Cezanne. Words and Deeds

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Czanne: Words and DeedsAuthor(s): Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind KraussSource: October, Vol. 84 (Spring, 1998), pp. 31-43Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/779207

Accessed: 17/02/2009 18:17

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2/14

Cezanne: Words and Deeds*

YVE-ALAIN BOIS

Translated

by

Rosalind

Krauss

What we

know

about

what

is

called Cezanne's

theory

we know

through snippets

(reported

conversations

or

maxims,

a few

sentences

on

painting

in

letters

to

his

son

or

to

young

admirers),

almost the whole of

it

dating

from the last

years

of

his

life.

Even

further,

Cezanne had

a

rather ambivalent

relation to

theory

itself-

never

ceasing

to

speak

of its

necessity

and

yet

of

his

mistrust

of

ready-made

theories,

which he called doctrines:

"I

don't have a doctrine like

Bernard,

but theories are

necessary,

the sensation

and

theories."l

For

him,

theory

was

truly

indissociable

from

practice;

based

on accumulated

experience,

it is the

logic

permitting

"the

organization

of

one's sensations" and

thus the "realization,"that is, the proposition in painting not of a "servile copy,"

but of a

"harmony

parallel

to

nature,"

an

equivalence

of

relations.

Cezanne's

remarks

on

the

necessary

connection between

eye

and

brain,

which

must be

developed

in tandem so as "to arrive at the

'realization,'"

are

numerous,

but

perhaps

nowhere does he

indicate

more

clearly

than in

one

of his

last

letters

to

Aurenche

how

much

what he calls

"reflection"

concerns

the

whole

gamut

of

his

pictorial

means:

In

your

letter

you speak

of

my

realization

in art.

I

believe that

I

attain

it more

every day, although

a

bit

laboriously.

Because

if

the

strong

sensation for

nature-and

certainly

I

have that

vividly-is

the

necessary

basis for all artistic

conception

and that on which the

grandeur

and

beauty

of

all future

work

rests,

the

knowledge f

the means

of

expressing

ur

emotion s no

less essential and

is

only

to be

acquired through

a

very

long

experience.2

*

This

essay

was first

delivered

at the

symposia

held

in

conjunction

with the

Cezanne

retrospective,

organized

by

the

Musee

d'Orsay

(Paris,

November

1995)

and

the

Philadelphia

Museum

of Art

(May

1996).

For the

acts of the Paris

symposium,

see Cizanne

aujourd'hui,

ed. Francoise

Cachin,

Henri

Loyrette,

and

Stephane Guegan

(Paris:

Editions

de

la

Reunion des Musees

Nationaux,

1997).

1. Cited

by

Maurice

Denis in his

journal

(1906);

reprinted

in

Conversations vec

Cizanne,

ed.

P.

M.

Doran

(Paris:

Editions

Macula,

1978),

p.

94.

2. Cezanne to Louis Aurenche, January 25, 1904, in Letters,ed. John Rewald (New York: Hacker

Art

Books,

1976),

p.

299

(translation

modified,

my emphasis).

OCTOBER

4,

Spring

1998,

pp.

31-43. C 1998

Yve-Alain

ois.


3/14

OCTOBER

Hence

the

difficulty

posed by

having

to

put together

a

theory

composed

of

those snatches of

Cezanne's

conversation that we

possess.

Cezanne's famous

doubt

about

his

capacity

to

"realize" s

a

worry

about the

validity

of

his

theory

as

well,

namely

about the

knowledge

he himself could have of his means.

I

will

begin

with the

very

well

known.

Immediately

following

his

injunction

to

Bernard

according

to

which

one

must

"treat nature

by

means

of

the

cylinder,

the

sphere,

the

cone,

all of it

put

in

perspective,"

Cezanne

adds:

Lines

parallel

to the horizon

give

breadth,

that

is,

a section of nature

or, if you prefer, of the spectacle that the Pateromnipotens,aeterneDeus

spreads

out before our

eyes.

Lines

perpendicular

to this horizon

give

depth.

