Lessons from Cezanne

Sometimes reading a biography of an artist helps a great deal.  I have just finished the superbly detailed Cezanne: a Life by Alex Danchev, and  am still absorbing the many lessons about art practices, as lived and learnt during Cezanne's life.

Self Portrait with Rose Background, oil on canvas, Paul Cezanne, c. 1875.  Image courtesy of a Private Collection

One of the main lessons I derived from this biography and from other wonderful publications and exhibitions of Cezanne's work is that tenacity needs to be allied with a dogged belief in one's own artistic vision or voice.  Despite all his doubts and setbacks, Cezanne kept going back and back to certain subjects - apples, his beloved Mont Sainte-Victoire, self-portraits, etc.  Each time, he did something new, something inventive, something better, stronger and more personal.

Curtain, Jug and Fruit, oil on canvas, Paul Cezanne, 1894, Private collection

Another lesson that can be learned is how valuable it is to paint sur le motif as Cezanne called plein air painting.  He went out time and time again to work in the sun and heat or difficult conditions - he found new ways to render the landscape.  He told young painters, "The main thing in a painting is finding the right distance."  But finding the correct distance often meant a great deal of innovation, a break from previous, Renaissance traditions of what was far and what was near.  He collapsed distances, he gave us all licence to make horizontals and verticals indistinct one from the other, he showed that colour could serve as "all the ruptures in depth".  In essence, he allowed us all to become 20th/21st century artists who can paint in whatever way seems appropriate.

Mont Sainte-Victoire, oil on canvas, Paul Cezanne, 1897. Image courtesy of  Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore

Another vital lesson is that Cezanne looked and looked so hard at his subject - to find its "truth".  He was frantically absorbing all he could about what he was seeing, trying to understand it, trying to grapple with it so that he could mutate it onto his canvas.  "Cezanne at his easel, painting, looking at the countryside: he was truly alone in the world, ardent, focused, alert, respectful," as Renoir wrote. Every artist working from life needs to scrutinise the subject as carefully and attentively as possible - then, and only then, can one really hope to transmute it and interpret it according to oneself.

A lesson which resonates with me is Cezanne's passion for trees - pine trees and olive trees in particular.  He painted them again and again,  depicting them as one would depict a close friend, loved and carefully studied.  They were noble examples of Nature, which resonated so deeply with Cezanne. As Ravaisou is quoted as saying in  Cezanne a Life, "he was a sensualist in art.  He loved nature with a passion, perhaps to the exclusion of all else; he painted in order to prolong within himself the joy of living among the trees."  We can all learn from his paintings of the Large Pine and other tree paintings.

Large Pine and Red Earth, oil on canvas, Paul Cezanne (1890-95). Image courtesy of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersbourg

Pistachio Tree at Chateau Noir, watercolour with graphite on cream wove paper, laid down on tan wove paper, Paul Cezanne.  Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Paint with passion - that is what, ultimately, Cezanne seems to be telling us with the art, writings and musings that we have all inherited.

An Early Insight into Art Materials

Happenstance has just given me a lovely gift of information. I was reading a wonderful biography by the late famed British historian, Hugh Trevor Roper, on the 17th century Huguenot physician, Theodore de Mayerne.  Brilliantly intelligent and successful, de Mayerne was first physician to King Henri IV of France, then attended James I of England and his successor, Charles I. 

Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, to give him his full name, was bornin Geneva of French parents in 1573 and lived until 1654/55, ending his days in England.  This is a portrait thought to be done of him in London by Peter Paul Rubens about 1630.

Dr. Theodore de Mayerne, Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1630.  Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina

De Mayerne was a multi-faceted scientist, in essence, for his interests and knowledge stretched far beyond the practise of medicine.  Chemist, Hermeticist, experimenter – on one side and on the other, a skilled linguist and writer, high-level diplomat and spy for his Royal employers, as well as deeply knowledgeable expert in art and art materials and practices.  In  short, a true Renaissance man. In 1620, he began with a flourish a new treatise entitled Pictoria, Sculptoria, et quae subalternarum artium. In the many folios, he records observations, derived from reading in part but more from conversations with artists  and craftsmen, about their techniques, technical descriptions of materials used, sources of these materials and their chemical characteristics.

