gilmour - improvisation in cezanne

8/9/2019 GILMOUR - Improvisation in Cezanne

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Improvisation in Cezanne's Late LandscapesAuthor(s): John C. GilmourSource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 58, No. 2, Improvisation in theArts, (Spring, 2000), pp. 191-204Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/432098

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http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/gilmour-improvisation-in-cezanne 2/15

JOHN C.

GILMOUR

Improvisation

in Cezanne's

Late

Landscapes

Modernist

nterpreters

ften cite Cezanne as the

primaryprecursor

of

twentieth-century ainting

practices,portraying

him

as an

early

exemplar

of

formalist

principles.

This has been so from

early

in the centurywhen Clive Bell set the tone by

characterizing

im as

the

Christopher

Columbus

of

a new

continent of

form,

and

he

adds that

every

great

artist

has

seen

landscape

as an

end

in

itself-pure

form,

that is to

say;

Cezanne has

made a

generation

of artists feel that

compared

with its

significance

as an end in itself all else

about

landscape

s

negligible. 1

This

attitude o-

ward

andscape

s

not,

I

believe,

Cezanne's

own,

but it is one that

early

abstract

painterscertainly

did embrace.

Kandinsky,

or

example,

nsists that

therevoltfrom

dependence

on nature

s

only just

beginning,

ndthat theartistmusttrainnot

only

his

eye

but also

his

soul,

so

thathe

can

test colours

for

themselves and not

only by

external

mpres-

sion. 2

Moreover,

Kandinsky

nnounces

hat

the

hour of

pure

composition

is not far

away. 3

In

this context he

distinguishes

hree sources of

in-

spiration

or his

own

works:

mpressions,

mprov-

isations,

and

compositions.

He

makes t

clearthat

impressions

depend

on

external

nature,

hat im-

provisations

are

a

largely

unconscious, sponta-

neous

expression

of

inner

character,

and that

compositions require long maturing and in-

volve a

large

role for

reason

and

consciousness.4

Improvisation

plays

an

essential

role

in

altering

composition

practices,

Kandinsky

hinks,

because

it

is

a

way

to

move

toward

the free

working

of

color

rather than

treating

color as

derivative

from

nature.

While

Cezanne's

ate

andscapes

xhibita num-

ber of

the

characteristics

Kandinsky

addresses

here,

including especially

his

passionate

explo-

ration

of

color

relationships

and

other

composi-

tional

elements,

he

is

surely

at

odds with

Kandin-

sky's

judgment

that

the more

obvious is

the

separation

from

nature,

the more

likely

is

the

inner

meaning

to be

pure

and

unhampered. 5

When

we turn to

Cezanne's late

landscapes,

we certainlydo find common groundbetween

his

quest

and the

one

Kandinsky

describes

n

the

passages just

cited,

but

Kandinsky's

suggestion

that the

improvisational

lement in

painting

be-

gins

in

something spontaneous

and

unconscious

stands n

opposition

to

Cezanne's

painting

prac-

tices. While

Kandinsky

eaves in

abeyance

the

question

of

how

improvisation

s linked

o the

con-

scious and

reflective

processes

of

composition,

thereby

eaving

a lacuna n our

understanding

f

the creative

process,

we will

see in

Cezanne's

practices

a different

relationship

between

spon-

taneity

and

reflective

thought.

n

Cezanne's

case,

spontaneity

s tied to

the notionof the

impression,

andhis

many

renderings

f

the same

subject

mat-

ter,

most

notably

his

compulsive

return

o

repaint

Mont

Sainte-Victoire,

eflect a different

notion

of

improvisation,

one that is close

to

Pierre

Bour-

dieu's view

that culturalpractices

nvolve

reg-

ulated improvisations

of the

habitus. 6

Such a

notion

of

improvisation

requiresthat we

locate

Cezannewithin the

largerculturalmilieu

of late-

nineteenth-century ranceand

thatwe

challenge

any assumption that impressions arise inde-

pendently

of

cultural nterpretation.

Rather

han

treating painting improvisations

as free

varia-

tions on

autonomous

visual forms, I

will

argue

that

Cezanne'shave

to do with

interpretations

of

impressions. In

following

this line of

argument,

I will make

use of Richard Shiff's

reading

of

Cezanne

as an

impressionist7 nd will

show

that

everythingdependson our

understanding

f

that

elusive

term impression.

My strategy

will

be

to

relocate impressions rom

a purely

perceptual

realm

nto the mixed

domain where

vision

inter-

The

Journal

of

Aesthetics andArt Criticism58:2

Spring

2000



The Journalof Aesthetics andArt

Criticism

acts with

discourse,

particularly

with the art dis-

course at the end of the nineteenth

century.

In

what

follows I will

make

generous

use of ideas

from Foucault hat

help

us to

adjust

he relation-

shipbetweenvision andlanguageto accommo-

date Cezanne's

painting

practices.