But

nature for

us

humans is more

in

depth

than

in

surface,

whence

the

necessity

to

introduce into

our

light

vibrations,

represented

by

the reds and

yellows,

a

sufficient amount of bluish

tones,

to

give

the

feeling

of air.3

We

are used

to

explaining

these remarks

by attributing

them to the classical

tenets about monocular

perspective

and aerial

perspective

that Cezanne

could

have

read about

in

a manual of the

period.

All

right.

But how do

we

explain

the

linkage of the ideas? If the "perpendiculars to this horizon" give us depth, why not

be

entirely

satisfied with

recourse

to that?

Why

add "But

nature

for

us humans

is

more in

depth

than in

surface,

whence

the

necessity

to introduce

... a sufficient

amount

of

bluish

tones"?

Why

this

but,

and

why

this

supplement

of bluish tones?

All

the

more

in

that

Cezanne,

if

he does make excessive use

of

blue,

rarely

seems

to adhere to the

principle

of

aerial

perspective

itself.

In

terms

of their local

tone

and

contours,

distant

objects

are seldom more blue and less well defined than

near ones.

In

fact,

what is often

very

striking

in his

work,

and not

only

in

the late

paintings,

is

the

way

an

object

or

a

colored

plane

surges

forth from

the distance

like an

unexpected

arrow to

interpellate

the

spectator

by

coming

toward

him.

The

most arresting example is perhaps in the 1896 Lac d'Annecy,with its prismatic

chateau as both

"culminating point"

of the

picture

and center

of the

composition-

but this

type

of violent denial

of

aerial

perspective

is

frequent

from

the 1880s

onward,

notably

in

the

first of the

Sainte-Victoires.

Commenting

on the

passage

from the

letter to

Bernard

just

cited,

Theodore

Reff

has

brought

to

bear

a less well known statement

by

Cezanne

to

Jean

Royere,

but has cut

something

from

its

opening

on which

I

would,

to

the

contrary,

want to

insist:

You

see

it. ....

It

[Sainte-Victoire]

is distant from us

by

a

good

way,

in

itself

it is

rather massive.

At

the Beaux-Arts

you

learn,

of

course,

the

3.

Cezanne

to Emile

Bernard,

April

15,

1904,

in

ibid.,

p.

301

(translation

modified).

32


4/14

Cezanne: Words

and Deeds

Cezanne.

The

Lac

d'Annecy.

1896.

laws

of

perspective,

but

one

has

never seen that

depth

results from the

conjunction

of

vertical

and horizontal

surfaces and it is that

very thing

that is perspective.4

A

peculiar

formulation

which

I

will

put

in

direct

relation to

the Lac

d'Annecy

the

remark

is

almost

contemporary

with

the

picture),

where the

meeting

of

verticals

and

horizontals is

particularly

noticeable.

Indeed,

what do we

in

fact see there

if

not a

veritable

reversal?

The

surface

of

the water-the

very

quintessence

of

horizontality--not

only

becomes a

perfectly

flat wall as

in

certain

landscapes

from

L'Estaque, particularly

the

one

belonging

to

Picasso,

but a

wall striated with vertical

lines,

those

"perpendiculars

to the horizon"

meant

"to

give

depth"

to us. Yet

they

don't deliver

it to

us,

this

depth;

they

have rather

the

tendency

to

deny

it and to

4. Jean

Royere,

"PaulCezanne,

Erinnerungen,"

Kunst und Kiinstler

(1912),

in Conversations,

.

189

n.

1;

discussed

by

Theodore

Reff,

"Painting

and

Theory

in

the Final

Decade,"

in

Cezanne:

The Late

Work,

d. William Rubin

(New

York:

Museum

of

Modern

Art,

1977),

p.

46.

33


5/14

OCTOBER

act

like a reverse

repoussoir

hat

propels

the chateau's

leading

edge

toward

us:

like

the

Sainte-Victoire,

it

is

perhaps

"distant from

us

by

a

good way,"

but it

is

"in

itself

rather

massive."

This matter of distance

seems to have obsessed Cezanne

during

his

last

years.

Francis

Jourdain

expressed surprise

at

hearing

him

say

"that

one

of

his

most constant

preoccupations

was

to

render the

real

distance

between

eye

and

object

sensible."5

This

surprise,

that we

perhaps

share,

is little abated

by

the

link-

age

of ideas

in

these

remarks to

Karl Ernst Osthaus:

"The main

thing,

in

a

picture,

is

to

find the

correct distance.

