CLIL Paul Cézanne, The Card Players
This small work is one of the many versions that Cézanne paint-
ed on a theme which interested him for a number of years. He
began the Card Player series in 1890, modelling his figures on
farmers observed in Aix-en-Provence. However the artist’s in-
terest had nothing to do with rural life or with social or symbolic
elements; rather he aimed to depict the game as it plays off his
work’s rigorous composition. The first representation of the se-
ries (today at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia) portrayed
five figures, of whom only three playing cards, and employed a
wider palette of colours as well as a multitude of curving lines.
In this version, by contrast, the artist’s emphasis on the psycho-
logical competition between the men connotes an attention to
all aspects of life that involve a two-way exchange.
The strongly geometrical composition confers a classical
dignity upon the two figures. There is no folklore in the telling
of the scene but rather a vital tension and, possibly, even a
dark meditation on human existence.
Balanced Forms
Cézanne constructs the space according to a grid of lines: the
horizontal axes can be seen in the plane of the table and in the
edge of the window while perpendicular verticals are echoed
between the table legs, the bottle, and – on the left – the card
player’s chair and the tablecloth’s folds. Inside this composition-
al scheme the artist situates diagonals in the form of the short
white line of the tobacco pipe and the folds in the tablecloth
(right) as well as of the card players’ bent arms.
The whole scene is placed slightly off-centre, as can be seen
in the bottle and the table which separate the two men but
are shifted slightly towards the lower right-hand side of the
painting. The distortion is visually counterbalanced, however,
by the window in the upper left. In this way Cézanne achieves
1 © Istituto Italiano Edizioni Atlas
centrality while maintaining a completely credible gaze on a
scene taken from real life.
Intersecting Relations
In spite of his attention to realism, Cézanne has used an ab-
stract approach to the composition, as can be seen in the
work’s symmetry and specular character.
The player on the left, in a blue-toned coat and yellow pants,
seems made up of hard cylinder shapes as seen in his hat,
pipe, torso, and forearm. By contrast the man on the right, in
a yellow coat and blue-toned pants, seems composed of soft
triangles, which are repeated in the hat, the jacket that widens
towards the bottom, the arrangement of his arms as well as
in the shape of his face. The only other colour on the canvas
surface is brown, which takes on an ochre hue when Cézanne
depicts the table and its cloth, the window’s fixtures and the two
men’s faces. Indeed the whole work seems based on lowering
the tones of the three basic colours: blue, yellow and red.
The paint is applied in small brush strokes, sometimes isolated
and out of place, such as in the bottle highlighted by a line of
light, or the simple stroke of brown that describes the sunken
eye of the card player on the right.
A Mental Painting
As we have seen, all elements of the work converge to de-
scribe the two men’s relationship, which is characterized si-
multaneously by opposition and exchange. Thus the painting
renders not just an “impression”, but also a description
of the action’s inner meaning. In this way the work seems to
communicate the essence of an experience which, almost
solidified and given the form of memory, is destined to last in
the mind’s eye.
Fig. 1, 2
Paul Cézanne,
The Card Players, 1892-1895.
Oil on canvas, 47x57 cm.
Paris, Musée d’Orsay.
Below: compositional diagram.
 ✓ Exercises Paul Cézanne, The Card Players

Read and Recognise

1 Decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).

T F
❍ ❍ 1. In The Card Players the artist focuses on humble farmers engaged in a commonplace activity.
❍ ❍ 2. According to Realism in art, Cézanne was interested in rural life and social problems.
❍ ❍ 3. The huge dimension of the canvas emphasizes the importance of the theme.
❍ ❍ 4. Geometry and tension are essential components of the composition.
❍ ❍ 5. Cézanne use central perspective and place the bottle exactly on the focus point.
❍ ❍ 6. The artist doesn’t just describe the scene but explores its existential essence through the two men’s relationship.

2 In Cézanne’s works, composition is carefully created via counterbalancing elements. Can you find the most
important ones? Fill in the table below.

Compositional feature Seen in these elements Counterbalanced by Seen in these elements

_______________________________________ Table plane, window, _______________________________________ Table legs, chair, bottle

___________________________________ [1] edge ___________________________________ [2]

Off-centre placement, _______________________________________ Window, upper left _______________________________________

lower right ___________________________________ [3] ___________________________________ [4]

Hard cylinder shapes _______________________________________ Soft triangles _______________________________________

___________________________________ [5] ___________________________________ [6]

_______________________________________ Blue-toned coat, _______________________________________ Yellow coat,

___________________________________ [7] yellow pants ___________________________________ [8] blue-toned pants

Vocabulary
3 The text contains some words which are combinations of one word added to another. Match them and write
them, deciding which ones are composite and which ones need a hyphen (-). Write the Italian translation next
to the English word.

1. Off a. cloth ________________________ ________________________

2. Table b. way ________________________ ________________________
3. Counter c. centre ________________________ ________________________
4. Two d. balance ________________________ ________________________

2 © Istituto Italiano Edizioni Atlas