The hand-written title page of the Mayerne manuscript, 'Pictoria, sculptoria et quae subalternarum artium',
England (London), 1620-1646,

Being a very prominent member of three Royal courts, he had the opportunity to meet a wide selection of artists and craftsmen.  He was ever curious and discussed with them different approaches to oil painting, mixing and preparing pigments, the best oils to use, surface preparation, conservation of art, the art of enamelling, watercolour and miniature painting and all manner of other information.  His friendships with Rubens, with Van Dyck, Orazio and his daughter, Artemisia Gentileschi, miniaturists Jean Petitot and John Hoskins and others were fruitful in the detailing of art technology in his folio notes.

Mayerne’s notes on the mixing of colours, taken from Peter Paul Rubens while sitting for his portrait

Dr. Theodore de Mayerne, oil and black chalk, with grey wash, c. 1631, Peter Paul Rubens.  Image courtesy of the British Museum

 Mayerne’s notes on oil, taken from Anthony van Dyck,

De Mayerne continued with this art treatise for a number of years with the last entries in the 170 folios in 1646.  

Folios 5 & 9O, Theodore de Mayerne, Pictoria, Sculptoria...

After his death, the document ended up eventually in the British Library, under the filing, Sloane MS 2052.  From the time of Horace Walpole onwards, it has been considered an indispensable source of information on Dutch and Flemish painting in the Baroque era, allowing later scholars to learn of Northern European diverse art practices. Today, scientists still use De Mayerne's work as a vital source of information for the 17th century, on a par with Cennino Cennini's Il Libro dell' Arte for the early 15th century.  Manufacturers of Old Master materials still use De Mayerne's recipes - for  amber resin varnish, for example.  Countless art restorers, in the Prado Museum, the Getty and elsewhere, apparently refer to De Mayerne's careful records about art materials and contemporary techniques.

The more I read, the more I realise there is so much more to learn about.  I started reading Hugh Trevor Roper's wonderful Europe's Physician.  The various Life of Sir Theodore de Mayerne to learn about an early, prominent physician. I ended up learning about a meticulous chronicler of 17th century art and its practice. What a delicious bonus! 

Symbols Matter

In an article in the Wall Street Journal in May 2012, painter Kenhinde Wiley was discussing his portraits and the realities of being a portrait artist.  He ended by saying that, "You'll never be able to exist in the market place without recognising that paintings are perhaps the most expensive objects in the art world.  (The work) is not going to change anyone's life.  But what it does (is) function as a catalyst for a different way of thinking – symbols matter". (My emphasis.)

Exhibition at Brooklyn Museum in New York City, 'A New Republic", Kehinde Wiley, evoking Napoleon and others

Wiley has been most skilled at suggesting other versions of past masters' portraits of the great and powerful.  His version of portraits by Rubens, Titian, Tiepoloand others are hugely symbolic as they remind us that the previous white-male-dominated world could indeed have been different.

It is not just by offering different versions of history that artists can offer insights into our world.  As artists, whether we realise it or not, we are offering interpretations and meanings about our surroundings and history. As the late Kirk Varnadoe reminded us in Pictures of Nothing - Abstract Art since Pollock, "We are meaning-makers, not just image-makers.  It is not just that we recognise images - it is that we are constructed to make meaning out of things, that we learn from others how to do it."

Take one of the most famous symbolic paintings of the last hundred years, Guernica by Pablo Picasso.

Guernica, Pablo Picasso, 1937.  Image courtesy of the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid

It is one of the clearest demonstrations of the power of symbolism in art. It is a reminder that we can all use art in many powerful ways.

Wise Words about Art

In the excellent book about Cezanne recently written by Alex Danchev, there is a quote which is well worth pondering for any artist.

Pissarro and Cezanne painted together a great deal in 1872-74 when Cezanne lived in Auvers and was thus near where Pissarro lived in Pontoise. 

The Hanged Man's House, Auvers, 1873, Paul Cezanne. Image courtesy of the Musee d'Orsay, Paris

They sustained each other in their work and Cezanne learned  from the older artist who was a natural teacher.  Pissarro's teaching was noted down by the young artist,  Louis Le Bail, in 1896-97 and first published by John Rewald.  Danchev requotes it and I am indebted to him for its text.