The color had to

express

all the

ruptures

in

depth."6

That

is: it is

up

to color to

supplement

the insufficiencies

of linear

perspective

(in

the same

way

as the

"bluish tones"

of

the

atmosphere

in

the

letter

of Bernard). We should note in passing that here it is no longer a question of aerial

perspective

(which

presupposes

a

continuous and

homogenous

space),

but

of

ruptures,

which

strikes

me as

being

closer

to Cezanne's

painting.

I nonetheless

leave

to one side this

practice

of

"depth

through

color,"

so

admired

by

Matisse

and

so studied

by

Lawrence

Gowing,

to

linger

briefly

once

more

over

this

anxiety

about

distance,

which

I

wish

to connect to

another

remark

to

Bernard,

speaking

"of

planes

which

fall on

top

of

one

another,"

a

problem

which

"neo-impressionism"

tries

to resolve

by circumscribing

"the contours

with a

black

line,

a fault

which must be

fought

at

all

costs."7

Putting

these

"planes

which

fall

on

top

of one another"

in

relation

in turn

with the

collapse

of

horizontal

surfaces into verticality that is so pronounced in many of Cezanne's paintings (for

example

the Courtauld's

Plaster

Cupid

[circa

1895]),

I

can

only agree

with

Rosalind

Krauss's

analysis

in

seeing

this

type

of

picture

as

marking

the

emergence,

for

the

first

time

in

the

history

of Western

art since

the

Renaissance,

of a

hiatus-or

rather

the

recognition

of

a hiatus-between

the

purely

visual

space

of

projection

(on

the vertical

plane

of

the

painting)

and the tactile

and

carnal

space

in which

our bodies

participate.

As

Krauss

has shown

in relation

to

the

paintings

Picasso

made

in 1909 at Horta

de

Ebro,

paintings

which

she connects

directly

to the

Cezanne of

the

Plaster

Cupid,

his

disjunction

between

the

vertical

cut of

the visual

field and

the lateral

extension

of

tactility,

where

"depth

is what

occurs

when

the

ground gives way below one's feet," results in a crisis, a doubt about vision's own

capacity

to

give

us

access

to

depth.8

Kahnweiler

reports

this

paradoxical

remark

by

Picasso:

"In

a

Raphael

painting

it is not

possible

to

establish

the distance

from

the

tip

of the

nose to the

mouth.

I

should

like to

paint

pictures

in which

that

would

be

possible."9

Of

course,

we need

to

recognize

the

irony

in this

remark,

and

5.

FrancisJourdain,

Cezanne

1950),

in

Conversations,

.

84

n. 1.

6.

Karl Ernst

Osthaus,

"Cezanne,"

Das

Feuer

(1920-21),

in

Conversations,

.

97 n.

1.

7. Cezanne

to

Emile

Bernard,

October

23, 1905,

in

Letters,

p.

317.

8.

Rosalind

Krauss,

"The Motivation

of the

Sign,"

in

Picasso

and

Braque:

A

Symposium,

d. William

Rubin and

Lynn

Zelevansky

(New

York:Museum

of

Modern

Art,

1992),

pp.

267-70.

9. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The Rise of Cubism (1920), trans. Henry Aronson (New York:

Wittenborn,

1949),

p.

8. On

this

point,

see the remarks

by

Leo

Steinberg reported

in

my

"Kahnweiler's

Lesson,"

in

Painting

as Model

(Cambridge:

MIT

Press,

1990),

p.

282

n. 18.

34


6/14

Cezanne: Words and Deeds

above all it is

my

hope

that

we don't return to the

types

of

"geometrical" reading

of Cezanne that have dominated interpretation for so long and that now seem

finally

to

have been

put

out to

pasture.

But Picasso's

fundamental doubt

about

illusionistic

depth

and the idea

according

to which it is no

longer possible

in

painting

if,

as

Cezanne

said,

one

owes the

truth,

seems

to me to have the

same

source as that which

leads Cezanne to fold

the

ground plane

vertically

over

the

elevation

in

the lower

part

of

some of his

paintings,

as

if,

as the

space

between

himself and the

represented object

narrowed,

he

were forced to

lower his

eyes

to

take

in

his feet.

