include false or obviously biased information.6? Thus Cezanne says of his last bather composition: "FUiralle diese Frauen steht mir ein alter Invalide," when his actual sources, as we know now, were antique and baroque sculptures in the Louvre, transmitted via copies in his sketch-books.61 The "alter Invalide" probably derives from Vollard's mention of a "vieille carne" whom he supposedly used as a model.62 His statement on Poussin is equally suspect; after placing Holbein above all artists-was it a courtesy to his German visitor? asks the author-Cezanne continues: "Aber Holbein ist unerreichbar, und darum habe ich mich an Poussin gehalten." In this case, the remark borrowed from Vollard is given a patriotic sense. Nevertheless, his admiration for Poussin is confirmed by the most reliable of all accounts, that of Rivibre and Schnerb. Unbiased by their own aesthetic programme, yet competent to discuss technical problems, thus avoiding the inadequacies of Bernard on the one hand and Larguier on the other, these impressionist print-makers visited Cezanne in 1905 and two years later published their souvenirs.63 They stress his admiration for Monet and Courbet,
56 "Souvenirs sur Paul Cezanne", L'Amour March 7, 1898; op. cit., pp. 322-3. 60 "C6zanne", Feuer; Monatsschriftfiir Kunst de 1'art, II, January 1921, pp. 25-26. ComKultur, II, 1920-2 1, pp. 81-85. pare the letter to Camoin, February 22, 1903, und kiinstlerische 61 and that to Bernard, May 26, 1904; CorreOn the sourcesof his figures,see Gertrude spondance, pp. 254, 262; also Bernard, Sou- Berthold, Cizanneund die alten Meister, Stutt-

venirs,pp. 37, 73-74. 57The remarks on Corot and Courbet appear in Gasquet's book, also published in which, if either, is the original source. 58 "C6zanne a Aix", L'Art vivant,No. 37,
July I, 1926, pp. 49I-4. 59 "Nous ne voyons plus la nature; nous
1921:

CGzanne,pp. I40, 148. It is not clear

gart, 1958, pp. 33-43; and my unpublished dissertation, "Studies in the Drawings of Cezanne", Harvard University, May 1958,

revoyons les tableaux. Voir l'oeuvre de Dieu!" Compare Pissarro'sletter to Lucien,

XLVI, December 25, 1907, pp. 811-17.

of local provincialism reported by Osthaus also appears in this passage. 13R. [sic] P. Riviere and J. F. Schnerb, "L'Atelier de Cezanne", La Grande revue,
Al-

pp. I09-I562 Paul Cizanne,pp. 96-97. The discussion

CIZANNE AND POUSSIN

159

the one for his sensitivity to colour and light, the other for his broad solid execution; and among old masters, for Poussin and Veronese: "Vdronese fut de ceux auxquels il pensa le plus a la fin de sa vie. Chez lui il avait aussi accroch6 une photographie des 'Bergers d'Arcadie', la beaute du sujet lui plaisait. 11 aimait Poussin, chez qui la raison supplhait a la facilitd."64 Although these few remarks are inconclusive, the remainder of the article suggests that for Cezanne "raison" involved above all the studied application of colour both in the modelling of individual forms and in the organization of a picture surface, and that he sought in the masters he admired solutions to these problems.65 Other painters with whom he could discuss such technical matters have left similar reminiscences. Thus Denis writes in his journal immediately after visiting Cezanne in 19o6: "I1 parle beaucoup des contrastes qu'il y a dans les 'Noces de Cana'; il en a fait un schema: il le retrouve dans le 'Bouquet' de Delacroix [a water-colour Cezanne owned]."66 That he could appreciate both Delacroix and Poussin shows how undoctrinaire was Cezanne's approach to the past. For him, as for Delacroix himself, the historical opposition of "drawing" and "colour" was no longer significant: he admired outstanding examples of both styles, just as he reconciled in his own work the opposed values of line and tone or closed and open form which were their hallmarks.67 That opposition, and the strict conception of classical "style" in which it is grounded, was more important for his commentators than for Cezanne; as we shall see, their classicism had finally an ethical tone that was alien to him. Indeed, in his letters, which remain the only indisputable evidence of his taste, he rejects classicism as an exemplary style or doctrine, praising instead the Venetians, Delacroix, and impressionism. Whereas his enthusiasm for Delacroix motivated him to plan a composition depicting his apotheosis,68 he felt that Ingres "malgre son estyle (prononciation aixoise) et ses admirateurs, n'est qu'un tres-petit peintre. Les plus grands . .. les Venitiens et les Espagnols."69 It is the same in the Renaissance: "Michel-Ange est un constructeur, et Raphael un artistequi, si grand qu'il soit, est toujours bridd par le module. Quand il veut devenir reflechisseur, il tombe au-dessous de son grand rival."''0 Most revealing is his spontaneous choice of models in advising a young painter: "Puisque vous voila a Paris, et que les maitres du Louvre vous attirent, et si cela vous dit, faites d'apres les et grands maitres d6coratifs, VWronese Rubens, des etudes, mais comme vous
though familiar with Bernard's souvenirs, they insist upon their independence: p. 8I2,
n. I.

decortiquer l'apparence, en scruter les lois: il y apprend les contrastes, les oppositions
tonales. . coloree..
.

"4Ibid., p. 816; see p. 814 on Monet and p. 8I 7 on Courbet. 65 colour based on theory as well as observation: pas, il faut la reflexion." 66 Maurice Denis, Journal, 3 vols., Paris, the most reliable of Bernard's souvenirs: "S'il va au Louvre, s'il contemple longtemps devant Veron6se, c'est pour, cette fois, en
1957, II, pp. 28-30. See also the 1904 version, "Il faut reflechir, conseillait-il, l'oeil ne suffit See esp. pp. 814-15 for his concept of

pour suivre en lui l'6panouissement de l'effet

67 This theme is developed further in Meyer Schapiro, Paul Cizanne, New York, 1952, p. 28. 68 See the letter to Bernard, May 12, 1904,

. S'il va revoir Delacroix,

c'est
20.

.": "Cezanne", L'Occident, p.

and that to Vollard, January 23, 1902; Correspondance, pp. 260, 243-469 Letter to Bernard, July 25, 1904; ibid.,

p. 26570 Letter to Camoin, December 9, 1904; ibid., p. 268.