March Sun, Pontoise, Camille Pissarro, 1875. Image courtesy of the Kunsthalle, Bremen

Pissarro taught us all thus:

Look for the kind of nature that suits your temperament.  The motif should be observed more for shape and colour than for drawing. There is no need to tighten the form which can be obtained without that.  Precise drawing is dry and hampers the impression of the whole, it destroys all sensations. Do not define too closely the outlines of things; it is the brushstroke of the right value and colour which should produce the drawing.  In a mass, the greatest difficulty is not to give the contour in detail, but to paint what is within.  Paint the essential character of things, try to convey it by any means whatsoever, without bothering about technique.  When painting, make a choice of subject, see what is lying at the right and at the left, then work on everything simultaneously.  Don't work bit by bit, but paint everything at once by placing tones everywhere, with brushstrokes of the right colour and value, while noticing what is alongside.  Use small brushstrokes and try to put down your perceptions immediately.  The eye should not be fixed on one point, but should take in everything, while observing the reflections which the colours produce on their surroundings.  Work at the same time upon sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on on an equal basis and unceasingly rework until you have got it.  Cover the canvas at the first go, then work at it until you can see nothing more to add.  Observe the aerial perspective well, from the foreground to the horizon, the reflections of sky, of foliage.  Don't be afraid of putting on colour, refine the work little by little.  Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel.  Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.   Don't be timid in front of nature; one must be bold, at the risk of being deceived and making mistakes.  One must have only one master - nature; she is the one always to be consulted.

I don't think one can add much to these wise words

Art as the "Open Sesame" to Experiences

Every time I get involved in art, I learn something new. It is usually something totally unexpected, frequently something delicious.

The most recent insight I have gained through my art - a very minor item but a delight to me - is about the diminutive, secretive but oh-so-melodious warblers who spend a season in my garden. There is a lot of asparagus fern which periodically dies off, so I have been pruning back the dead tendrils and leaves in the interests of "a tidy garden". During the late autumn storms last year, an exquisite small nest blew out of the trees above the ferns. I saved it and am now trying to draw it in silverpoint (still an on-going complexity!). What should I find as the major ingredient, woven in with such skill and elegance, but the dead asparagus fern leaves. So I now learn that my small feathered friends would really appreciate it if I left them all the leaves when they die. That would make their nest-building much more straight-forward! Without art, I would have never known this.

My thanks to Sergey Yeliseev and Frank Vassen for the use of these images of one of the warblers, the  Blackcap, which I know frequent our garden and gives us wonderful songs.

As I was drawing this nest, I remembered a quote I had noted from Eric R. Kandel's book,  The Age of Insight, to which I have alluded in previous blog posts.  He wrote that through art, we can embrace all sorts of aspects of life, from beauty to  violence and ugliness.  "Art enriches our lives by exposing us to ideas, feelings and situations that we might never have experienced, or even want to experience, otherwise.  Art gives us the chance to explore and try out in our imagination a variety of different experiences and emotions."

I am not sure Kandel would have expected the type of example I have just given, but...!  Nonetheless, I was allowed another type of fascination and experience yesterday at an art history class, when the professor examined the restoration and meaning of Peter Bruegel the Elder's The Wine of St Martin's Day, recently acquired by the Prado Museum in Madrid after being shown to them in 2010.  For a start, I was unfamiliar with the medium combination of glue-sized tempera on linen, which was apparently a cheaper way of providing a large painting to a buyer, rather than using a wooden board (more widespread in  the North than the canvas used in Italy for a painting surface).

The Wine of St Martin's Day, c. 1565-1568, Peter Bruegel the Elder.  Image courtesy of the Prado Museum, Madrid

Without exposure to this painting in detail, I would not probably have ever imagined what it was like to participate in the sampling of new wine on 11th November, the  feast day of St. Martin, with such a crowd, people from all walks of life.  It took me on quite a stretch of imagination!

After the Invention of Photography

Down the ages, man has historically turned to the surrounding world to create a virtual reality in art, through the complex interplay of what the eyes perceive, how the colours have impact and what emotions are invoked. In other words, artists have used the world around them as the major source of their artistic inspiration and subject matter.