Let

us return to

the letter to

Bernard with

which

I

opened.

The

famous

phrase

about

"the

cylinder,

the

sphere,

and the cone"

has

given

rise,

as we

know,

to

many, many

commentaries,

most

frequently wholly

erroneous

(we

know

how

the "cube" has

been added in

an

apocryphal

manner

to this

formula and what

use

has been

made of this

new

minting

by

those

who have

wanted to read

Cubism as a

geometrical

exercise for

which

Cezanne was

the

precursor).

We know

today,

thanks to Reff

and

Gowing,

who have

both

paid

more

attention than

have their

predecessors

to

the

remarks

reported

by

Riviere and

Schnerb,

that

the famous

formula

concerns more

the

general

rotundity

of volumes

and

surfaces such

as

they appear to perception than any geometrical stylization of bodies. (To recall:

Riviere

and Schnerb

note that

when

Cezanne

spoke

of

the

spherical

quality

of

bodies

he was not

only

thinking

of all

those

balls,

apples

or

otherwise,

that

fill

his

paintings,

like

those

ready

to tumble

down the

slope

of

the Plaster

Cupid,

but

also

of

perfectly

planar

surfaces,

such

as a

wall;

in

this

there would

perhaps

be an

element

to add to

the file set

up by

Reff

concerning

the

relations

between

Cezanne

and

Chardin,

whose walls are

always

established as

curving

behind

his still

lifes,

even if

they

are

most often

concave.)10

Gowing

has

very

carefully

studied the

implication

of

this

principle

of

general

sphericness

on

what

Cezanne

called his

"modulation"

of

color. Here I

would like

to return to an aspect of this question that has not been sufficiently noticed, one

that

concerns

the

organic

character

of

Cezanne's

volumes,

particularly

in

the

landscape

paintings

and

watercolors. The

late

views of the

Bibemus

quarry

and

the rocks

and

grottos

of the

Chateau Noir

are

certainly

the

most

spectacular

from

this

point

of

view,11

but

everywhere

in

differing

degrees

we can

detect

this

tenden-

cy

to

make

every

form

into an

organ

(for

example

in

the Rocks

at

L'Estaque

of

1879-82).

It has

often

been

noted that the

solids

that

Cezanne

lists

in

his

letter to

Bernard

have no arris

(as

he

said to

Riviere

and

Schnerb,

"I

am

applying myself

to

10. See Theodore Reff, "Cezanne and Chardin,"in Cezanneaujourd'hui,pp. 11-28.

11.

See

Cezanne,

exhibition

catalogue

(Paris:

Reunion

des

Musees

Nationaux,

1995),

nos.

149-51,

p.

175.

35


7/14

Sea at

L'Estaque.

1878-79.

Rocks at

L'Estaque.

1879-82.

iii ilAfit

-.


8/14

Cezanne:

Words nd Deeds

portraying

the

cylindrical

side of

objects").12

But this interest in curvature

has

been connected to considerations of perspective, whereas the simple fact that

Cezanne

adds

"all

of

it

put

in

perspective,"

after

having

listed

cylinder,

sphere,

and

cone,

would indicate that

it

is

not a

question

of the same

thing.

I

would

thus

rather

tie this absence of arris

to

the idea not

of a

geometric

body

(and

of

visual

projection),

but to the idea

of

touch,

of

"contact,"

as

Cezanne

would

say

(and,

if

you

want,

of

caress).

We know that

Cezanne

was

panicked

by

the idea of

being

touched,

and

I

wonder

if

this

phobia might

not be

directly

symmetrical

with what

he wanted

to

realize

in

painting

and

thus

also with the doubt about vision I

evoked above.

Cezanne

wrote to Bernard that one must

"penetrate

what is before

oneself,"

which can easily be taken in a banal manner as relating to the traditional optics

from which

perspective's

visual

projection

issues.13 But

if

we relate this

saying

(with

all the erotic connotations it

implies)

to

the sense of

touch,

we

change registers,

and

perhaps

we

approach

more

precisely

what

Cezanne

wanted

to

attempt, namely,

to

splice

vision and touch

together

at the

very

moment

when

the two

sensory

fields

were

in

the

process

of

splitting

apart:

in

some

way

to invent

a

tactile vision.

