Linda White
I am going to evaluate on how different modern artists, have used colour in their work. “ A picture represents nothing. It must represent nothing at first but colours.” - Paul Cezanne.
In his earlier work we can see one of the key shifts in his approach to looking at nature - where a more geometric view is given, his colours work very well he would use very bold colours which would have a more dramatic contrast. Cezanne famously remarked that nature had to be seen in terms of the sphere, the cone and the cube. He also said, “For an impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realise sensations”. His painting “Lawyer (Uncle Dominique) - fr. Lavaca (L’oncle Dominique) 1866 oil on canvas. This is very loosely painted, he uses an impressionist skill, his colour combinations are very basic compared to traditional impressionism and the black and white contrast is quite strong.
Another good example I found was looking at Monet’s work, “Soleil couchant (setting sun). Monet was primarily a painter of light through colour which can clearly be seen here. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the rich-saturated yellow near the middle of the image compared to the dark greens, and the violet hues which really balance the image and create the amazing sensation of distance, proportion and light.
The painting “A modern Olympia” 1873-1874 by Paul Cezanne, this painting is very much a part of the impressionist movement, although at the same time he really starts to change his style here by using a lot thinner paint unlike his early work which he used very thick paint. This is a real turning point for Cezanne because he is beginning to use more modern subject matter like the impressionists, in fact Edouard Manet was the inspiration for this piece. Manets painting “Olympia” 1863 - was very modern and shocking to the public because he had painted a prostitute in the piece which was extremely controversial and confrontational at that time because people had never seen this type of thing and I suppose it got a lot of publicity for Manet which maybe the reason why Cezanne chose to use the painting as inspiration and use more modern subject matter.
I am going to mention two more particular paintings by Cezanne that I found interesting, “Self portait” 1879-1882. He was still growing as an impressionist at this stage, but he limited his colour a lot in this painting which made it a lot more contrasting and this is a strong reason why he was slightly separated from the impressionists, and another painting by him I thought was quite tragic was the painting of his wife titled, “Madame Cezanne.” 1885-1887 oil on canvas. He is trying to capture the person with who they are, it’s definitely not the same personality as his self portrait, the woman looks very solemn and vague almost like a mask façade. Cezanne was not particularly good at capturing the personality because he saw human figures as mere objects - thus not capturing the personality and soul which everyone has. Another reason towards how he saw people as objects is probably because he was quite and odd, anti-social man and didn’t really get on with people even his own wife, so it was probably difficult for him to capture personalities because he probably couldn’t understand or relate to their ways.
Manet and Cezanne were a part of the change about how ideas of perspective and representation in modern art because their subjects and thoughts in their work began to shock people and spread the message that things in art were changing and it needed that change to make a difference, and I think that the starting point for both Cezanne and Manet were in the paintings “Olympia” and “A Modern Olympia”, also in Gino Severini’s painting “The Boulevard” he began to make a change, not in
The subject matter but in the style of the painting which he uses an impressionist and symbolic style. His colours are quite pale and the way he uses shapes is quite amazing because the painting still still looks real even by using these square and triangle shapes and his choice of colour. The blues, pinks and gold’s are all opaque. The white areas are used to open up the composition and create an effect of space, whilst the blacks, which are mostly in lower sections, are used to give the composition weight. Personally I think this painting is amazing because of the technique he used to create it and the overall look, it is really something.
All in all I found Cézannes work to be my favourite not only because of his paintings but his strange personality adds to it giving his work a bit more mystery about it, and it usually is the case in art that the stranger the character the more interesting their work can be.