I

Landscape

more than

any

other

painting genre

appears

to

operate according

to mimetic

prin-

ciples, particularly

when

we

think

of

landscape

representations

as modeled on natural

vision.

Although

this idea is

problematic,given

the ide-

alizing

practices

hatentered nto

many andscape

forms

e.g.,

the Claudian

andscape

nd he French

Academic landscape),it is even more so if we

were to consider vision itself to be

historically

and

culturallyshaped.

Jonathan

Crary

has done

so in

arguing

hat

he idea

of the

observer

hanges

between what Foucault

called

the classical

age

(roughly he seventeenth ndeighteenth

enturies)

and

the first half of the nineteenth entury.Crary

points

to the dominantrole played by the

model

of the camera obscura in the classical

age, a

model in which the main effect

is to establish

a

strong separationbetween observer and

outside

world. Such a separation s evident in

thinkers

such

as Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, and Newton,

and Craryregards he cameraobscuraprimarily

as a philosophicalmetaphor mbracing

series

of developments

in optical theory and

artistic

practiceduring he two centuries.8He points

out

that this visual model should not be

confused

with the techniqueof linearperspective,however

much they are associated: Obviously the

two

are related,but it must be stressed that the

cam-

era obscura defines the position of the

interior-

ized observer

to an exterior world, not just to a

two-dimensionalepresentation,s is the case with

perspective. 9Nevertheless,both

the model and

technicalpracticessuch as perspective

and chiar-

oscuro enter into classical-age ideas about

natu-

ralistic representation.

A hint of an altered attitude emerges by

the

time we get to Cezanne, whose comments

about

art suggest another

view of vision and nature.A

well-known

feature of Cezanne's career is

his

continuing sense of how difficult it is to

realize

his experiences within his paintings.

For

exam-

ple, he writes to his son Paul in

1906:

Finally,

I'll tell

you

that,

as a

painter,

become

more

lucid in frontof

nature,

but thatrealizationof

my

sen-

sations is

always very painful.

I

cannot attainthe in-

tensity

which unfolds to

my

senses,

I don't have

that

magnificentrichnessof colorationwhich animatesna-

ture.

Here,

by

the

riverbank,

he motifs

multiply,

the

same

subject

seen

from

a different

angle

offers a sub-

ject

for

study

of

the

greatest

nterest,

and so varied hat

I

think

I

could

keep myself busy

for months

without

shifting

my position, inclining

sometimes more to the

right,

sometimes more to the left.10

Cezanne here describes a

problem

situation

for

the

painter

hatdoes not

readily

it with he

nterior/

exteriordivide of the cameraobscura

model,

for

he writes as if he is so immersed n the natural

settingthat ts richness of color becomes almost

overwhelming

when he tries to realize t in

paint.

In

addition,

is

comment

hat themotifs

multiply

indicates his belief that nature'splenitude

calls

forth many alternatives

or the painter.

When he says that art s a harmony

parallel

o

nature, 1 ezanne begins to suggest

an alterna-

tive to the distanced tanceof the camera

obscura

model.Whatsortof paralleldoes

he have n

mind?

In order o answer this question, we must

exam-

ine at least two salient ssues: (1) how

changes

in

the

observer's

tatus n nineteenth-century

ulture,

as describedby Crary,may affect Cezanne,

and

(2) the ogic of the notionof the impression

within

the culturalmilieu

of Cezanne. Both

considera-

tions, as will be shown below, call for

technical

innovationson Cezanne'spart hat

constitute

his

struggleto realize his experiences on

canvas.

Before turningto a discussion of the

impres-

sionist program, wantto return o

Crary's

analy-

sis of the culturalredefinitionof the

observer

n

the nineteenthcentury and discuss its

ramifica-

tions

for Cezanne and for

impressionism.

The

crucial assumptionof his study is that there s

in fact an ongoing mutation

n the

nature

of

vi-

suality. '12hus,he thinks

hat he camera

obscura

model yields in the nineteenth entury

o

a

phys-

iological and social model. One key

example

he

discusses is Goethe's theory of color,

which

im-

plies, he asserts,

that

differences

in

the

physical

makeupof observing

ubjectsproduce

ignificant

differences in experience.

Related

to

this

is

Goethe's exposureof the importance

f

the

after-

image in vision. Goethe's theory

is

not,

Crary

thinks,an isolated instance but

rather

from

the

192



Gilmour

Improvisation

n Cezanne

Late

Landscapes

beginning

of

the nineteenth

century

a science

of

vision

will tend to mean

increasingly

an interro-

gation

of the

physiological makeup

of

the

human

subject,

rather

than the mechanics

of

light

and

optical transmission. 'l3 he result is that the

viewing

body

andits

object begin

to

constitutea

single

field

on

which

inside

and

outside

arecon-

founded. 14

rary

also holds that

changes

in

the

scientific definition

of

light,

including

the

emer-

gence

of

the wave

theory

of

light,

helped

to un-

dermine

the

optical theory

that

gave

special

au-

thority

to

linear

perspective.15

However,

these

developments

are

only

a

part

of the

changed

conception

of the observer n the

nineteenth

century,

because

Crary emphasizes

equally

a numberof social

and technical devel-

opmentsthat contribute o a change in how vi-

sion is understood.