We know how constitutive the

sense

of

touch was

in

Cezanne's

practice

(Richard

Shiff

has

already

insisted

on

this)14

and all

that he owed to Courbet in

this domain.

But

if

we

pass

from

the minimal

unity

of

the stroke or "touch" to

the

ensemble of the

painting,

it

seems to me

that the debt to Courbet is no

less

great:

the very anthropomorphicizing landscapes of the latter-for example, the famous

series of the Source

of

the Loue

(1863-64)-are

marked

by

an

impossible

desire to

penetrate

into

the

body

of the

motif.

15

Perhaps

because of

how much he

learned

from

Pissarro,

Cezanne knew-more than

did Courbet-that this was

impossible

(and

he

would doubtless have

considered literal

anthropomorphism,

such as

Degas

had mobilized

it

in

certain of his

landscapes,

vulgar).

But Brice

Marden's

quip treating

the

Montagne

Saint-Victoireas a

"giant

tit" is not the

simple schoolboy

12.

R. P.

Riviere

and

J.

F.

Schnerb,

"Cezanne's Atelier"

(1907),

in

Cezanne

n

Perspective,

d.

Judith

Wechsler

(Englewood

Cliffs,

NJ.:

Prentice-Hall,

1975),

p.

60.

13. Cezanne to Emile Bernard, May26, 1904, in Letters,p. 304 (translation modified).

14.

Richard

Shiff,

"La

touche de Cezanne:

entre vision

impressionniste

et vision

symboliste,"

in

Cezanne

aujourd'hui,

pp.

117-24.

15.

On the

anthropomorphic

character

of

Courbet's

landscapes

and still

lifes,

see Michael

Fried,

Courbet'sRealism

(Chicago

and London: The

University

of

Chicago

Press,

1990),

pp.

238-54.

See

also

Fried's remarks on

Cezanne

in

Manet's

Modernism,or,

The

Face

of Painting

in the 1860s

(Chicago

and

London:

The

University

of

Chicago

Press,

1996),

p.

607 n.

31,

which was

published

after this

paper

was

delivered.

Another

important essay appeared shortly

after the Cezanne

symposium:

T.

J.

Clark's

"Freud's

Cezanne,"

Representations

52

(Fall

1995),

pp.

94-122.

Although

Clark is

chiefly

concerned with

Cezanne's Barnes

and

Philadelphia

Bathers,

in which

there is

little "air"indeed

(and

which

thus

contradict what

I

am

proposing

here),

he

demonstrates as

well the

exceptional

status

of

these

works,

noting

the

paucity

and

general

embarrassment

of the literature about them. But I

view what he has to

sayin general about Cezanne's "materialism," bout Cezanne's desire to "materialize he playof phantasy,"

and the

connection he makes

between this and

the

pre-psychoanalyic,

positivist

(but

one could almost

also

say

"atomist")

Freud,

as

a direct confirmation of

my

own ruminations.

37


9/14

OCTOBER

Sainte-Victoire seen from Les Lauves. 1902-4.

joke

that it

might

at first seem.16

In

any

event

I

like Vollard's

memory,

no matter

how

unreliable,

according

to

which one of the first

buyers

of

Cezanne was a

person

blind from birth.17

*

The

name of

Marden,

who said that Cezanne

was

one of his

heroes,

allows

me to return

to the matter of the

feeling of

air mentioned

in

the letter

to

Bernard,

and to

raise

a

point

that

might

seem to contradict this idea of

organic

tactility

that

I

have

been

sketching.

I

have

already expressed my skepticism

about

Cezanne's

use

of a true

aerial

perspective

and thus

my

doubt over the status

he

accorded

to his

16. Cited in Robert

Mahoney,

interview with Brice Marden, "This Is What

Things

Are About,"

FlashArt

(November

1990),

p.

120.

17. Ambroise

Vollard,

"Souvenirs sur

Cezanne,"

Minotaure

2,

no. 6

(1935),

p.

14.