II

i6o

THEODORE REFF

feriez d'apres nature-ce que je n'ai su faire qu'incomplktement,''71 It is the only mention of that activity in which he was directly concerned with tradition-copying in the museums. Now almost entirely identified and grouped by sources, the nearly four hundred copies he executed create a picture of his taste as authentic as his letters and more comprehensive in scope.72 More than any other source, they indicate his love of baroque and romantic art, especially the grandiose colourful styles of Rubens and Puget. Some twenty-seven drawings after scenes from the Marie de' Medici cycle and other Rubens paintings in the Louvre appear in his sketch-books; significantly, there are only three of Poussin.73 Supplementing the lettersjust quoted are nine copies of Michelangelo versus three of Raphael, thirteen of Delacroix -including two in oil-versus one student drawing after Ingres.74 As a sculptor, too, Michelangelo is among Cezanne's favourites, his Louvre 'Slaves' attributed to him accounting for twenty-six copies, while the and an ecorche' monuments of Goujon and Pilon account for only four.75 But contemporary even more than Michelangelo, Cezanne admired Puget, whose figures appear fifty-six times in his copies, comprising one-third of all those of post-antique sculpture.76 Among these figures is a small putto, stylistically close to Puget though not by him, of which he owned a plaster cast; chosen from thousands available commercially, this cast and that of the Michelangelesque icorche reveal his preference for a style of vigorous movements and contrasts of form; that one is an image of suffering, the other a symbol of love, is also relevant. With these casts in Cezanne's studio were numerous reproductions, including two Signorelli drawings, a Rubens painting, two Delacroix, and several Daumier prints, as well as Poussin's 'Et in Arcadia Ego'; in his home were a water-colour and a small panel by Delacroix.77 If in all this the visual evidence supports the literary, in one significant area it does not: only three copies of Veronese are known, and one each of Giorgione, Titian, and Sebastiano del Piombo, whom he called "les quatre ou cinq grands de Venise"; of Tintoretto "le plus vaillant des Venitiens", there are none."8 Conversely, among his other models are several academic
71

Letter to Camoin,

February,

3 1902;

ibid., p. 246. 72A catalogue of the copies in pencil appears in Berthold, op. cit., pp. 67 ff. It must be supplemented by the list of copies in water-colour and oil adapted from Venturi (ibid., p. 154) and by the list of corrections and additions appended to my review of Berthold's book in Art Bulletin, XLII, June,
96o0, pp. 145-9. 73 See Berthold, op. cit., Nos. 204-3I for Rubens and 231-4 for Poussin. 74 Ibid., Nos. 253-62 for Michelangelo, 264-

copies are listed on p. 154; others are V. 7o67 I1). Included here is a puttoformerly attributed to Puget but probably by Frangois du Bernard reports the following remark by Cezanne: "I1 y a du mistral dans Puget. C'est lui qui agite le marbre": Souvenirs, 77. p. 77Some forty reproductions are preserved in his studio; they are partially listed in John Rewald, "Cezanne au Louvre", L'Amourde
Quesnoy; see my review, op. cit., p. 147, n. I6. 707, 71I (i.e., Venturi, op. cit., Nos. 7o6-7,

angelo and 143-7 for Goujon and Pilon. 76 Ibid., Nos. 96-I43. Some of the painted

267 for Raphael, 238-46 for Delacroix, and l'art, XVI, October 1935, pp. 283-8. 78The quotations are from a letter to 237 for Ingres. Painted copies after Delacroix are listed on p. 154; an early one not included Bernard, December 23, 1904; Correspondance, there is reproduced in the catalogue Paul pp. 268-9. Numerous examples by these Cizanne,Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, 1956, masters were available in the Louvre; see des No. 7Seymour de Ricci, Descriptionraisonnde 76 Berthold, op. cit., Nos. 58-83 for Michel- peintures du Louvre, I, Paris, 1913, passim.

C~EZANNE AND POUSSIN

z61

nineteenth-century sculptures and mediocre engravings which could hardly have aroused his enthusiasm.79 Hence his choice of a given work need not reflect his approval of its style, but perhaps an interest in some formal configuration or expressive posture. If, on the other hand, his interest was in its overall chromatic structure, as in Veronese's 'Marriage at Cana' and Delacroix's 'Bouquet', it would not have resulted in a sketch-book copy. This must also be considered in interpreting the very small number of drawings after Poussin. Aside from these discrepancies, the literary and visual sources agree on several figures: Michelangelo, Rubens, Puget, and Delacroix. They define the predominantly romantic character of Cezanne's taste, linking him with Baudelaire, who includes the same artists in "Les Phares" as his intellectual beacons.80 This poem was in fact one of CUzanne'sfavourites in Les Fleurs du mal, a volume he often read with admiration.81 And of the poet's criticism he wrote: "Un qui est fort, c'est Baudelaire, son Art romantique est et il ne se trompe pas [sur] les artistes qu'il appr6cie."82 6patant, Having examined all the known evidence, outside of his work itself, of C6zanne's interest in Poussin, what may we conclude? First, that if the popular legend, like most legends in which an artist's historical position is summed up, contains some truth, it must nevertheless be reinterpreted: if Cezanne admired and studied Poussin, it was not as the creator of a specific classical style which he attempted to revive, but for those qualities of harmony and completeness in composition and orderliness in procedure that he shared with many old masters, some of whom-Veronese and Rubens-C6zanne actually preferred. His attitude to the past appears in another famous saying: "J'ai voulu faire de l'impressionisme quelque chose de solide et de durable comme l'art des Mus'es."83 In this search he may have been aided by the example of Poussin; he may also have said in some conversation: "Imaginez Poussin refait entierement sur nature." But surely he never intended to make the specific style or method of his predecessor the basis for his own, so that "over a distance of three centuries the same type of painting has come back". The familiar notion that he did is a distortion which can be traced back to his early neo-classicist commentators. Before visiting Aix in 1904, Emile Bernard had travelled in Spain and Italy and lived for many months in Venice, assimilating the styles and even the technical procedure of Titian and Tintoretto; his paintings of this period are little more than pastiches of Venetian art in a sombre key.84 Thus when Cezanne remarks in a letter, "Les plus grands, vous les connaissez mieux que
Berthold, op. cit., Nos. I72-7, 273, 276. Les 80so Fleurs du mal, ed. Conard, Paris,

79E.g., sculptures by Pr6ault and Merci6 and engravings after Cano and Navarrete;

82

Letter to his son, September 13, 1906;

1930, pp. 20-2I. Baudelaire, however, includes and Goya, in whom Leonardo, Rembrandt, C6zanne apparently had less interest. On Baudelaire's taste, see Gita May, Diderot et

Baudelaire, Critiquesd'art, Geneva, 1957, chap.

III.

is from p. 250. 8s4See Paul Jamot, "Emile Bernard", Gazettedes Beaux-Arts,4e per., CIX, November I912, pp. 341-65, and the works repro-

Correspondance, 290. p. 83 Reported by Maurice Denis in "C&zanne", L'Occident, September I907; repp. printed in Theories, 245-6I; the quotation

duced.

81

Larguier, Le Dimanche, p. 147-

162

THEODORE

REFF

moi, les Venitiens et les Espagnols," he is not simply flattering the younger artist but acknowledging a fact. Drawn to Italian Renaissance art as a synthesis of the ideal and the sensual, Bernard considered it superior to French art of any period: "L'Italie est la seule grande patrie de l'art. .... En France, la le gofit est reste barbare; le barbare prefifrela curiosit6 &' beaute. Ou l'art et savant, comme au XVIIe siecle, ou il est frivole comme au y est classique XVIIIe; ou la science ou le naturel frangais: la l1geret6 d'esprit."85 It is not surprising, then, that Bernard was neither the first nor the most eloquent writer to suggest Cezanne's connection with Poussin; it was Maurice Denis, a classicist in the tradition of Ingres, who did that. Comparing Cezanne and paralt quelque vieux maitre severe, au style chitin, le Poussin de la naturemorte et du paysage vert."86 And two years later: "1 est a la fois l'aboutissement de la tradition classique et le resultat de la grande crise de liberte et de lumiere qui a rajeuni l'art moderne. C'est le Poussin de l'Impressionisme."87 As early as 1898 he identifies Poussin and his contemporary poets with a tradition of discipline and order to which modern art should return, and finds in Cezanne a model of the direction to be taken.88 Acknowledging the latter's importance for the younger generation, he groups himself and several other Nabis around one of the master's still lifes in his famous 'Homage to Cezanne' That Denis should first have emphasized the classical aspect of Cezanne in the late 189os is understandable in terms of the development of his thought throughout that decade. Around 1890 his taste is for the abstractly decorative and symbolic styles of Assyria, Egypt, and Byzantium, in which he discovers "le travestissement des sensations vulgaires-des objets naturels-en icones sacrdes, hermetiques, imposantes,"90 and for the Flemish primitives, "nos freres du XVe et du XVIe siecle, des chercheurs de reves colores et d'attitudes surnaturelles, des amoureux de visages expressifs."91 In his journal, Poussin begins to appear only around 1897, and the following year he discovers Italian Renaissance art in Rome under the guidance of his friend Andre Gide and publishes his first article on classicism. It is followed by a long study of Ingres's pupils, presenting the academic view and the master's words: "Raphael, un Dieu, un etre inimitable, absolu, incorruptible, et Poussin, le plus parfait des
of 19oo00.89 Renoir at the Salon d'Automneof 1905, he observes: "Tout a cote, Cezanne

