|
|
POSTIMPRESSIONISM
PAUL CEZANNE:
Excerpts from the Letters
ABSTRACTIQN
To Emile Bernard, Aix, 23 October 1905 (#184, pp. 25I-252)
Your letters are valuable to me for a double reason-the first purely selfish--because their arrival lifts me out of the monotony which is caused by the incessant and constant search for the sole and unique aim, and this produces, in moments of physical fatigue, a kind of intellectual exhaustion; secondly, I am able to describe to you again, rather too much I am afraid, the obstinacy with which I pursue the realization of that part of nature, which, coming into our line of vision, gives the picture. Now the theme to develop is that-whatever our temperament or power in the presence of nature may be-we must render the image of what we see, forgetting everything that existed before us. Which, I believe, must permit the artist to give his entire personality whether great or small.
Now, being old, nearly 70 years, the sensations of color, which give light, are the reason for the abstractions which prevent me from either covering my canvas or continuing the delimitation of the objects when their points of contact are fine and delicate; from which it results that my image or picture is incomplete. On the other hand, the planes are placed one on top of the other from whence Neoimpressionism emerged, which outlines the contours with a black stroke, a failing that must be fought at all costs. Well, nature when consulted gives us the means of attaining this end.
INTENSITY OF NATURE .
To his son Paul, Aix, 8 September 1906 (#193, p. 262)
-- Finally I must tell you that as a painter I am becoming more clear-sighted in front of nature, but that with me the realization of my sensations is always very difficult. I cannot attain the intensity that is unfolded before my senses. I have not the magnificent richness of coloring that animates nature. Here on the edge of the river, the motifs are very plentiful, the same subject seen from a different angle gives a subject for study of the highest interest and so varied that I think I could be occupied for months without changing my place, simply bending a little more to the right or left.
ON TECHNICAL QUESTIGNS
To Emile Bernard, Aix, 2I September 1906 (#195, p. 266)
You must forgive me for continually coming back to the same thing; but I believe in the logical development of everything we see and feel through the study of nature and turn my attention to technical questions later; for technical questions are for us only the means of making the public feel what we feel ourselves, and of making ourselves understood. The great masters whom we admire can have done nothing else.
|
|
|
|
|
|
