Cezanne

Shall we mention Cézanne, who, by the way, has his own legend' No know jury has ever, even in its dreams, imagined the possibility of accepting a single work by this painter, who came to the Salon carryings his paintings on this black, like Jesus Christ carrying his cross (‘Prouvaire p126, reprinted in AA100 Reputation, 3. Cézanne, p60 ) Was Cézanne paintings way ahead of this generation of art, was his work too modern for the art critics, was there a misunderstanding of his paintings The Impressionism of the 1870’s was largely of cities, it’s suburbs and rural surroundings, also to achieve visual effects of nature and modern life, showing the appearance of urban & modern life under conditions of light and atmosphere. Cézanne liked to paint landscapes of this birthplace Provence. (Cézanne, AA100, Reputations, 3.6. Painting the landscape p73) As discussed in the AA100 assignment book p19, We should compare this painting to a landscape painting by Poussin, reproduced as plate 1.3.21 AA100 illustration book. To get an idea of Cézanne approach to this painting. We can see these painting are very similar in subject as Harrison explains in p74 (AA100 Reputation) . First the brushwork in Cézanne’s painting, the paint is not smoothed out, where Poussin, you cannot see the strokes. Cézanne wanted us to see it as a painting, where Poussin’s is like looking out of a glass window into the painting. Viewing it through a picture plane. Cézanne had a very interesting use of tone. More black has been used; lighter tones have been used to draw us into the front of the house and the skyline. But Cézanne uses colours that are not usually associated with the subject, like blue on the house, green on the sky, Poussin use of a darker tone is used at the left side of the painting on the tree, but lightens in the triangle in the front of the painting, the building, water etc.... Where Cézanne’s painting, has no life, we can see Poussin has added people and animals to draw us into the picture. We see in the right of Cézanne’s painting it is very dark, so we only can look at the painting from the centre to the left, where Poussin’s is slightly dark with a tree from the left, so painting more open. We understand that Cézanne suffered with depression and was a dark man, (The art gallery.com, accessed 01/11/10) also was his painting finish' Is that what the art critics saw in this painting at that time, or was it that they just didn’t understand Cézanne’s way of painting' Part 2 You open this piece with a long opening quotation from 'Prouvaire'; whilst this is relevant to the set question, a small extract from it would have been just as effective. Indeed, I note that the whole answer uses just 433 words, significantly lower that the permitted allowance, and this represents a missed opportunity to extend and develop your work. You have demonstrated a careful examination of the picture; the answer would have been more successful had it including further use of some of the technical vocabulary introduced in the chapter by Harrison. You also needed to address more directly the set question, explicitly exploring why the unusual features you have noted in Cézanne's work led to its poor critical reception in 1874. If you want to research information from outside the module materials, and you are free to do so, I would strongly suggest you need to select your sources carefully; rather than the retail website chosen for Part 2, I would recommend using resources that are available to you through the OU library: in this case, 'Oxford Art online' would seem particularly appropriate. I recommend that you check the syntax of your work during the editing stage; it is important that your communication with your audience is not hindered by a lack of clarity in meaning. Similarly, I would also advise against the use of rhetorical questions since these can weaken the authority of your argument. Bibliography Fear, T, 2008 ‘Cleopatra’ in Reputations (AA100 Book 1) Milton Keynes, The Open University. Part 1 Cleopatra, p18 Cassius Dio, 50.5: quoted from Cassius Dio, The Roman History, reprinted in AA100 Assignment Booklet (October 2010), Milton Keynes, The Open University. Harrison, C, 2008 ‘Cézanne’ Reputations (AA100 Book 1) Milton Keynes, The Open University. The Open University, 2008, AA100 Illustration Book, Plates for books 1 and 2, Milton Keynes, The Open University. Part 2 Cézanne p.19, AA100 Assignment Booklet (October 2010) Milton Keynes, The Open University. Cézanne, The Artist, The Worldwide Art Gallery Website (2008) available from: www.theartgallary.com.au/cezanne.html, accessed 01/11/10