hommes . . . c'est la manne tombee du ciel."92 This development from

89On this painting, bought by Gide soon after its completion, see ibid., pp. 168-70, and the illus. opp. p. 88. It is, of course, also a 1905; reprinted in Thdories,pp. 199-2 o; the is from p. 204. homage to Redon, who is shown standing quotation 87 "Cezanne", before the easel. Thdories, pp. 260-I. Howdu n0o-traditionnisme", Art 90 "DWfinition ever, Denis also refers to C6zanne's affinities et Critique, with Chardin, El Greco, and Veronese. August i890; reprinted in Thdories, 88 "Les arts a Rome ou la methode claspp. I-I3; the quotation is from p. 12. 91 Letter to Marthe Meurier from Brussels, Nos. 22, 24, catholique, sique", Le Spectateur pp. I898; reprinted in Theories, 45-56. There 1892; reprinted in his Journal,I, p. 96. 92 "Les Elkves d'Ingres", L'Occident, the date is given as 1896, but the later date is Julyconfirmed by passages in his journal of Janu- September 1902 ; reprinted in Thdories, 89pp.
86 "De Gauguin, de Whistler et de l'exces des theories", L'Ermitage, November 15,

85 Auriant, "Emile Bernard", Maintenant, ary and February 1898 referring to conversaVII, 1947, pp. 124-67, the most detailed study tions with Andre Gide on classical art in to date; the quotation is from p. 141. Rome; op. cit., I, pp. 129-32.

C1ZANNE AND POUSSIN

163

theme of his own artistic evolution; after about 1900, the mediaeval subjects of his symbolist paintings are gradually replaced by classical or specifically Christian subjects, and the flat, airless, highly decorative style by a more plastic, spacious style reminiscent of Ingres.93 Denis himself apparently discovered Cezanne somewhat later than his fellow Nabis,94 but recalling the period of I89o, he describes correctly how highly they appreciated him, particularly for having anticipated the symbolist aesthetic by substituting for the older naturalism a new synthetic abstraction-reproduire for repre'senter.95 Actually Cezanne meant something else in opposing these terms, but to the younger generation he appeared an important forerunner. As early as 1885, Gauguin described him as a symbolist: "la nature essentiellement mystique ' de l'orient (son visage ressemble un ancien du Levant), il affectionne dans la forme un mystire et une tranquillit6 lourde de l'homme couche pour rever, sa And in his 'Portrait of couleur est grave comme le caractere des orientaux.""96 Marie Derrien' of 189o, he includes in the background the same Cezanne still life that Denis was to represent a decade later in his conservative 'Homage'.97 The idea of connecting Cezanne with Poussin has been traced back still earlier to a story by the novelist and critic Edmond Duranty published in 1881, in which a young impressionistcopies a Poussin painting in the Louvre.98 But this suggestion is based on a confusion of characters: in Le PeintreLouis Martin, it is young Martin who copies the Poussin, and Maillobert who is modelled on C6zanne.99 For his protagonist, Duranty apparently did not use any of his acquaintances among the impressionists; if in some respects he may have had Bazille in mind, the latter is not even mentioned in his famous pamphlet on impressionism.100 It is at all events unlikely that Cezanne's interest in Poussin could have been discussed in the i87os, for the earliest sources describe his affinities in quite different terms. According to Zola, who knew him intimately in the i86os, he admired only Ingres, Delacroix, and Courbet, each of whom had achieved a style expressive of his own tempera127; the quotation is from p. 98.
93

fact the theme of his collected essays for the period 189o-1910.

symbolism to neo-classicism, of which Denis was particularly conscious, is in

It is also the

works reproduced. Theories subtitled: "Du is symbolisme et de Gauguin vers un nouvel ordre classique." 94Barazzetti-Demoulin, op. cit., p. 45. p. 95 "Cczanne", Theories, 253. See also his later statement: "Paul Cezanne fut l'initiateur, le maitre du mouvement an exhibition catalogue, 1917; reprinted in NJouvelles Theories, 1914-1921, Paris, 1922, pp. 59-70.
96 Letter

Maurice Denis, Paris, 1945, PP- 72-80 and the

See Suzanne Barazzetti - Demoulin,

"L'Impressionisme et la France", preface to

de 189o":

ibid., pp. 131-2.

amis, ed. Maurice Malingue, Paris, 1946, pp. 45-46. See also the letter of June I888;

I4, I885; Lettres de Gauguin a safemme et a ses

to Emile Schuffenecker, January

et son temps, Geneva, I952, PP- 72-74-

Paris, I946; first published in 1876. Like Louis Martin-and Duranty himself-Bazille championed the new concepts of modernity and outdoor painting discussed at the Caf6 Bazille Guerbois; see FrangoisDaulte, Friddric

biel"; see Louis Tabary, Duranty (1833-1880), Etude biographiqueet critique, Paris, I954, pp. I30-3, 200. 100 La Nouvelle peinture, ed. Marcel Guerin,

The story had been published in 1872 and reprinted in 1878, and therefore represents C6zanne as Duranty knew him in the I86o's in the circle of Manet; in fact, the first version appeared in 1867 as "Le Peintre Marsa-

Paul Gauguin, New York [19571, PP. 94-9598 Schapiro, op. cit., p. 12. 99 Le Pays des arts, Paris, I881, pp. 315-50.