38


10/14

Cezanne:Words

nd Deeds

"bluish

tones."

However,

I

am far from

admitting

that there is no air in

Cezanne's

paintings. I would even go so far as to say that his works are themselves lungs, that

they

breathe. And

if the

Cezannean

stroke

permits

this

respiration,

this is above

all

because

it

is

discrete,

discontinuous,

and because it

presupposes

a void-as in

the

classical

physics

of

Lucretius,

of which

Cezanne

was an avid reader.

To

say

this

telegraphically,

Cezanne's

touch,

by

means of which he transcribed

his "little

sensation,"

his

"coloring

sensations,"

was the

bridge

between

his

pigment

and the

substances,

forms,

and

spatiality

of the world:

it was an

abstraction,

prac-

tically

a

musical

form of

notation,

but

it

was

what allowed

him

to conceive

his

paintings

as worlds

under

construction,

similar-in their

mode of existence for

our

perception-to

nature itself.

As

Merleau-Ponty

has so well

noted,

to look at a

Cezanne, particularlya late watercolor,is to see simultaneously its molecular surface

and the

depicted

object

in the

act

of

germinating

under our

very

eyes.

However,

we should make

slightly

clearer how this

"germination"

works.

I

mention watercolor here because this

is where

we

can best

grasp

Cezanne's

process:

his late

canvases-Gowing

and

many

others have noted

this-adopt

a

type

of

colored construction first

explored

in

watercolor,

but

I

would even

say

that

the work

of his

"couillarde"

period,

above all his

portraits

and several still

lifes,

already

seem

to

me

a

contradictory anticipation

of this method that he couldn't

yet

envision

(contradictory

because the

heavy

facture

of

the "couillarde"

period,

although

strictly

atomic,

could

only

prevent

the

transparency

and

fluidity

essential to

this very method).

What

then is this method? It

is a

matter

of a molecular

process

which is not

simply

additive,

but

multiplying.

His works are

geologically

constructed of

layers,

or rather of

levels,

of skeins of molecules more

or

less

loose,

each skein

responding

both to the one that

precedes

it

and

to

the

whiteness of the

support.

None of

these levels

entirely

fuses with the others. Cezanne is

very

careful that his

colors

don't mix

(we

know

he

had a violent dislike of mixture and how his

extremely

var-

ied

palette

astonished

Bernard)18:

the

atoms must

remain

identifiable

as

such

(the

transparency

of

watercolor,

its

very rapid

drying

time,

were

perfect

for this

end).

Superimpositions

(where

the atoms

partially

cover each

other)

engender

various colored modulations but are alwaysdiscernable as combinations of primary

atoms.

However,

as

I've

said,

this

process

wasn't

additive;

despite

the

temptation

that one

might

have

to retrace the artist's

elaboration

step by step,

this is

always

in

vain: Cezanne's works

cancel the

linearity

of

time;

they

breathe.

I

will allow

myself

here to

quote

a

commentary

at

length,

particularly

because it has been a

bit

forgotten.

It's from

a text

by

Max

Raphael, posthumously

published

in

1968,

the

pretext

for which was above all the

Sainte-Victoire

een

from

Les Lauves (1902-4)

in

the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

18. Emile

Bernard,

"Souvenirs sur

Paul

Cezanne"

(1907),

in

Conversations,

.

61

n.

1.

39


11/14

OCTOBER

Let us consider the nearest

plane:

a dark area made

up

of

various

violets

and greens. One color (violet) is decomposed into a warm (reddish)

tone and

a cold

(bluish)

tone;

the

first

comes

forward,

the second

recedes. This creates

a tension which

sets these tones

apart yet

relates

them to each

other,

so that

they

seem to

belong

to distinct

layers

although

there

is no

perceptible

space

between

them. The

number

of

layers

employing

the same color

varies,

but whether

the contrast

involves

two

or

more

layers,

our actual

perception

is

one

not of movement but

of

tension.

