Paul Cezanne
Cezanne is a giant. There is no dispute that he impacted the trajectory of art history as much as anyone. He also painted a few works that I cherish as an admirer of what I consider to be good art.
Because Cezanne is so well known, I am not going to spend too much time going over his career or his influences on his contemporaries. What I plan on doing here are calling out a few of his works during different periods of his life and saying why I like or dislike something. So this is going to be pretty much a lot of my opinions.
Text coming soon
I haven’t seen anyone write about this, maybe someone has… maybe I’m full of it. But I think Cezanne was playing a bit with Hokusai and his Thirty-Six views of Mount Fuji as he wandered around Mont Sainte-Victoire and included it in many of his works.
Chestnut Trees - 1885-86
I think Cezanne is in god-mode here. I believe that is Mont Sainte-Victoire in the background obscured by the Chestnut trees in the foreground.
I think I may have actually had a mini stroke looking at this piece.
The Great Wave Off of Hokusai - 1831?
Like Cezanne, Hokusai is showing off. The waves in this piece are secondary to Mt Fuji even though they take up 95% of the image.
One thing I would have liked to have seen in Cezannes work that Hokusai captures here is the human/drama element, the fishermen. If Cezanne had had some guy getting chased by wolves or something in his work, it would have been perfect.
Mont Sainte-Victoire - 1904-06
Its so hard to pick a favorite of
