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 |
The Murder, 1870, oil on canvas |
Scipio, 1867 |
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
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