In

consequence, perception

of time is eliminated

from our

per-

ception

of

three-dimensionality;

or,

to be more

exact,

we

do not

perceive

time as

elapsing

while we become

aware

of a

multiplicity

of

layers.19

This

passage

is

complex

but

it seems to

me that

in

it

Raphael gets

to some-

thing

that

is

unique

to

Cezanne,

at least before

Pollock,

something

that

specifically

fascinated

Marden,

namely,

this

abolition

of

perceptual

time,

corresponding

to an

infinite

copenetration

of

levels

that

nevertheless

remain discrete.

Here's

what

Marden said

of

Pollock,

but he could

just

as well be

speaking

of

Cezanne,

since for

a

long

time

Marden

has read the

one

in

terms

of the other:

You look at

the colors and the

marks,

and

you

try

to redraw them.

You

look at the blacks

and

you

follow

the

way they

went on the

canvas,

then

you

follow the

whites,

say,

then the browns....

But there's

always

some

point where you lose the trail; you just can't read it because it never

reads as

layering.

It's nice to

think, well,

he did the

black

all at the same

time

and we

can follow

those

marks,

but when

you

really

start

looking

at the

painting,

there

are

places

where

the

black is over the

white,

and

then

there are

places

where the

white

is over

the black.

I don't

really

know

how

he

was

working

those

colors,

how

he could

go

back and

forth

between

colors and

layers.

The colors

may

look

layered,

but I

think

there

was a more

organic

flow between

what

looks

like the

bottom

layer

and

what

looks

like the

top

layer....

and all

those marks

and colors

become

the real

space

of the

painting.20

This

is also

perhaps-and

here

I

am

referring

to

a

hobbyhorse

of

my

own-

what

relates

not

only

Pollock and

Cezanne

but both

of them to

the

interlacing

Mondrian

effected

in

his last

pictures,

weavings

that

put

a

space

into

play

that is

not

purely

visual

and thus

illusionistic

but tactile

as well.

*

After

this excursion

into

twentieth-century

art,

I

would

like

to raise

a last

19.

Max

Raphael,

"The World

of Art and

the Model

in

Nature,"

The

Demands

of

Art

(London:

1968),

pp. 21-22.

20.

Brice

Marden,

lecture at

the

Museum of

Modern

Art,

New

York,

November

16,

1989,

cited

in

Brenda

Richardson,

BriceMarden: Cold

Mountains

(Houston:

Fine Arts

Press,

1991),

p.

43.

40


12/14

Portraitof the Gardener

i

i

Vallier.

1906.

point

that

touches

on the

famous "unfinished" condition

of a

large

part

of

Cezanne's works. This state of

"unfinish" is of

course

not

that,

and the

many

com-

mentators on

this-from Riviere and Schnerb to

Renoir

and

Matisse-have noted

that

every

canvas,

every

watercolor

by

Cezanne,

whatever the

moment

in

the

process at which it has been "interrupted,"is always structured as a totality. It is

what,

speaking

elsewhere of

Matisse's debt to

C6zanne,

I have called "the

economy

of the

session": Cezanne

stops

when the

ensemble holds and each

session,

even

if

it takes

up

a

picture

in

process

and

already

reworked

a hundred

times,

is an

absolute

recommencement.21 Whence the famous remark made to

Vollard about

the

two

tiny

points

of

empty

canvas,

or

reserve,

in

his

portrait:

"If I

put

something

here

by guesswork,

I

might

have to

paint

the whole canvas

over,

starting

from that

point."22

The

whites

of

Cezanne are thus

not

open

sores but

the

unavoidable

consequence

of

his

way

of

working:

they

are void

spaces

that

are as constructive

as

the filled-in

ones;

at least that's

the

way

Matisse read them.

21.

See

my

"Matisse and

'Arche-Drawing',"

n

Painting

as

Model,

pp.

48-51.

22.

Vollard,

Paul Cezanne

(1914),

in

Cezanne

n

Perspective,

.

64.


13/14

OCTOBER

However,

Cezanne seems to have

complained

of these reserve zones

(he

put

them down to

his

age

and as

"abstractions"

that

are

engendered

in

him

by

the

"coloring

sensations,

which

give

the

light").23

And

in the

light

of

his

most worked-

over canvases-the

lumpy portraits

from the

end,

for

example

those

of Vallier

or

the

Pushkin

Museum's Sainte-Victoire-and

taking

account

of what he said

to

Riviere

and Schnerb

in

front of the

Barnes Foundation

Great

Bathers

s

well,

namely,

that

he

wanted

"to

paint

with a

loaded

brush,

like

Courbet,"24

we

might

wonder

if

the

destiny

of all

of

Cezanne's

works,

even

those whose aerated

respiration

we

acclaim,

was

not

to

end

by being

dark and

saturated with

matter,

as

had been

the

works

of the "couillarde"

period.