97

On this painting, see Robert Goldwater,

164

THEODORE

REFF

ment; these at least are the sentiments of Claude Lantier, the hero of Zola's who represents Cezanne.101 Although published in 1886, it novel L'Oeuvre, reflects the earlier attitude, for Zola did not recognize his friend'sdevelopment, and in an article of i88o still spoke of him as "un temperament de grand peintre qui se debat encore dans des recherches de facture ... pres de Courbet et de Delacroix."102 Even the critic Georges Riviere, apparently the first to discern Cezanne's classical tendencies, connects him with Greek art rather than with Poussin: "la peinture de M. Cezanne a le charme inexprimable de l'antiquit6 biblique et grecque," he observes in 1877, "les mouvements des personnages sont simples et grands comme dans les sculptures antiques. ..."103 Indeed, for Poussin to figure in such a comparison required the neo-classicism of 19oo with its revival of the great classics of the seventeenth century. Although only one aspect of a complex period, the shift from symbolism to neo-classicism observable in the writings and paintings of Bernard and Denis -one based on Italian Renaissance, the other on French academic modelsreflects a pervasive development in all the arts.104 In paintings by Denis's

classical figure types reminiscent of Corot and Poussin, though their light flecked technique, unlike that of Denis, derives from his earlier impressionist studies; Roussel too had previously employed a flat decorative style influenced by Gauguin.105 In sculpture the evolution of Maillol, another member of the Nabis, follows the same pattern: an early Synthetist style, influenced by Gauguin's wood carvings, becoming neo-classicist around 1900, first in small figurines and reliefs, then in such monumental statues as 'The Mediterranean'.'o Both Maillol and Roussel were highly praised by Denis, who naturally compared the latter with Poussin and the former with classical Greek sculpture and the Mediterranean tradition.107 At the same time, other young
tellectual orientation of those who wrote about Cezanne and Poussin was specifically 45. For the identification with Cezanne, see indeed self-consciouslyFrench, as the German John Rewald, Cizanne et Zola, Paris, 1936, critic Friedlaender recognized; see note i 18 below. And second, the apparently related pp. 127-36. 102 "Le Naturalisme au Salon", Le Voltaire, neo-classical movement in Germany, reJune 18-22, I880; partially reprinted in presented by the paintings of Hans von Lionello Venturi, Les Archives de l'Impres- Marees and the sculptures of Adolf Hildesionisme, 2 vols., Paris, 1939, II, pp. 276-80. brand, was based on antique and Italian Even as a document of the I860s, L'Oeuvre is Renaissance rather than on French models; not entirely reliable: the choice of Ingres, see Alfred Neumeyer, "Hans von Marees and Delacroix, and Courbet reflects too clearly the Doctrine of Classical Art in the XIX Zola's own conception of the major currents Century", Art Bulletin,XX, September 1938, in that period. See his essay "L'Ecran" in a pp. 291-311. letter to Antony Valabrtgue, I864; Corre105 See Leon Werth, K. X. Roussel,Paris,
Maurice Le Blond, XV, Paris, 1928, pp. 43spondance (1858-71), Les XLVIII, pp. 248-57.
103

friend Roussel in the early i oos, mythological subjects are combined with

101 Emile

ed. Zola, Les Oeuvrescompletes,

Oeuvres complites,

L'Impressionisme, No. 2, April 14, 1877; reprinted in Venturi, Les Archives, pp. 315II, 321; the quotation is from p. 316.
104

"L'Exposition des Impressionistes",

parallel change in his tapestries and paintings

illustrated in pls. 34, 41, 57107

1930, pp. 3-15 and the works reproduced. 106 See John Rewald, Maillol, London, 1939, PP- 9-22 and pls. 38, 40, 50-53; also the

If only French art is considered in this survey, it is for two reasons. First, the in-

ber 1905, and "Exposition K. X. Roussel", ibid., December 1903; reprinted in Thdories,

Novem"Aristide Maillol", L'Occident,

C~EZANNE AND POUSSIN

165

artists were seeking in the past a certainty they could not find in the present; thus Louis Anquetin, after a neo-impressionistperiod in Seurat's circle, turned first to earlier nineteenth-century painting-Daumier and Courbet-and then, around 1896, to the models on whom he based all his later work-Michelangelo and especially Rubens. According to his friend Bernard, Anquetin buried his former paintings in his garden during this crisis, "comme pour enterrer son pass6."108 Anquetin's gesture dramatizes a reaction to the advanced styles of the preceding decade-neo-impressionism and symbolism-that occurred also in contemporary poetry, reaching its apogee around 1905; as in the visual arts, it was led by prominent members of the earlier movements.109 An isolated prefiguration, the first sign was Jean Moreas's renunciation in 1891 of the symbolists and dicadentshe had previously supported, proclaiming a new school: "L'Ecole romane frangaiserevendique le principe greco-latin, principe fondamental des Lettres frangaises, qui fleurit aux XIe, XIIe, XIIIe siecles avec nos trouveres; au XVIe avec Ronsard et son ecole; au XVIIe avec Racine this programme, evident also in his Pilerinpassionne' 1891, was soon replaced of classical themes and traditional verse forms, the most important of by purely
His choice of Racine as a model in these et La Fontaine... ."110 The synthesis of mediaeval and classical sources in

of poems, and in his play Iphigenie 1900, parallels Denis's contemporary choice of Poussin.111 With Mordas were associated several other poets in the Ecole romane who are little known today; but in so important a figure as Henri de Regnier the same tendency is discernible: after a dicadentphase dominated by mediaeval imagery and experiments with free verse (Poemesancienset romanesques, 189o), he turns to a neo-classical style based on Ronsard and Chenier. His Midailles d'argile of 1900 are suffused with ancient legends, classical landscapes, and the poetry of archaeological fragments-inscriptions, medals, and epitaphs.112 Paralleling these poets were the musicians Claude Debussy, Vincent d'Indy, and Paul Dukas, who discovered in the instrumental music of Rameau and Couperin sources of a classical French style in reaction to the powerful influence of German symphonic music throughout the nineteenth century and especially in the symbolist period. Still appreciative of Wagner, Debussy wrote in 1903: "Nous avions pourtant une pure tradition frangaise ait suivi pendant trop longtemps des chemins qui l'dloignent de cette
pp. 235-44
108 See

which are Les Stances of 1899-I905.

frangaise dans l'ceuvre de Rameau. .

Emile Bernard, "Louis Anquetin",
and I38-9.

On peut regretter que la musique

de la Tailhede; ibid., pp. 195-6.

111

laire to Surrealism, Eng. trans., New 1950; see esp. pp. 51-105. 110Manifesto of the Ecole romane Figaro, September 14, 1891; quoted in Martino, Parnasse et symbolisme, Paris,

the quotation is from p. I18. 109 The poetic currents in this period are See, Le Thedtre franfais contemporain, Paris, described in Marcel Raymond, From Baude- 1928, pp. 136-9. On the poetry of Mordas,
York, in Le Pierre 1925,

Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6e p6r., XI, February 1934, PP. io8-21 and the works reproduced;

vivals of classical tragedy produced at this time in open-air theatres in Orange, Nimes, Arles, and other Provencal cities; Edmund

Iphiginie was but one of numerous re-

p. 18o. Others in this movement were Ernest Raynaud, Maurice du Plessys, and Raymond

including a selection of examples. 112 On Regnier's poetry, see Martino, op. cit., pp. 182-6, and van Bever and Leautaud, op. cit., III, pp. 47-79, with examples.

see Martino, op. cit., pp. 175-82, and van Bever and Leautaud, op. cit., II, pp. 299-322,

