Art
Cezanne
THIEHE may be more truth than is generally supposed in the acciisation constantly made against Cezanne during his lifetime and as constantly denied by his admirers since his death, namely, that he was an artist who had no natural talent and who was only saved by his obvious sincerity from
• being completely ridiculous. This view would, of course, need to be drastically reshaped before it became tenable, but there is no doubt that a visit to the exhibition of Cezanne's paintings at the Lefevre Galleries leaves one with the impres- sion of a man who sometimes •created masterpieces, but only at the expense of tremendous struggles with technical diffi- culties. When the struggle went against him and his sincerity and perseverance proved inadequate to achieve success, the works produced have a curious character of uncertainty and sometimes of inefficiency, and in all but his supreme achievements it is possible to see traces of the conflict that has taken place, even when it has ended essentially as a victory for the artist.
Even a painting like L'Enlevement (1), one of the greatest achievements of Cezanne's early period, is arresting and exciting rather than completely satisfying. Captivated by Delacroix, Monne has tried to push further the former's use of pure colour, and has fallen nearly into crudity. He has attempted to imitate something of I)elaeroix's baroque treatment of movement, and has done it with a certain 'clumsiness. Delacroix's romantic attitude to his subject- matter appears in Mamie lnit does not quite make him attain the grand manner. Incidentally I have never been able to see .the suitability of the traditional title to the picture ; both attitude and colour indicate that the woman represented is dead and suggest salvage rather than rape. But in any case the picture would be nothing but a poor imitation of Delacroix if it were not for the intense seriousness apparent in every brush stroke.
The other early painting in the Exhibition, L'Atelier de l'Artiste (2), shows the other influences to which Cezanne was at first susceptible, those of Courbet and Mitnet. The deliberate choice of uninteresting, almost squalid subject- matter shows the connexion with Courbet; the restraint in colour—the tones never vary far from greys and browns— is closer to Menet. But the painting has neither the vigour of the former nor the finesse of the latter. It is again saved by the desperate determination of the artist to be absolutely honest, and to avoid all overstatement and exaggeration. The little still-life of flowers shows that Cezanne later became more accomplished in the idiom deriving from Menet.
Of the paintings dating from the artist's mature period sonic show a complete conquest of technical problems. Of these much the greatest is a landscape, The Bridge, in which Menne has at last arrived at that wiry brush-stroke which enlivens every inch of the canvas and raises to importance a rather monotonous subject. The same quality of vitality accounts for the beauty of the little landscape at Auvers, almost entirely in tones of green. The two still-lifts of fruit show a greater self-indulgence in the matter of colour, but one of them, created in water-colour, conveys a keen impression that the artist had looked with almost unbelievable care at his subject, that by simply taking pains he had analysed what was before him and arrived at this final but simple statement of the result.
These paintings show the kind of certainty attainable by honesty. But when honesty does not quite work, the result is a painting like Le .Grand Chene. Even if we admit that it is unfinished—and the difference in handling between the corners and the middle of the canvas needs some explanation —it. is. difficult to see that Menne could ever have got out of the spatial tangles which exist at present in the picture. Is the white streak across the .canvas a road or a wall ? What is the relation in space between this object, the trunks and the foliage of the trees above it ?. As the picture stands all these questions arc left unsettled, and the result7is an uncomfortable and slightly incompetent effect. —Something of the same sort applies to the orange houses in one of the little landscapes, and to the relation of man to table in the little study of a drinker. All of which does not mean that Cezanne is not a great artist, but merely that he is not always a completely
Previous page
