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YVE-ALAIN BOIS
TranslatedbyRosalindKrauss
Whatwe knowaboutwhatis called C6zanne's theorywe knowthroughsnippets
(reported conversationsor maxims,a fewsentenceson paintingin lettersto his
son or to youngadmirers),almostthe whole of it datingfromthe lastyearsof his
life. Even further,Cezanne had a rather ambivalentrelation to theoryitselfof ready-madetheories,
neverceasingto speak of itsnecessityand yetof his mistrust
whichhe called doctrines:"I don't have a doctrinelike Bernard,but theoriesare
necessary,the sensationand theories."I
For him,theorywas trulyindissociablefrompractice;based on accumulated
experience, it is the logicpermitting"the organization of one's sensations"and
thus the "realization,"thatis, the propositionin paintingnot of a "servilecopy,"
but of a "harmonyparallel to nature,"an equivalence of relations. Cezanne's
remarkson the necessary connection between eye and brain, which must be
developed in tandem so as "to arrive at the 'realization,"' are numerous, but
perhaps nowheredoes he indicate more clearlythan in one of his last lettersto
Aurenche how much what he calls "reflection"concerns the whole gamut of his
pictorialmeans:
In yourletteryou speak of myrealization in art. I believe thatI attain
it more everyday, although a bit laboriously.Because if the strong
sensationfornature-and certainlyI have thatvividly-is the necessary
basis for all artisticconception and that on which the grandeur and
our
beautyof all futureworkrests,theknowledge
ofthemeansofexpressing
emotion
is no less essential and is only to be acquired througha very
long experience.2
*
This essaywas firstdeliveredat the symposiaheld in conjunctionwiththe Cezanne retrospective,
organized by the Mus6e d'Orsay (Paris, November 1995) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (May
1996). For the acts of the Paris symposium,see Cizanne aujourd'hui,ed. FranCoise Cachin, Henri
Loyrette,and St6phaneGu6gan (Paris: Editionsde la R6union des Musees Nationaux,1997).
1.
Cited by Maurice Denis in hisjournal (1906); reprintedin Conversations
avecCzanne, ed. P. M.
Doran (Paris: EditionsMacula, 1978), p. 94.
2.
ed. John Rewald (New York: Hacker
C6zanne to Louis Aurenche,January25, 1904, in Letters,
ArtBooks, 1976), p. 299 (translationmodified,myemphasis).
OCTOBER84, Spring1998,pp. 31-43. C 1998 Yve-Alain
Bois.
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32
OCTOBER
3.
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33
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34
OCTOBER
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35
Let us return to the letterto Bernard with which I opened. The famous
phrase about "the cylinder,the sphere,and the cone" has givenrise, as we know,
to many,manycommentaries,most frequentlywhollyerroneous (we know how
the "cube" has been added in an apocryphalmannerto thisformulaand whatuse
has been made of thisnew mintingbythosewho have wanted to read Cubism as a
geometrical exercise for which C6zanne was the precursor). We know today,
thanksto Reffand Gowing,who have both paid more attentionthan have their
predecessors to the remarksreportedby Riviere and Schnerb, that the famous
formulaconcerns more the general rotundityof volumes and surfacessuch as
theyappear to perception than any geometricalstylizationof bodies. (To recall:
Riviere and Schnerb note that when Cezanne spoke of the spherical qualityof
bodies he was not onlythinkingof all those balls,apples or otherwise,thatfillhis
paintings,like those readyto tumbledown the slope of the PlasterCupid,but also
ofperfectly
planarsurfaces,suchas a wall;in thistherewouldperhapsbe an element
to add to the file set up by Reffconcerning the relationsbetween Cezanne and
Chardin,whosewallsare alwaysestablishedas curvingbehind his stilllifes,even if
theyare mostoftenconcave.)10
Gowinghas verycarefullystudiedthe implicationof thisprincipleof general
sphericnesson whatC6zanne called his "modulation"of color. Here I would like
to returnto an aspect of thisquestion thathas not been sufficiently
noticed,one
that concerns the organic character of C6zanne's volumes, particularlyin the
landscape paintingsand watercolors.The late views of the Bib6mus quarryand
the rocksand grottosof the Chateau Noir are certainlythe mostspectacularfrom
thispointofview,11
but everywhere
in differing
degreeswe can detectthistendento
make
form
into an organ (for example in the Rocksat L'Estaqueof
cy
every
1879-82). It has oftenbeen noted thatthe solids thatCezanne listsin his letterto
Bernard have no arris (as he said to Riviereand Schnerb,"I am applyingmyselfto
10.
See Theodore Reff,"C6zanne and Chardin,"in Cezanneaujourd'hui,
pp. 11-28.
11.
See Cizanne,exhibitioncatalogue (Paris: R6union des Mus6es Nationaux, 1995), nos. 149-51,
p. 175.
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Cezanne:Wordsand Deeds
37
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38
OCTOBER
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Sainte-Victoire
seenfromLes Lauves.1902-4.
joke thatit mightat firstseem.16In any eventI like Vollard'smemory,no matter
howunreliable,accordingto whichone of the firstbuyersof Cezanne was a person
blind frombirth.17
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Cizanne:Wordsand Deeds
39
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40
OCTOBER
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Portrait
oftheGardener
Vallier.1906.
ii
NOW
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42
OCTOBER
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43
thesetwohistorically
thatC6zanne is the fatherofmodern
heterogeneousregisters,
art. It remainsto be seen ifsuch was his intention.I personallybelieve thathe was
obliged to do this: if, as Merleau-Pontyhas stated,Cezanne's goal was to paint
perceptionitself,and if,as he himselfput it, he wanted "to see as a newborn,"27
that is to say,at the verymomentof an originarydiscrimination,he would have
had to activatethe oppositionbetweenfigureand groundthatis at the foundation
of our human perception;and the ascentof the support-namely,the contaminationof the pictorialfieldbythe graphicone-was thebestrouteto take,or perhaps,
even,theonlyone.
27.
avecCizanne,p. 22 n. 1.
ReportbyJulesBorely(1911); reprintedin Conversations
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