166

THEODORE REFF

clarte dans l'expression, ce precis et ce ramasse dans la forme, qualites particulikres et significatives du genie franGais."113During these years Debussy sur composed an Hommage& Rameauand Dukas his Variations un themede while d'Indy founded the Ecole Superieure de la Musique as a centre Rameau, for modern French music.114 subject of numerous discussions and inquiries into popular opinion. From one of these, undertaken in 1910o,Charles Morice concludes: "Nous sommes au lendemain du Symbolisme en podsie, et de l'Impressionisme en peinture, de Wagnerisme en musique, et voici qu'on annonce un retour de l'esprit frangais a l'id6al classique."115 More than an aesthetic phenomenon, one style replacing another, the movement he describes was part of a general reaction to the individualism and radicalism of the symbolist era towards a more disciplined, nationalist conservatism. It was a period of revived Catholicism, in which Mithouard, Denis, and others attempted a renaissance of Christian art; there was a "return to order" in morality too, the maintenance of family life and an optimistic spirit among intellectuals, in reaction to the "decadence" and pessimism of the preceding generation. It was also the period of "integral nationalism", provoked partly by increasing signs of German expansion and partly by the Dreyfus Affair; the royalist movements "La Ligue de la patrie frangaise" and "L'Action frangaise" founded by Charles Maurras in 1898-99 are typical manifestations in politics, as is the publication of Maurice Barres's novel Les Diracinds literature.116 Inevitably, the taste of this period turned in to the grandsidcleas a model of cultural achievement. The great figures of that age, always honoured in French education, received new acclaim by artists in all spheres, Mor6as turning to the poetry of Racine, Debussy to the music of Rameau, Denis and Roussel to the painting of Poussin. There was in fact a revival of critical interest in Poussin, resulting in the first French translation of Bellori's Vita, new biographies by Advieille and Desjardins, the first complete edition of his correspondence, and-entirely characteristic-a comparative study of Poussin, Corneille, and Pascal."' In 1914 this activity culminated in the publication of Magne's catalogue in raisonne France and those of Grautoff and Friedlaender in Germany, providing the basis for modern investigations.118 Symptomatic of a more popular taste for Poussin is this
1939; those of Denis on the Affair appear in his journal, op. cit., I, pp. 130-5117Bellori, Vie de Nicolas Poussin, trans. however, itself a chauvinist work inspired by Georges Remond, Paris, 1903; Victor Adthe First World War. vieille, Recherchessur Nicolas Poussin et sur sa 115 "Enquete dans les tendances actuelles", famille, Paris, 1902; Paul Desjardins, Vie de Nicolas Poussin, Paris, 1903; Paul Jamot in Paris-Journal, April I9Io; quoted in Andre Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 4e per., VI, 191 I; Paul Billy, L'Epoque contemporaine, Paris, 1956, pp. 25-27. Significantly, Morice himself had Desjardins, La Mithode des classiquesfran;ais, been a member of the symbolist circle around Paris, 1904118 Emile Magne, Nicolas Poussin, premier Gauguin. 116 On the literary activities of this period, peintre du roi, Brussels; Otto Grautoff, Nicolaus see Billy, op. cit., pp. 22-32; also the same Poussin, sein Werk und sein Leben, 2 vols., author's L'Epoque igoo, Paris, 1951, pp. 444Munich; Walter Friedlaender, NicolasPoussin, Croche,Anti-Dilettante, Paris, 1921, chap. XII. 114 See G. Jean-Aubry, La Musiquefran;aise d'aujourd'hui, Paris, 1916, pp. 32-34; it is,
113 "Rameau", Gil Blas,February 2, 1903; 470. The ideas of Maurras are summarized reprinted in his collected essays, Monsieur in Maurice Claviere, CharlesMaurras,Paris,

Increasingly apparent in the early I9oos, this new classicism was the

la mode? En traversant la salle du Louvre, jadis deserte, oh se trouvent ses tableaux, il n'est pas rare de voir plusieursjeunes gens ou jeunes filles copier soit ses bacchanales . . . soit ses nobles paysages classiques."119 Denis too observes in 1909 that for the younger generation "Versailles est a la mode, Poussin porte aux nues; Bach fait salle comble; le romantisme est ridiculise," and in I9o6 his friend Gide writes enthusiastically of Poussin and the recent books on him.120 It is in this context that the notion of linking Cezanne with Poussin, rather than with the masters whom he seems actually to have preferred, may finally be understood. The observationsjust quoted, however, were made by those most inclined to make them-writers in the circle of Adrien Mithouard, whose magazine L'Occident was dedicated to a French and Christian classicism, and who had himself written on Poussin.121 Actually the latter had been admired by artists of the preceding generation as well; thus van Gogh writes in 1886: "People talk a great deal about Poussin. Bracquemond also speaks of him. The French call Poussin the very greatest painter among the old masters."'22 Of their own generation, too, the Occident writers represent only one aspect; for all the movements and sentiments just discussed, opposites existed indeed, at their side. If Denis and Maillol abandoned symbolism and impressionism, others in their group-Vuillard and Bonnard-or in their period-Lautrec and Matisse-did not. The conflict between the neo-classicists and those who remained closer to impressionismis vividly expressed in an exchange of letters between Denis and Vuillard in I898.123 And if the poets Mor'as and Regnier turned to classicism, others who had led the symbolist movement-Rene Ghil and Francis Vidl&-Griffin-continued to employ free verse and Nordic imagery and to develop theories of verbal instrumentation as in the 1880s.124 Indeed, at the height of the reaction in 1906, Jean Royere founded the magazine La Phalange, whose neo-symbolist doctrine centred on the "pure poetry" of
Die Entwicklung seiner Kunst,Munich. Already in 1914 the latter writes (p. 4): "Ebenso natiirlich ist es, dass in neuester Zeit, in der das malerische Geftihl sich vom Impressionismus abwendet und wiederum struktiven Gesetzen zustrebt, gerade in Frankreich der Name Nicolas Poussins fast zum Programm wird als des Begriinders der rationellen franz6sischen Malerei." 119 Georges Dralin, "Propos", L'Occident,
No. 30, May 1904, pp. 235-9.
120

CEZANNE AND POUSSIN 167 ' cultural news item of 1904: "Qui le croirait, Poussin commence devenir a

122 Letter to Theo, September 1886; The Lettersof Vincentvan Gogh, 3 vols., Complete

1958, pP. 15-16, 86-88.

cisme", L'Occident, May I909; reprinted in p. 267. Andre Gide, Journal, I (1889-1939), Paris, 1955, PP. 202-3, 209. Gide himself was

"De Gauguin et de van Gogh au classi-

pp. 262-78; the quotation is from Thdories,

to write such a book many years later; Poussin,Paris, I945. 121 "Du h6ros chez Poussin", L'Occident, Picasso's Art I900-6", The Burlington MagaNo.

following letter, however, van Gogh implies that he at least thinks of Poussin in symbolist terms: "he is a painter and a thinker who always gives inspiration, in whose pictures all reality is at the same time symbolic"; ibid., p. 416. I am grateful to Professor Meyer Schapiro for calling my attention to these letters. 123 Reprinted in Denis, Journal,I, pp. 133141. See also his reactionary advice to Matisse in "De Gauguin, de Whistler . ", Theories, 208. All these tendencies are rep. flected in the contemporary work of Picasso; see Phoebe Pool, "Sources and Background of
124

Greenwich, Conn., 1958, II, p. 412. In the

Mithouard and L'Occident, Kenneth Corsee nell, The Post-Symbolist Period, New Haven,

ii,

October

1902,

pp.

179-83.

On

zine, CI, May 1959, pp. 176-82. Martino, op. cit., pp. 138-74.

