Contemplating Cezanne

Today in one of my graduate school classes, we had a guest speaker who discussed the concept of a public diary. The prospect of chronicling my art historical thoughts piqued my interest; I frequently write, edit, write, and then repeat the process.

The flow and lapse of time in the Cezanne paintings at The Art Institute of Chicago pulled me in. Cezanne created a mysterious group of bathers in The Bathers 1899-1904 due to their loosely detailed faces and the robustness of their muscles. I looked up at the scene of scant branches and leaves and wondered, "Is this a branch?" What are these leaves?

Not because I was overthinking the painting, but because Cezanne enacted a movement that relied heavily on the viewers' particular sense of space and transmitted discrete moments rather than a single portrait.

Cezanne frequently visited groups of bathers during his life, yet this depiction of bathers feels ageless.

Each androgynous body has blue boundaries around its glutes, quads, and calves. Despite this, looking at their entire body, their feet are scarcely represented in any depth. This scene was made even more ethereal by the level of muscle areas and the loose rendition of feet.

I was and still am intrigued by the brown marking on the right-hand side of the narrow tree trunk. Is this figure a tree because of the brown that mimics bark? Is it a tree, as the slender, intentional movement suggests?

As I continued to look, I noticed additional contradictions. The sun, or rather the positioning of the yellow in the middle, appeared to be representative of the sun, or did I think that because a circular yellow marker existed amid the foliage of the trees? Cezanne produces a recollection, or, more accurately, engages the observer in order to delve into their memories. Each feature I see has less to do with the realistic qualities and more to do with Cezanne compartmentalizing sections and producing these nostalgic moments with color placement.

XOXO

The Curatorial Blonde