Cezanne and Beyond
Cezanne and Beyond
Visiting the Cezanne and Beyond exhibition is a very intellectual process. I realized Cezanne is indeed the most critical person of the development of representational and non-representational art transition in the turn of 20th century. His influence is huge and understanding the subtle revolution of his paintings from the traditional paintings is a very valuable educational experience.
1.Henri Matisse and his use of color.
I found among all these artists of post-impressionism/pre expressionism/cubism, I really enjoy Henri Matisse art. He uses smooth lines, saturated colors and heavy stroke to generate these images with strong visual fluidity. It is like " looking is equivalent with touching". I especially like his portraits, with contrasting colors such as a red face with blue dress, etc. He usually creates distinctive space in his paintings using color as a segmentation tool. There is always a feeling of clarity in his art that make his images so pleasant to look at. His use of color is very rebellious ( he loves red, green and blue blocks). He would use some green/red stroke on his subject's face. Does he try to emphasize something? And his nudes all have this illuminating pink color, so pink that they look like babies, generating huge contrast from its background, which is so different from Cezanne's dark and unhealthy nudes. Matisse use group color into blocks so that it attracts attention and reduce distractions! These techniques of grouping color and smart use of color contrast are widely influential in later artists such as Mondrian and fashion designers and even some movie directors such as Wim Wimders and Antonioni.
2. Cezanne's mood landscapes.
Cezanne painted many pieces of the same landscape. This group of paintings is all called "The bay of Marceille seen from L'Estaque" (here is the painting: http://theartblog.org/blog/wp-content/uploaded/cezanne-lscp.jpg). He painted the same bay of different times many times. Sometimes, the water looks gray and other times more blue. In one of the paintings, the bay looks unrealistic darker. But he always painted them from the same angle. It made me think of the goal of his paintings. Did he try to record his own emotional experience through recording this landscape? Did the former experience of his perception and memory of this landscape generate new perspective and perception of the same landscape? If so, by re-painting the same landscape, he was being able to record his own emotional experiences in the past. So this landscape become abstracdt and detached from reality and is a representation more of his own internal reconstruction. Eventually, these reconstruction become certain symbols and becoem abstract. In fact, maybe our perception of the scenes are influenced by our past memories (top down influence). Just like what Jeff Wall ( a photographer who is also inspired by Cezanne, said, " A painting is never the rendering of a moment in time, but an accumulation of actions with stimulates the moment or creates the illusions of an event appearing before our eyes!".
3. Cezanne's still life and non-representational art
He painted these apples and oranges without following rules of gravity. By painting apples floating above the table and obscure( :)) continuity of the table cloth and carpet, he creates tension and expectation of motion through these still objects. It feels as if there is uncertainty about the space and its boundries. It is as if the space is extended to infinity. I feel there is a great deal of beauty contained in this uncertainty. Nothing really happened in these still life paintings. It is like a snap shot of a daily scene. But what happened before and after is always mysterious. These objects are not what defines beauty, but are the lines, colors, shadows, shape/color combination, illuminations, etc.
Visiting the Cezanne and Beyond exhibition is a very intellectual process. I realized Cezanne is indeed the most critical person of the development of representational and non-representational art transition in the turn of 20th century. His influence is huge and understanding the subtle revolution of his paintings from the traditional paintings is a very valuable educational experience.
1.Henri Matisse and his use of color.
I found among all these artists of post-impressionism/pre expressionism/cubism, I really enjoy Henri Matisse art. He uses smooth lines, saturated colors and heavy stroke to generate these images with strong visual fluidity. It is like " looking is equivalent with touching". I especially like his portraits, with contrasting colors such as a red face with blue dress, etc. He usually creates distinctive space in his paintings using color as a segmentation tool. There is always a feeling of clarity in his art that make his images so pleasant to look at. His use of color is very rebellious ( he loves red, green and blue blocks). He would use some green/red stroke on his subject's face. Does he try to emphasize something? And his nudes all have this illuminating pink color, so pink that they look like babies, generating huge contrast from its background, which is so different from Cezanne's dark and unhealthy nudes. Matisse use group color into blocks so that it attracts attention and reduce distractions! These techniques of grouping color and smart use of color contrast are widely influential in later artists such as Mondrian and fashion designers and even some movie directors such as Wim Wimders and Antonioni.
2. Cezanne's mood landscapes.
Cezanne painted many pieces of the same landscape. This group of paintings is all called "The bay of Marceille seen from L'Estaque" (here is the painting: http://theartblog.org/blog/wp-content/uploaded/cezanne-lscp.jpg). He painted the same bay of different times many times. Sometimes, the water looks gray and other times more blue. In one of the paintings, the bay looks unrealistic darker. But he always painted them from the same angle. It made me think of the goal of his paintings. Did he try to record his own emotional experience through recording this landscape? Did the former experience of his perception and memory of this landscape generate new perspective and perception of the same landscape? If so, by re-painting the same landscape, he was being able to record his own emotional experiences in the past. So this landscape become abstracdt and detached from reality and is a representation more of his own internal reconstruction. Eventually, these reconstruction become certain symbols and becoem abstract. In fact, maybe our perception of the scenes are influenced by our past memories (top down influence). Just like what Jeff Wall ( a photographer who is also inspired by Cezanne, said, " A painting is never the rendering of a moment in time, but an accumulation of actions with stimulates the moment or creates the illusions of an event appearing before our eyes!".
3. Cezanne's still life and non-representational art
He painted these apples and oranges without following rules of gravity. By painting apples floating above the table and obscure( :)) continuity of the table cloth and carpet, he creates tension and expectation of motion through these still objects. It feels as if there is uncertainty about the space and its boundries. It is as if the space is extended to infinity. I feel there is a great deal of beauty contained in this uncertainty. Nothing really happened in these still life paintings. It is like a snap shot of a daily scene. But what happened before and after is always mysterious. These objects are not what defines beauty, but are the lines, colors, shadows, shape/color combination, illuminations, etc.