On these and other later symbolists, see

168

THEODORE REFF

Mallarme. (In his recollections of Cezanne published in one of the first issues, he argues unconvincingly that the latter shared his view of art as a search for eternal forms.)125 No event dramatized the intellectual antagonisms in this period better than the Dreyfus Affair; among the impressionists,for example, Pissarro and Monet were as outspoken in defending Dreyfus as Degas and This diversity of moral and aesthetic commitments conditioned contemporaryjudgments of Cezanne, in which the major movements-impressionism, symbolism, and neo-classicism-appear successively or even simultaneously formulated by Gauguin and Bernard in the late I88os is repeated in 1896 by Andre Mellerio in a survey of so-called Idealist painting: "Chez Cezanne il y a quelque chose de naif et d'affind tout ensemble, il presente la nature . . . comme une synthese des couleurs et des formes en leur beaute intrinseque."'27 To the impressionists, however, his art was a superb realization of their own ideals; that is how Pissarro describes his exhibition of 1895, where he saw "landscapes, nudes and heads that are unfinished but yet grandiose, and so
Why? Sensation is there! ... But my enthusiasm was in criticism of the single decade I89-I9oo00. The symbolist interpretation Cezanne were in condemning him.126

painted, so supple ....

nothing compared to Renoir's. Degas himself is seduced by the charm of this refined savage, Monet, all of us."128 This is also the theme of Gustave Geffroy's essay of 1894, one of a collection on the impressionists: "Cezanne n'aborde pas la nature avec un programme d'art, avec l'intention despotique de soumettre cette nature a une loi qu'il a conque, de l'assujettir&une formule de l'ideal qui est en lui."129 As late as 1900, the same attitude is expressed by Georges Lecomte, another early partisan of impressionism and one of Cezanne's first patrons.130 Hence his classical tendency was not the only one observed by contemporary critics, but appealed particularly to those already committed to classicism as a doctrine or method. What is important for our present understanding, however, is that precisely these neo-classicist poets and painters wrote the most influential souvenirs and criticism. C'zanne's increasing fame after 1895 coincided with their own emergence and with a reactionary phase of the culture as a whole. We have already considered individually the painters Bernard, Denis, and Bernheim de Villers, and the poets Gasquet, Larguier,Jaloux, and Lafargue; collectively the latter represent a Provencal school influenced by Frederic Mistral and dedicated to the revival of Mediterranean verse as more purely classical and
Letter to Lucien, November 21, 1895; op. cit., pp. 275-6. See also the letters of
128

1912: "Paul Cezanne, Erinnerungen", Kunst und Kiinstler, X, I912, pp. 477-86. On Royere

panded version-not a translation, as Venturi says (op. cit., I, p. 37I)-appeared in

and La Phalange, see Cornell, op. cit., pp. 81126

125 "Sur Paul Cezanne", La Phalange, I, November 15, 1906, pp. 377-82. An ex-

1896, pp. 26-28.

January 3 and October 8, 1896, criticizing

87.

363-5. Pissarro offers valuable comments on the Affair in letters of 1898-99 to his son

Rewald, Paul Cczanne, sa vie . . . ,

et pp. see Bibliothbque Nationale, GustaveGeffroy

l'art moderne,Paris, 1957, PP. 5-I6. 130 "Paul Cezanne", in Catalogue des tableaux . . . composantla collection de M. E[ugene] Blot, Paris, I900, pp. 23-31.

the work of Denis; ibid., pp. 279, 297129Histoire de l'Impressionisme, in La Vie artistique, 3e s6rie, Paris, 1894, pp. 249-60; the quotation is from p. 253. On his criticism,

Lucien; op. cit., pp. 318 ff. 127 Le Mouvement idialiste en peinture,Paris,

CJZANNE AND POUSSIN

169

more intimately bound to a particular culture than that of Paris. It was at once a rejection of the symbolists' affinities with northern art and a development of Naturism, a poetic movement around 1895 which, itself reacting against the introspection and "decadence" of symbolism, had urged that art return to the affirmation of man's vitality in contact with nature-a theme also present in Gide's Nourritures terrestres 1897 and in the contemporary of revival of Whitman in France.131 Hence their admiration for Cezanne, an artist famous in Paris but deeply attached to Provence, a classicist who nevertheless remained close to nature. Hence, too, their concentration on certain aspects of his art and personality, as in the passage from Gasquet describing Poussin as "un morceau de la terre franqaisetout entiere realisee, un Discours de la mithode en acte." Not all those who knew or visited him in his old age were neo-classicists, of course; the souvenirs of the impressionist graphic artists Riviere and Schnerb and the naturalist art critic Geffroy have been mentioned as valuable for correcting their interpretation. But even among those who left no record are the poets Signoret and Magallon, both members of Gasquet's circle, and the painter Roussel, who accompanied Denis to Aix.132 The latter were also active in the "Comite du monument Cezanne", which met in the offices of Bernheim-Jeune in 1910o-I and chose Maillol to design a classicist statue for the Tuileries gardens.133 In the years immediately following its formulation by Denis and Bernard around I905, the notion that Cezanne was a classicist in the tradition of Poussin rapidly gained currency, first in France and then abroad. By 1914 the critic Leon Werth considered it common knowledge: "C'est un classique. Je le sais. On l'a assez dit pour que je le sache .. . Cezanne recommandait aux jeunes peintres de dessiner leur tuyeau de poile. II leur disait aussi ou a peu pres: 'I1 faut refaire le Poussin d'apres nature.' "134 Here Bernard's influence appears both in the Poussin statement and in another, equally famous and equally misleading, about seeing in nature the sphere, the cone, and-in this case-the cylinder. Bernard reports it as Cezanne's theory of art education: "il faut s'apprendre a peindre sur ces figures simples, on pourra ensuite faire tout ce qu'on voudra."135 Actually Cezanne was not reducing the visual world to a few ideal forms-a Platonic conception that would naturally appeal to Bernard-but merely illustrating a method of achieving solidity in the representation of any object by observing its projecting and receding surfaces. This is evident in the souvenirs of Rivi re and Schnerb and in a letter to Bernard himself: "Permettez-moi de vous repeter ce que je vous disais ici. Traitez la nature par le cylindre, la sphere, le c6ne, le tout mis en perspective, d'un objet, d'un plan, se dirige vers un point central."136 soit que chaque cote
See Raymond, op. cit., pp. 57-64 on Naturism and pp. 8o-88 on the Meridional school. 132Gasquet, Cizanne, pp. 97-99; Denis, Journal, II, pp. 27-30o. 133 Mirbeau, Duret, Werth, and Jourdain, Cizanne,Paris, 1914, PP- 53-57. 134
131

Ibid.,p. 42.

