The Less than Familiar Cezanne

Cathy Lomax takes another look at Cezanne's paintings

 

I find it hard to look at Cezanne landscapes and still lives. All those apples, oranges, green fields, and blue skies merge into what has become a horrible cliché. I have seen them so often my eyes are bored. I know this is sacrilege and that Cezanne is a genius, but over-exposure can be a terrible thing. So it was with little excitement that I went to see the latest iteration of the Cezanne blockbuster at Tate Modern, and I was only there because as a Tate member it was free.

Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair, c.1877, oi on canvas

 

What I discovered is that I love his portraits. The hints of smudgy red, the pleasingly undetailed grumpy faces of his models shadowed in blues and greens. Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair, 1877 is a stunning painting. The complete lack of consideration for the humanity of Mme Cezanne who is merely part of the composition is fascinating – the blue bow, the greens in her striped skirt, the enveloping red of the armchair, the checkerboard shadows on her face, the gold green of the wall – all are perfectly balanced. I have seen Madame Cezanne before, notably at a show of Cezanne portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in 2018, but some of the other works with figures are new to me. For instance The Murder (which comes with a trigger warning) which shows two men violently attacking the prone body of a women, the limbs of one of the murderers are brightly illuminated against a subfusc deep blue/green sky. It’s dark and nasty, more Manet than Cezanne. 

The Murder, 1870, oil on canvas

The portrait of Black Academie Suisse model Scipio (which was owned by Monet) is, unlike Mme Cezanne, bathed in humanity. The caption describes how Cezanne would have been familiar with debates around enslavement, and it’s easy to read the seeming exhausted Scipio, his long lean back turned out as he rests his weary head against his arm, as a political comment. At a quick glance it would be easy to mistake this painting for one of Lynette Yiadom Boakye’s enigmatic portraits of fictitious Black subjects. 

Scipio, 1867

Alongside this masterful spare portrait are some fussy small works depicting boxy female nudes. The most interesting of these The Eternal Feminine, 1877, has a loosely painted women, with red blobs for eyes, lying naked on a bed, surrounded by men – there could be photographers amongst the crowd, but a bit of research reveals them as writers, lawyers, and a painter. 

The Eternal Feminine, c.1877, oil on canvas

My favourite works are two versions of Portrait of the Artist’s Son. The first from 1880 shows the boy against a background of Cezanne’s characteristic undulating blue scrubbed with swatches of green. This colour is reflected in the shadows on the face. The rather lumpish shape of the figure is balanced by the flattened curved top of an armchair which is rendered in shades of aubergine. 

Portrait of the Artist's Son, 1880, oil on canvas

The second Portrait of the Artist’s Son, 1881-2, is unfinished. The boy’s head is tilted towards the left, his eyelids lowered. The dark blue/grey background is scratchy, and the whitish primer shows through. Either side of the head are untidy patches of aubergine/brown which recede to allow the face to stand out. The patchwork of colours that make the face are comprised (in common with other Cezanne works) of short diagonal brush strokes. The portrait is tender and moving. 

Portrait of the Artist's Son, 1881-2, oil on canvas

All the works I have described are hung on a brownish/purple wall – a colour snatched from Cezanne’s use of a similar aubergine-like tone in the paintings of his son. And it works beautifully.

 

I guess the moral is to look rather than assume you know an artist’s work! 

Cathy Lomax

January 2023

Cezanne

Tate Modern, London

until 12 March 2023