After the invention of photography in the decades before 1850, the basis for art making changed. As Henri Matisse observed, "The invention of photography released painting from any need to copy nature,"  which enabled the artist "to present emotion as directly as possible and by the simplest means." 

La Danse (I), Henri Matisse, 1909.  Image courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Indeed, after the mid-19th century, artists' experiments grew more and more divorced from nature in many instances. Monet, for instance, still based his work on nature but it was often a very different vision and interpretation of nature, which meant, of course, that he was regarded as a main innovator in the new school of Impressionism.

Impression, soleil levant, 1872, C. Monet. Image courtesy of the Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris

Water Lilies, 1920, C. Monet.  Image courtesy of the National Gallery, London

As the years passed and artists grew less and less interested in the old, academic way of depicting the world around them, experiments multiplied.  Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne, then Picasso, amongst others, led the way to an art that put more emphasis on colour, emotion and thus a psychological impact.  Cezanne compressed, distorted, changed perspective, volumes, relationships, colour relationships and played such games with "reality" than he was viewing in his surrounding world that we are still indebted to him in terms of interpretation of subject matter.  He stared and stared at his subject matter, but then he in essence produced metaphors about the nature he was looking at; he was "a total sensualist.  His art is all about sensations", said Philip Conisbee, curator at The National Gallery, who put together an exhibition of Cezanne's work in 2006.

Le Pont Des Trois-sautets, watercolor and pencil, Paul Cézanne, c. 1906, Cincinnati Art Museum

Beyond Cezanne, of course, the art world turns to Cubism, abstraction and any number of other forms of presenting emotion directly andurgently, leaving behind any remote reference to a virtual reality of the world. Photography's invention as a "liberation from reality" indeed, for a time, ensured that artists used a very different language to convey aspects of their world.  Georges Braque was one such artist.

Violin and Candlestick, Georges Braque, Paris, spring 1920, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco

After Piet Mondrian's early experiments with Cubism, his path led to works that have become iconic.

Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, 1937-42, Piet Mondrian, oil on canvas. Image courtesy of the Tate Gallery, London

As the 20th century advanced, artists strayed further and further away from their surrounding reality, totally divorced from it by photography's invention - whether the artists were conscious of this fact or not.  But then, of course, the pendulum began to swing back the other way as perhaps, artists began to run out of ways to express themselves that were truly new and different abstractions.  So photography comes back into play, manipulated and used in new and sophisticated ways to depict realities.  Richard Estes, Chuck Close,  Audrey Flack and many others, especially in the United States, have worked in amazing ways that also built on Edward Hopper's reclusive reality that had been a more lonely stream of 20th century art in America..

Night Hawks, Edward Hopper,  1942, oil on canvas (Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Richard Estes “Columbus Circle Looking North,” 2009 Oil on canvas, 40 inches by 56 1/4 inches. Linden and Michelle Nelson Tenants by the Entirety © Richard Estes, courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York

And so the circle is closed and artists once more have recognised the potential of photography in making art. Indeed there are many artists who predicate their depiction of the world around them on photographs, even, in some cases, to tracing images onto canvas. Nonetheless, even their interpretations of reality have been influenced by the long deviations in art-making, away from the need to copy reality.  We are all heir to what has gone before us.

Are Titles important for Artworks?

Art historian Ernst Gombrich introduced radically new ways of thinking about how our brains perceive art; he argued that images in art don't represent perceived reality so much as they are dependent on what life experiences the viewer brings to the art.  As Eric R. Kandel explains in his book, The Age of Insight, Gombrich held that the viewer has to know ahead of time what might be seen in a painting in front of him or her in order really to see what is in the painting.

My reaction to this is: Are titles therefore important when it comes to art? By titling a work, does the artist help guide the viewer in his or her understanding and appreciation of what the artist is trying to say?

All artists, sooner or later, find that giving titles to their work, either two or three dimensional, is a complicated and  often difficult aspect of creation. I think that is why, especially now, there are so many "Untitled" works of art.  "Untitled" is a neutral statement, indicating almost an unwillingness on the artist's part to enter into further dialogue with the viewer, and implying that the art itself has to speakfor itself and the viewer has to use imagination and effort to find a personal interpretation and meaning in the work.