814: "'Je m'attache, disait-il, a rendre le c6to cylindrique des objets.' Et l'un de ses axiomes favoris ... .tait: 'Tout est spherique et cylindrique.' En enongant cette formule, Cezanne montrait aussi bien une pomme, ou

Souvenirs, p. 37. Letter of April 15, 1904; Correspondance, p. 259. Rivibre and Schnerb, op. cit., pp. 813136

135

170

THEODORE

REFF

Once put into circulation, however, this cliche has been repeated as often and as uncritically as that about Poussin, with which it is often associated. The influence of Bernard's article can be traced in several other instances. In 1906, Theodore Duret, one of the earliest defenders of impressionism, added to his study of that movement a chapter on Cezanne, in which he stressed the importance of tradition: "Il admirait autant que personne les vieux maitres, qu'il connaissait tres bien pour avoir frequent6 le Louvre."137 In 1914, the essay was reprinted with a new conclusion and a new rendering of that sentence: "Il admirait autant que quiconque les vieux maitres, Poussin en particulier, qu'il connaissait tres bien pour avoir frequente le Louvre."138 Although Duret knew Cezanne and might be considered an eye witness, his source was obviously Bernard's article of 1907. Its assimilation in England is observable in the writings of Roger Fry, a figure of particular interest because his own taste was decidedly classicist and might therefore have led him independently to link Cezanne with Poussin. In an essay on post-impressionism in 1912, he sees the modern movement as a continuation of the French classical tradition, yet finds its clearest presence not in Cezanne but in Derain, whom he compares with Poussin.139 By 1917, however, he has discovered the famous statement on Poussin, in Vollard's version rather than Bernard's; reviewing the former's book, he concludes that Cezanne's obiter dicta "often contain a whole system of aesthetics in a single phrase, as, for instance: 'What's wanted is to do Poussin over again from Nature.' "140 He then analyses an early bather composition where "above all, Poussin has intervened". In Germany, successive essays by Julius Meier-Graefe follow the same pattern, but with an interesting variation. The earliest version, a chapter in his history of modern art of 1904, relates Cezanne to Courbet, Pissarro, and especially the romantics: "Will man ihn analysieren, so finden sich Delacroix und Daumier, und die Hollainder."141 By 1910o he has apparently read Bernard, and now includes Michelangelo, Tintoretto, and Poussin; but unwilling to accept a neo-classicist interpretation of the statement reported there, he gives it a new-and characteristically expressionistmeaning: "Cdzanne wollte Poussin 'nach der Natur' wiederholen. So m6chte esjeder mitjedem geliebten Vorganger machen. Nach der Natur will heissen: nach seiner Natur."142 Thus the image of Cezanne as reformer of impressionism and reviver of Poussin, first suggested by Denis and Bernard, was already well established in the decade following his death. It was not affected when both writers later modified this interpretation, Bernard maintaining in 1926 that Cezanne's
un objet positivement spherique ou cylindrique, qu'une surface plane comme un mur ou un plancher."
137 Histoire des peintres Impressionistes, Paris, I9o6, p. 174-

op. cit., p. 27. On Duret's criticism, see Rewald, Impressionism, p. 165 and n. 56.
139

138sMirbeau,

Duret, Werth, and Jourdain,

face to an exhibition catalogue, 1912; reprinted in Vision and Design, London, I920,

"The French Post-Impressionists," pre-

pp. 156-9. 140 "Paul Cezanne", review in TheBurlington Magazine, 1917; reprinted in Vision and Design, pp. 168-74141Entwicklungsgeschichte modernen der Kunst, I, Stuttgart, Ig9o4,pp. I65-70. 142 Cizanneund seine Ahnen,Munich, I92I, pp. 5-9. According to Rewald (Paul Cizanne, sa vie . . . , p. 436), it was first published in
I9I0.

CEZANNE AND POUSSIN

171

ambition of reconciling classicism and nature involved a fundamental contradiction, and Denis acknowledging in 1920 the equal importance of other masters-El Greco, Delacroix, and the Italian baroque-in describing his affinities.143 Indeed, Poussin comes to represent for Denis only one term in a synthesis that includes Delacroix, whom he now considers superior to Ingres, revealing a shift in his own values since the early I900s.144 This conception is still popular; in the most recent study of Cezanne's historical position, Poussin and Delacroix are isolated as the two great sources of his style, one embodying the classical formal tradition, the other the romantic colouristic tradition in French painting. 145 As evidence of Cezanne's programmatic interest in Poussin, the author cites Bernard and Larguier, apparently without having examined either one at first hand; nor would they have withstood such an examination, as we now know.146 However, the lack of literary support does not affect his interpretation of Poussin's stylistic influence; that can be judged only by considering the visual material itself. Three copies of figures from Poussin paintings have been identified among Cezanne's drawings: the shepherdess in the Louvre version of 'Et in Arcadia Ego' (V. 1387), the kneeling shepherd with staff in the same painting (V. 1393), and a putto holding up wreaths in 'The Concert', also in the Louvre (V. 1388).147 Judging from their style, all three were done in the years 18901895, for they are almost identical in treatment of contours and shading with
Com-

pared with his copies of Michelangelo and Rubens, which appear regularly after about 1875, they suggest that Cezanne became interested in Poussin only rather late in his career; this is also the only period for which there is some literary evidence of such an interest. 48 In copying the latter's paintings, however, he did not focus on the entire composition, as might be supposed, but on small fragments in which he discovered a more intimate and apparently accidental order than that which governs the whole. Ignoring the deliberate symmetry and reciprocity of gestures in 'Et in Arcadia Ego'-for Poussin an essential means of rendering the elegiac themeX49-he disengages a pattern of parallel and perpendicular curving lines uniting part of the shepherdess with the landscape behind her, and discovers in the tree trunk to her left a slanting columnar form analogous to her own. Similarly, in drawing a puttofrom 'The Concert', itself a fragment of a larger composition,'50 he includes at the left
148sMoreover, the reproduction of 'Et in Bernard, "L'Erreurde Cezanne", op.cit. de Arcadia Ego' which was-and still is-in his Denis, "L'Influence de Cezanne", L'Amour l'art, December 1920; reprinted in Nouvelles studio cannot have been purchased earlier than 1893: according to an inscription in the thdories,pp. 118-32. 144 See also his "Un siecle de couleur fran- margin, it was sold by L'Oeuvre d'art-a bi?ais", La Tribune de Geneve, July 1918; re- monthly review first published in April of that year. printed in Nouvelles thdories,pp. 71-85. 146 Kurt Badt, Die KunstCizannes, 149 For an interpretation, see Erwin PanofMunich, 1956, pp. 174-253, esp. pp. 174-7. sky, "Et in Arcadia Ego: Poussin and the 146 Ibid., p. 233 and n. Elegiac Tradition", Meaningin the VisualArts, o01.
143

studies of card players (V. 1482-3) for the famous paintings of 189o-92.

Grautoff, op. cit., II, Nos. 27, 74 for Poussin's paintings.

147Berthold,

op. cit., Nos.

231-3.