The

contradiction

on

this

point

between Cezanne's

declared intentions

and

the omnipresence of the whites in his painting has been the focus of numerous

commentaries,

but even so

I

would

like to return to the

matter

of

the

reserve.

I

want

to

bring

to

bear

on

this

the well-known remarks about the

unity

of color

and

drawing:

"Drawing

and color are

not

separate

at

all;

in so far as

you

paint,

you

draw."25

Rather than

wanting

to read

them,

as

has

been

rightly

done,

as

signs

of a

simple

refusal of linearism

on Cezanne's

part

(and

thus

in

terms

of the

line/color

alternative

as that

has

been

debated

in

France

since the seventeenth

century),

I

would here

like

to

fold these

remarks into

the

generic

issue

of the relations

between

painting

and

drawing.

Contrary

to

what the

history

of art

makes us

think,

connoisseurs

have

never

judged paintings and drawings according to the same criteria and have always

been conscious

of

the fact

that

they

don't

belong

to the same

historical

time: from

Pontormo

to

Poussin,

from Guercino

to

Tiepolo,

the art

of

drawing

evolved

in

a

framework

of conventions

very

different

from that

of

painting

(many things

permitted

in

drawing

would

never

have been

accepted

in

painting).

Now,

the

major

difference

between

the

space

of

drawing

and

that

of

painting

concerns

the

nature

of

the

support.

Since

the time

of

Alberti,

the

picture plane

is assumed

as

transparent

in

painting,

but the condition

sine

qua

non of this

transparency

is

that

the

supporting

ground

be covered

over

without

reserve.

Conversely,

as Walter

Benjamin

has

remarked,

"the

graphic

line

can exist

only against

this

background,

so that a drawing that completely covered its background would cease to be a draw-

ing."26Benjamin

made this

remark

after

having

seen a

show of

Picasso's

Cubist

paintings, precisely

because

they

seemed

to him to

put

this

simple opposition

into

question:

he would

very

well

have been as

troubled

by

a

Cezanne

exhibition,

without

doubt the

first

painter

to have

abolished

this constitutive

difference.

And

maybe

it's

just

for

that,

for

having

canceled

the difference

between

23. Cezanne

to Emile

Bernard,

October

23, 1905,

in

Letters,

p.

316

(translation

modified).

24.

Riviere

and

Schnerb,

"Cezanne's

Atelier,"

p.

63

(translation

modified).

25.

Reported

by

Emile

Bernard;

see

"Opinion,"

in

Cezanne

n

Perspective, .

42.

26. Walter Benjamin, "Painting, or Signs and Marks" (1917),

in

Walter

Benjamin:

Selected

Writings,

Volume

1:

1913-1926,

ed. Marcus

Bullock

and Michael

Jennings

(Cambridge

and

London:

Harvard

University

Press,

1996),

p.

83.

42


14/14

Cezanne:

Words and

Deeds

these

two

historically heterogeneous registers,

that Cezanne is the father

of modern

art. It remains to be seen if such was his intention. I personally believe that he was

obliged

to do

this:

if,

as

Merleau-Ponty

has

stated,

Cezanne's

goal

was to

paint

perception

itself,

and

if,

as he himself

put

it,

he wanted "to see as a

newborn,"27

that is to

say,

at the

very

moment of an

originary

discrimination,

he

would have

had to activate the

opposition

between

figure

and

ground

that is at

the

foundation

of

our

human

perception;

and the

ascent

of the

support-namely,

the

contamina-

tion of the

pictorial

field

by

the

graphic

one-was the

best route to

take,

or

perhaps,

even,

the

only

one.

27.

Report byJules

Borely

(1911);

reprinted

in

Conversations

vec

Cezanne,

p.

22

n. 1.

43

Documents

Cezanne. Words and Deeds