Robert Morris, Untitled, 1965-71, Mirror glass and wood. Image courtesy of Tate Modern, London

Personally, I find that "Untitled" sometimes does seem the most suitable name for art that is multi-interpretive, if one can coin such a phrase.  Often this happens when the subject might be based on reality, but can be viewed as entirely abstract, for example,  However, many times, I find that when I am first thinking about a drawing or painting - the "gestation" period - a name will come floating into my mind.  This title often helps me define and refine what I am trying to convey in the artwork.  I know, for instance, that some artists actually write out or draw out aspects of the planned work, simply to distill the essence of what is important to depict and say in the art.  Titles can be part of that process.  Many times, too, and here I am thinking of artists such as Titian or Michelangelo and countless others, a commission to the artist starts with a title, in essence - a painting of Saint Sebastian, for example.  By definition, the life and fate of that saint are both the subject matter of the art and at least part of its title.Since the art of seeing, whether viewing the world around us, or a work of art, is in essence interpretive, we often need cues and signposts along the way to help us.  Titles on artworks help.

I was reminded of this need for cues the other day during an art history class I have started attending.  All the images shown on the screen - well chosen and interesting - are without their titles, their size or any date.  I suddenly found myself feeling as if a part of the necessary information I was used to had been eliminated. I found I was missing part of the "scene".  Even abstract art, where artwork is often in series and numbered, frequently has an initial title and then the numbers within that series.  Even that helps!

As an example of titles, from my own work, does a title make a difference to the viewer in this case?  Either:

Untitled, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook

Or:

Cedar Remains, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook

I would be interested to learn of people's responses.  Another artist who apparently thought about this issue is Mia Leijonstedt, a Finnish-born artist, who has worked with books and now more with jewellery in a most elegant fashion. In a blog entry, Untitled intention of no meaning, she delves into the same issue in thoughtful fashion.

Charting a Pathway as an Artist

In the early 1550s, writing to Philip II, King of  Spain, the new imperial ambassador to Venice, Francisco de Vargas, described a conversation he had with Titian in his studio.  Vargas apparently expressed surprise at the large size of paintbrush that Titian was using and enquired why he did not use the smaller brushes popular with other artists who worked in a more "refined manner".

Titian. The Rape of Europa, 1559–62. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Massachusetts

Titian's reply, quoted in the marvellous 2012 biography on Titian by Sheila Hale, responded:  "Sir, I am not confident of achieving the delicacy and beauty of the brushwork of Michelangelo, Raphael, Correggio and Parmigianino; and if I did, I would be judged with them, or else considered to be an imitator.  But ambition, which is as natural in my art as in any other, urges me to choose a new path to make myself famous, much as the others acquired their own fame from the way they followed."

By the time Titian told Vargas of his optic on this pathway he had chosen in his art, he was a celebrated artist, whose works had been commissioned and collected by Popes, Dukes, Princes, Doges, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and his son, King Phillip of Spain, amongst many others.  So he had forged his own approach to painting to a hugely successful level, as the ensuing centuries have confirmed.

Self-Portrait, Titian, 1550/1562, image courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

The simple message that comes through this statement of Titian is a wonderful reinforcement of the value of each artist forging an individual path.  Working intelligently and diligently to find one's own methods of creating art, believing in oneself and working out what is the best approach to ensure one's individual hallmark as an artist are all terribly important aspects of being an artist.  In today's extremely crowded art world, this approach is even more valid.  Finding one's own voice, working out how best to reach out, find and respond to one's publics - they are all aspects of an artistic philosophy that each artist has to address.

In Titian's time, the number of artists competing for the commissions from church bodies, the Pope, princes and potentates was smaller. Nonetheless, there was still a hard struggle to make one's mark, to be accepted as a widely respected and sought-after artist. The gallery system and the digital revolutionare adjuncts to today's artist's choices, but they still come after the initial choices each artist makes about pathways to art-making.

Self-Portrait, Titian, 1562. Image courtesy of the Prado Museum, Madrid

Trusting one's own inner voice about what path to follow as an artist is a decision each of us has to make.  Titian gave a wonderful insight into these types of decisions and actions.  His chosen pathway is certainly an inspiration.