Customer Reviews

Cezanne (Big)

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... as many of the inexpensive Taschen series, in terms of the quality of the reproductions. The colors seem 'heavier' than my memories of the originals, but perhaps it's all a question of scale. Cézanne is among my long-time favorite painters, and I've spent happy hours looking at his works in museums from Paris to Berlin to Tokyo to Philadelphia. I once drove from Philly to Columbus Ohio just to see one painting by Cézanne.

But I didn't pick up this Taschen to refresh memories of Cézanne's paintings. I was interested in the text by Ulrike Becks-Malorny, specifically her discussion of the life-long friendship between the artist and the writer Emile Zola, which began when they were boys but which was dampened when Zola portrayed a 'struggling' painter in his novel "L'Oeuvre" in 1886. I've undertaken to read all twenty of Zola's 'Macquart-Rougon' novels in order, but I may need to jump ahead to "L'Oeuvre" because of my great love of Cézanne. The Taschen text is not enough.

What is it about Cézanne's painting that make it more compelling for me than that of the other Impressionists and even post-Impressionists? It's totally subjective, I suppose, but when I look long enough at a Cézanne landscape, I feel radiantly happy. I believe once again in the solidity of things and in the capacity of my senses to 'order' reality. Madame Becks-Malorny describes Cézanne's painstakingly slow method of painting in terms of asserting 'order' through balanced composition, modifying or modulating 'what he saw' until it became 'what he really saw' as a creator.

Former banking apprentice and law student Paul Cézanne was said to have the genius of a painter, but no prospects of really becoming one, as he was always easily discouraged by small difficulties. Thus spoke his pal Emile Zola, a classmate from Aix. Yeah, right, wisecrack! Most of us know what Cézanne became. Those who don't will not read this anyway, so no need to explain.
The Taschen series on artists combines biographic texts with reproductions of the major works, for illustration. Obviously, the small format imposes restrictions and reduces quality. The concept is convincing anyway. One could say that the result is relatively excellent.

The implementation in this case here is not overwhelming. It seems a little as if there was little system in the way that the text and the illustrations were arranged. That can make reading at times a little tedious. You need to flip back and forth, as the pictures are rarely where they are in reference to the text. However the effect of that wanes by about half way through, probably because one gets used to the facts.

The text gives us an outline of the man's life and his position in the art world. Every biography of anybody is also a piece of history, even if the subject is a hermit. Some outstanding facts of this life: he had a rich father but was dirt poor until he was 47. He needed financial support from his friend Zola, who had become a literary star. He had a wife and a son, but he kept them secret from his father and lived on a bachelor allowance. Selling paintings was not a source of income for a very long time. Nobody bought. The critics ridiculed him, but he persisted and is now widely seen as one of the greatest in the 19th century. So much for Zola's predictive powers in the arts.

The main focus of the text is on explaining the developing style and contents of PC's work. What a pity that the effect of the large landscapes and still lives gets a little lost on the small pages. Still a worth- while general introduction to Cézanne.

This is an inexpensive way to get a good art education. I have read some of the material, and although I don't always agree with the writer, I respect their opinion and the selections of their examples. On a broader scope, I am miffed that when I complained about receiving only a partial fulfillment of an order (Biography of R. E. Lee, FOUR VOLUMES!) you did nothing about it when I did not get the final and fourth volume. The "vendor" wrote back to me complaining of a "death" in the "family" and blaming you, Amazon, for not receiving the full order which was horse feathers. If you are not going to help me resolve these crooked dealings, why should I "help" you by writing review or discussing unfulfilled orders!?! The heck with you: I am not going to give you any feedback when it doesn't mean anything!