See

New York, 1957, PP295-320o. 150 See Anthony Blunt, "Poussin Studies

III: The Poussins at Dulwich", TheBurlington

172

THEODORE

REFF

the face of a second putto peering out from behind, and although it is less prominent in the original, he emphasizes this small bodyless face, its relation to the other's face and to the bending contour of the other's body, which frames and completes it. Hence the familiar notion that Cezanne admired Poussin as a composer of exceptional quality is not supported by his copies themselves. When the young Degas, an artist more concerned with classical principles of composition, copied Poussin, it was the whole painting; this is in general true of his copies in paint, many of them complete detailed reproductions of Bellini, Titian, Holbein, and other renaissance masters, though some of those in pencil are also fragments.151 In attempting to link Cezanne more specifically to Poussin, even a landscape motif has been discussed: the crossed trees in 'Les arbres en X' (V. 937-8) deriving from 'Saint John baptising the People', where a similar configuration occurs at the left.'52 But the location of this painting in the Louvre is irrelevant, since Cezanne's late water-colours were obviously done directly from nature in a forest far from Paris. A closer and more convincing parallel to the Poussin is his 'Lutte d'Amour' (V. 380), containing the same trees but done from imagination; moreover, the grouping of nude figures and their relation to the landscape, indeed the subject itself, suggest the inspiration of an older work. Yet even here it is apparently not Poussin but Delacroix's 'Jacob wrestling with the Angel', in which are both the crossed trees and the pair of struggling figures for whom, as in Cezanne's conception, the twisted forms in nature are a visual metaphor.153 The connection with Poussin of the so-called 'Bethsabde' (V. 253), to cite one more example, is also uncertain: his 'Education of Bacchus' in the Louvre has been suggested as a direct source, but if the reclining bacchante there is similar in posture, she is reversed in direction, and if an engraving was the means of transmission, the location of the original in the Louvre loses significance and other engravings, such as Titian's 'Danae', become equally relevant.'54 But more important, 'Bethsabde' is one of a series including another version of the same subject (V. 252) and several water-colours of related subjects (V. 864, 882-4, 886), in each of which the figure is somewhat different, indicating how freely Cezanne adapted whatever model he used. Despite the lack of specific evidence, it is still widely assumed that Cezanne was influenced by Poussin's method of composition. Yet in the most comprehensive recent discussion, where Poussin is considered decisive for the formaMagazine, XC, January 1948, pp. 4-8. 151P. A. Lemoisne, Degas et son wuvre,4 was first made by Professor Meyer Schapiro in a lecture at Columbia University.
Paris, 1929, pp. 103, Io9. This observation

vols., Paris, 1948, II, Nos. 8, 25, 38, 52-4, 59,

etc.; No. 273 is after Poussin's 'Rape of the 154 See Grautoff, op. cit., II, No. 25. The Sabines'. For his copies in graphic media, see connection was proposed by Lawrence GowEdinGalerie Georges Petit, Cataloguedes tableaux ing: An Exhibition PaintingsbyCizanne, of 'Triumph of Flora'. 152 See Grautoff, op. cit., II, No. 98. The suggestion is by Kurt Badt: op. cit., p. 233,
n. o02.
15S

. . . par Edgar Degas, 4e vente, Paris, i9I9, No. 8oc is after Poussin's PP. 57-124;

See Raymond Escholier, Delacroix,III,

engravings of the Poussin, see A. Andresen, der Nicolaus Poussin; Verzeichniss nach seinen Gemdlden Leipzig, 1863, Kupferstiche, gefertigten Nos. 363-4. For the several versions of 'Danae', see Wilhelm Suida, Tiziano, Rome, n.d., pls. CCXI-CCXIV.

burgh and London,

1954,

cat. No. 43. For

CEZANNE AND POUSSIN

173

tion and entire development of his style, only one example is cited, 'The Burial of Phocion', whose influence is found already in the I86os in landscapes like 'La Tranch6e' (V. 50).155 Actually Poussin's painting was in an English private collection from about 1700 to 1921, when it was rediscovered and purchased for the Louvre;156 but even if available, it would not have influenced so early a work-first, because Cezanne's taste in older art throughout the period 1865-75 was not for calm landscapes but for melodramatic figure compositions, not for Poussin but for Delacroix and Sebastiano del Piombo;157and second, because there are more likely sources in contemporary or slightly older paintings by Manet and Pissarro, both of whom were familiar to him.58s Among Pissarro's landscapes of 1867-70 are several representing similar rural, semi-industrial motifs-far more accessible than Poussin's reconstruction of an ancient town-in similar compositions of small, strongly bounded forms in parallel spatial layers; Pissarro'sbold technique, a combination of brush and knife strokes, is also much closer to Cezanne's.159 Thus the identification with Poussin is weakened by a failure to investigate the historical conditions in which it must be grounded. This is also true of discussionsbased exclusively on one painting that is in fact almost unique in Cezanne's wuvre: the famous 'Grandes baigneuses' (V. 719).s16 His largest and most ambitious undertaking, on which he worked throughout the last decade of his life, attempting to achieve a monumental summation of his earlier bather pictures, its great scale and programmatic character apparently inhibited him; at any event, its symmetrical and highly formalized groupings are entirely exceptional even for this subject.'16 When the necessary historical conditions are satisfied and the right examples chosen, Cezanne's stylistic affinities with Poussin can of course be observed. But in defining them, most critics concentrate on a few featuresthe dominance of horizontal and vertical axes, the organization of space in parallel layers, the construction of solid, well-defined forms-that are equally characteristic of many other artists of a broadly classical tendency.'62 To go
165

156 Paul

A more precise parallel has been drawn by See Lodovico Pissarro and Lionello James Carpenter: "Cezanne and Tradition", 2 Venturi, CamillePissarro,son art--son wuvre, Art Bulletin, XXXIII, September 1951, pp. vols., Paris, 1939, Nos. 62, 66-two landscapes 174-86; but it does not distinguish sufficiently of 1868 ; also No. 5o0-a still life of 1867 treated Poussin's influence from that of other old in the same manner. masters, particularly of the Venetian Renais160o See the articles by Berger, Tolnai, and sance.
Art Journal, I, March 1942, PP. 74-75.
159

157 See the copies in paint after Sebastiano's 'Christ in Limbo' (V. 84) and Delacroix's 'Bark of Dante' (V. 125) ; also those in pencil after Veronese's 'Destruction of Sodom' (Berthold, op. cit., No. 268) and Delacroix's 'Death of Sardanapalus' (ibid., No. 242). 158 Manet's influence on works of the period 1868-71, including 'La Tranch6e', is suggested by Frederick Deknatel: "Manet and the Formation of Cezanne's Art", College

5e per., IV, December 1921, pp. 32 1-30.

Phocion' par Poussin", GazettedesBeaux-Arts, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6e per., XXXIII,

1948, pp. 239-50.

Badt, op. cit., p. 234. "Les Jamot,

'Funerailles

de

Sterling cited above; also Jean Cassou, "On the Demarche of the Creative Thought",
April 161 Compare V. 720-9, the others in this series; however, V. 720-I are in some respects op. cit., p. i 16.

like V. 7I9. For an interesting psychological interpretation of its singularity, see Schapiro,
162 E.g., Daniel C. Rich, "Two Paintings Revealing the Kinship of Poussin and C&zanne", The Art News, XXIX, December 20,

1930, pp. 67-68; and Kenneth Clark, Landscape Painting, New York, 1950, pp. 121-30o.

174

THEODORE REFF

no further than the nineteenth century, David, the early Corot, and Puvis de Chavannes are equally relevant in these respects; what is specifically Poussin's influence has yet to be adequately described. Indeed, all of the material we have considered-memoirs and letters, copies and influences-confirms this conclusion: if Poussin was a model for Cezanne, he was one among many, neither the most important throughout his career nor of the same importance in its several aspects or phases; if, on the contrary, he is often represented otherwise, that is the product of an accumulation of distortions and projections whose origin is in his early commentators, not in the artist himself.163
163 I am grateful to the Council on Research in the Humanities, Columbia University, for a travel grant which enabled me to complete the research for this article. After the proofs of this article had been corrected, important new material, including previously unknown Cezanne letters, was et published by John Rewald : Cizanne,Geffroy

confirming the judgment presented here of Gasquet's unreliability as a source; pp. I I-19 treating in greater detail Cezanne's relations with the critic Geffroy; and pp. 59-67 presenting the souvenirs of Louis Aurenche, which, however, contain no references to C6zanne's opinions of the old masters.

Gasquet, Paris, I960. See especially pp. 51-55