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  • Clement Greenberg's Essay "Cezanne" (1951)

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    Essay on Cezanne by art critic Clement Greenberg

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    Clement Greenberg's essay "Cezanne" (1951)

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    Essay on Cezanne by art critic Clement Greenberg

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    604 views8 pages

    Clement Greenberg's Essay "Cezanne" (1951)

    Uploaded by

    Caelulala
    Essay on Cezanne by art critic Clement Greenberg

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 8
    10, ceZANNE Clement Greenberg ‘When Clement Greenberg sys i thi selcion that Cézanne’ a eae dures ins owen he tnties the eset quality fal great a Ss capacity to romain selovant after tas passed info hist. Ths ‘spoil relvance of Cannes work ot be mensured sly a tErms ofits htral mpc even by it acsticic iudanee: bt Inu algo comprehend the patiet dedication ofthe artet tthe ru {rating labor of tang hu arctic mison, He wonked deliberately, focused with exceptional Intensity on the subject belore hima what the poe ilk alle the “nsornpte” objet of vst Pine by plane in modulated nite he Ia dows ny soe of colar, acta Inglis paloting ina thy interwoven patchoork of wh each it seems to sgaa the complete ientifation ofthe color stroke with te litle seasatons he persived inthe aval subjec belo him, $0 fi ic the bond in his late pinings between cer redatve structure sand the planar componerts of he roshwork that i ondestandsblo ‘why ho as linked fo Cubism by the Cubist themselves why Clezes nd Metingr in Du Cube {012}, emake tint where under ‘Hood Cezame was clone to Cubism, And 0 was or any s Conve, Considered purely in a formal light, bosume a fame’ of reference nd a souret for abstract panting. ‘More recent scholarship and criti ave abo extracted frm the ctaracer of the artists formal mean—sich is bis oon ling and tnetod of composing his pltres—the prcptual proce involved in the act of painting Recent ene have begun to consider, a Well the crn of lacs‘ oh ces rng oN le and ‘work, and fo apply prychosnatic theory to explorations of conten This extended range appropiate othe ey of such w comple ait ss Clsamne, Sila asic work for Cézanne studies is Lonllo Venta, Cézanne, 379 sen atom our, 2 vo (186) xh sated age Tied rach ested Aan et te Boe Se a ete te (ED) Te beach [oe een gma pion on meagan sr fe seo eee eee Ta art tee OF he ene eee ee Re ne ere ll Clane tenes at ek eer ore emer mer Seer a eee ll sa “Pe ta aati Oma lan ra Fa ee Ths ej Chana ie ft Opt |i) ae Mesh fe Bultn SL ( ee see ee ee Re aan Rabo Cia eae Gat aed a sno eect ron eel meg agin ee SEFSAERE, Te Metin eu). For Ce oe tleea povey repre pen re Bie cos ters Of ate by Theodore Re: “Clanne and Posi” seers de travantind Coto sts St [ie i a are error oy ent Fee a ere cone Meret Io Te Feta sat ia) iS mae Ot el ba is) 4880 “coe CORED bana oe ne Ca FF ea ae Ah cheat pe ace eh merge gemini gree md Beet, aa ee chun Modo i nd See ime attache tel cies SClemme nd 2a Coe ee Toa ar oc a caer ee! yee ve [Osaie a eee es i Pom ad Ct a Siti Ente Sons tae" pot avon “hens SEP" cm te Case? Rt ren Tn en sts 98 tel ney tng Camere Jared! rhe st Btls LX (ih), 85 sonen 380 related articles on Cézanne are M. Bate, "Phonomenologist as Art Guitie; Mera Ponty and. Cézanne” British Journal of Aesthetics, XIV, 4 (Autumn 1974), 344-95 Joyoe Brodsky, “Céeanne and the Image of Confoutation,” Gazette det Beaus-Art, series 6, LXXNIV (September 1878), 836; M. Fern, “Céranne. and Merle Foren, Language Beng The Str (197-1980) 10-00, 70- 15; and Joyce Brodsky, "A Paradigm Cave for Mereau Ponty: The Ambiguiy of Perception ad the Paintings of Paul Cézanne” rts {et Hitorie, 1,4 (1981), 125-196 and in conjunction with this sere, Mauro Meee Puy, “Crame’ Dob Se nd Non Some “he scent flows pint from Art and Culture by Clemea Cren thr by poison of the Bac Pes copyright 1061 by Clanent Cealarg 38 ézanne’s art may no longer be the overflowing source of ‘modernity it was thirty years back," but enuresis newness and in what cn even be called it stishness ‘There remain something indeserably acy and sudden forall ‘ts famlarty by now, inthe way his eis ble line ean separate the contour af an objet fom its ass. Yet how distaste Cezanne Nims was of frau, speed—all he apparent concontants of stjlishnest And how tnmure at bottom of where he wat going He was on the verge of middle age when be had the orca sevelaionofhis artists ison. Yet what he thought was vealed ‘was largely inconsistent withthe means he had aleady developed {o meet and fll his revelation, and the problematic qual of anh otc paps fading mete rom the ultimate necessity of reviing his intentions under the sire ofa method that evolved a fin opposition to them. He was ‘making the fist pondered and conscon attempt to save the key Beste of Westen ptingits concern for an ample and tral rendition of stefeometiie space from the effects of In pressionst colo He had noted the Tmpresdoniss inadvertent iting up of pictorial depend it was Becese he ted 30 hard to rencavate that space withont abandoning Impression cole, nd because this elor, while vain, was so profoundly conceived, that his are became the dicavery and turning point did Like Manet and with almost as itl real appetite forthe tole of revolutionary, he changed the direction of painting in the very ‘orto vet by new paths tos old was Cézanne accepted his notion of pictorial unity, ofthe realized, final eect of «pstre, ftom the Oud Master, When he at thai The wanted to rl Poussin