August 30, 2000

Rainbow of Chaos
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Lately, I have been reading about the great Post-Impressionist painter, Paul Cezanne.  He is by most accounts as great an artist that ever lived, right up there with Titian, Michelangelo and Rembrandt.

Most biographies describe him as a solitary person, a brooding, complex man, given to rages, grudges and depressions.  That's probably why I was inexplicably drawn to his work!

Château Noir 
1900-04; Oil on canvas, 73.7 x 96.6 cm (29 x 38 in); 
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

"It has often been true of leading modern painters that they developed a single idea with great force.  Some one element or expressive note has been worked out with striking effect."
- From Meyer Schapiro, "Modern Art"

Though he experimented with Impressionism, Cezanne was ultimately able to escape its stranglehold, unlike many of his contemporaries such as Monet and Pissarro.  Toward the end of his life, he was at his most daring, reducing architecture and figures to geometric forms and paving the way for Cubism.

His goal was not to have a mass audience or sales appeal, it was to satisfy himself.

Way to go, Paul!  

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"We live in a rainbow of chaos."
- Paul Cezanne

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