"Cézanne and Beyond' at the Art Museum (2nd review)

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) changed our way of seeing, and we are all his heirs. "Cézanne and Beyond" illustrates his heritage with fine examples by this "father of 20th-Century art" and others who have acknowledged their indebtedness.

Just to walk through the galleries and see all the great masterpieces assembled under one roof is a tonic for any jaded cultural appetite. Eighteen artists, from Henri Matisse to Francis Alys, including Pablo Picasso, George Braque, Piet Mondrian, Max Beckman, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Ellsworth Kelly (a big surprise), and Jasper Johns are included, with works borrowed from collections throughout the world. More than 150 paintings, drawings and sculpture, arranged by subject matter, provide an opportunity to compare Cézanne's landscapes, bathers, still lifes and portraits with similar themes by later artists.

We can see how they were influenced by his singular vision, compositions, palette and brush strokes. At first, it's a game of discovery, walking from one gallery to another, seeing familiar masterpieces: looking at each one and alternately turning to the adjacent Cézanne painting or drawing. You will marvel at the connections.

But the real value of the show is much more subtle and has to do with how Cézanne liberated all of us from the visual art strictures of the Renaissance. He taught us to look: to see how a jutting elbow forms a triangle to the torso, how the curve of a vase is adulterated by the object next to it and the fact that we can only perceive the forward thrust of a hill by its tonal quality"“ an outline is useless.

Notice the similarities

Now start all over again. Begin at the entrance and just enjoy the show. You might tire of the thesis of subject matter, but look at Picasso's 1932 work, The Dream (Marie-Thérèse), and, if you can get past the six digit fingers of each hand, see how it fits in the context of Cézanne's Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair (c.1877) and Woman in Blue (1937) by Matisse.

Each gallery has treasures to savor. The three still life paintings by Giorgio Morandi are worthy of a separate exhibition. First look at the Cézanne icons, then stand and lose yourself in the Morandis. For some mystical reason that cannot be completely analyzed, his bottles assume an identity of their own: Perched tenuously on a flat surface, they are in the process of becoming"“ but becoming what, we do not know and will never know. This is the magic of art.

A profusion of bathers

The gallery of Bathers can take your breath away. Imagine having Cézanne's The Large Bathers from the National Gallery of Art in London, together with the Art Museum's Large Bathers and his smaller Bathers paintings as well as Bathers and a Turtle by Matisse, plus Picasso's six bronze Bathers (1956), on loan from Kykuit, the Nelson Rockefeller estate along the Hudson River in New York.

Stand squarely in front of Picasso's Bathers and note how they can become an integral part of the Cézanne paintings. Then look to the left towards Brice Marden's abstract oil painting Red Rocks (1) (2000-2002), and note how Marden's curved, linear forms are related in spirit to the bodies and landscape features of these paintings.

All of us sit at Cézanne's feet— and every obscure artist seeking immortality will be reassured to learn that Cézanne probably never sold a painting during his lifetime. His first major exhibition took place a year after his death.

Regrettably, this is the only venue for this show, organized by Joseph J. Rishel, the Art Museum's curator of European painting before 1900. In effect a city justly famous for its Cézanne holdings is now the host of a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of related works of art. But be warned: One visit is not enough. That's only the beginning of this adventure.




To read another review by Andrew Mangravite, click here.
To read another review by Victoria Skelly, click here.
To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.