after nature and “make Impressionism something slit and durable ike the Old Masters” he meant apparently that be wanted to itpose a composton and design INE tof the High Renasance onthe “raw” chromatic mater Provided by the Impresionst registration of visual experience. The pats dhe atom unt, were sil toe supplied by the Ia on 01851 383, ade 85 tay, Olen cams, Bent 68" He Howe Secety Tres, nro ste Cal Te, Landon, Coe 2 Ere These ere toe onganied nto wale on moe trations coeceaeroe oie = 3B Cézanne The Old Masters ha assumed thatthe members and joints of pictorial design should bes clear as thove of architectre. The fe was to be led rough a rhythmically organized system of Snes and concivte in which mall gradation of dak tnd light, indicating recession and salience, were, msshaled around points of interes. To accommodate the weightes, tened shapes prodiced by the fat touches of Inprestons color to such ¢ system was obviosly imposible Seat demonstrated this tm hs Sunday Afternoon on Grand Jae Island a wel asin rnost of his other completed group compositions, where the Stepped-back planes ypon which he st his igires serves Sit Kenneth Clark has noted—to give tern the quality of cardboard silhouettes. Seurats Point, hyper impresonst method of fling coor im could manage a pause sion of dep spuce, bt not of mass or volsme within it Cézanne reversed tho terms af this problem and sought—more ike the Florentine than Ike the Venetians he chertbed to achieve mass and volume Bist, and deep spaces their by-protct, which he thought he coud do by converting the Impresonst method of registering Fri tins of light Into away of indicating the vations planar diction of solid sariaes. Fr traditional modeling n daa light, he substituted modeling withthe supposedly more natural wand Impresinist-diference of warm ed coal Fecoring with separate pat of paint each lange shift of dizeton by which the mrfaceof an objet defined the shape of the volume @ enclosed, he egan i his ate this fo cover is canvases with a mosle of brachstokes that cil jst ay amach {tention tothe pyscal pletre plane asthe rougher tabs or “commas” of Monet, Pasato and iley did. The Rats of that ln es frre bythe distros of Cleans irawing, whieh started out by being temperamental (Cecanne ‘vas never able to master sculptor in) but turned Int Inethod, new in extent rather than in kind, of anchoring ete Xolumes and spaces othe surface pattern The rel was a Kind Of pictorial tension the lie of which bad not been seen in the Ase Late Rom soma. The oe tle ee tangles of pigment, laid on wth no atfempr to ee thet edges, rough depicted om toward the sare atthe sane tne he modeling and shaping performed by these sane reetanger drew it back foto tlasonst depth A vibration, inbnte in ft terms, 385 was st up between the literal pint suface of the picture and The “contr etablshed behind bration in which ay the Sine of he Cran eve : . “Old Master lays tok int acount the tension between surface and iusto, betren the ysl aco he edn Sid'io figurative content™but in {ate ned to conceal ar St the lst thing they had wanted was to make an expist po Fi tension, Crane inspite of hinsll, had been forced 0 ‘ake the tension explicit in Bs desire to rescue tation from Talat the sume tie with-npessionit means. Impressionist {Slo mater how landed, gee the picture surace is due sie pial entity to a much ester extent than had traditional practice Senge was one ofthe mos iteligentpantrs cout palnting wes beats hae ben rere: (Pat beso be rather TBligentsbout many other things has bean obscured by his coettety andthe profound an self protetive ony with whch fired, the later pat of is if, fo seem the conformist in ates apa fiom ar) at inelgence doesnot guarantee the rin spots arenes of what be tag or really wants to da, Cezanne overestimated the degree to which a conception could poate feel! in. and conte, works of at Conscious, he as There most exact communication of his optical sensations of inte but dese were to be ordered secording to certain precepts Tore sae of aras an end it Taelf—an end fo which afuralite tra was but a means "y cmmarate i opi estos ely nent anc sng however he could the distance from hi eye of every pat of ‘the motif, down to the smallest facet-plane into which he could tran Tea mat spore th ere he sous aryDoghmes, the hardness or saftese, the tate associations of crane cent scng prismatic colr the exclsve det ‘inant of spatial postiot~and of spatial postion above and be- Jed eal olor of wansient effects of light The end in view was NNeulptara! Impressionism ‘Catanne's babies of seelng his way, for instance, of tle. sping mierda erm nd ‘ig ocd ving in the subject that lay thove eye fevel—were a in Senko t the enerous architectural cham of the Old Beedeas were Monee hahits of seeing. The Old Masters ‘Mile and lided ‘as they taveled through space, which they 386 Cézanne treated asthe loosely articulated continuum that common sense finds it to be. Thi alm in the end was to create space as 8 Uheater,Cézannes was to give space ie theater. Ts focus was more ites an atthe same time nore uniform than the Old Master: Once “human interest” had been excluded, ‘very visual sensation produced by the subject became. equal Important Both the picture ss picture, and space as space, Be. ‘ae tighter and taster—dsended ina stn of speabng Ove ‘fot ofthis distention was to push the weight of the ene ple {ure forward, squeezing its converties and concavities together and threatening to fase the heterogeneous content ofthe surface intoa singe image or form whose shape colneded with that of the

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