A

key example

for him is the

invention

of the

stereoscope

around he middle

of the

century,

which is

only

one

of several tech-

nical devices that had been invented

to

heighten

a sense of visual realism. He

says

that

Charles

Wheatstone,

who invented the stereoscope, did

so in

part

because he thoughtpainted andscapes

were

able to

give

an illusion of reality at a great

distance,

whereas he aimed to represent solid

objects

near the observer.

Craryargues

that the

most

successful stereoscopic mages were those

that filled the near and

middle distance with

im-

ages

of a

large

number

of objects.

An

important

feature of the

stereoscope, as he sees

it, is that

planar

modes

of

representation

ake precedence

over

linear modes. Craryadds that

in

the

stereoscopic image

there is a derangementof

the conventional

unctioning

of

optical

cues. Certain

planes

or

surfaces, even

though composed of indica-

tions of

light

or

shadethatnormallydesignatevolume,

are

perceived

as

flat;

otherplanes thatnormallywould

be readas two-dimensional, uch as a fence in the fore-

ground,

eem to

occupy

space agressively.Thus stereo-

scopic

relief

or

depth

has no unifying ogic or order. f

perspective

implies

a

homogeneous and

potentially

metric

space,

he

stereoscopediscloses a fundamentally

disunified

and

aggregate

ield

of disjunct

lements.Our

eyes

never

traverse he image

in

full apprehension

f

the

three-dimensionality

f

the entire ield,

but in terms

of

a

localized

experience

of

separate

reas.'6

It is

very

much

to the point of Crary's

analysis o

see

such echnical

developments

n

mass

culture s

important

or the

practice

nd

reception

f

impres-

sionist

painting.

He believesthat he culturewhose

idea of the visual s altered

by

suchdevices makes

received

conventions f

visual

representation

rob-

lematic.Crary rawsparallels etween tereoscopic

space

and he

handling

f

space

n ManetandSeu-

rat,

whose works

are

built

up piecemeal

out of

local and

disjunct

areas of

spatial

coherence,

of

both modeled

depth

and cutout flatness. Never-

theless,

he

explicitly

denies

any

causalrelation

be-

tween the

stereoscope

nd

heir

paintings:

InsteadI am

suggesting

that

both

the

realism f

the

stereoscope

and the

experiments

f certain

painters

were bound

up

in

a muchbroader

ransformationf

the

observer hat allowed the

emergence

of this new

opti-

cally constructedpace.The stereoscopeandCezanne

have far more in common than one

might

assume.

Painting

.. had no

special

claims in the renovation

of

vision in the nineteenth

entury.'7

Thus,

rather

than

seeing

art at

the

close

of the

century

as

producing

a

change

n

our

understand-

ing

of

vision,

Craryregards

these artistic inno-

vations as responsive to

an alreadychanged

vi-

sual culture.

Finally,Crarybelieves

that social factors

cru-

cial to the

new

idea of

the observer had to do

with modernization,which

he understands s

en-

tailing a freeing up of the

circulationof

images

and signs

of all kinds as

well as of commodities,

wealth,

and

labor. The mass visual culture

cre-

ated through

such devices

as the stereoscope,

which increasingly

becomes

a culture of the

spectacle,

is in fact based

on a radical abstrac-

tion andreconstruction f

opticalexperience,

hus

demanding a reconsideration

of what 'realism'

means in the nineteenth

century. '8

This claim about the

reconsiderationof real-

ism has everything o do withCezanne'swork as

an artist. We have already

considered his com-

ments in the letter quoted

above about how dif-

ficult it is to realize the intensity

of his sensations

and to create images approximating

he anima-

tion of color in nature.

Cezanne's

sense of inten-

sive bodily

immersionechoes Crary's

heme that

the

body

and its natural urroundings

constitute

a

single

field. However, some of

Cezanne's

ex-

pressed views may appear

o support raditional

ideas about optical space. For example,

in a let-

ter to Emile Bernard n 1904,

Cezanne

writes:

193



The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism

Allow me to

repeat

what I said to

you

here: treat na-

ture

by

meansof the

cylinder,

he

sphere,

he

cone,

with

everything put

in

perspective

so that each side of an

object

or

a

plane

s directed oward central

oint.

Lines

parallelto the horizonconvey breadth,whether of a

section

of

nature,

or

if

you prefer,

of the

spectacle

that

the Pater

Omnipotens

Aeterne Deum

spreads

out be-

fore

our

eyes.

Lines

perpendicular

o this horizoncon-

vey depth.

Now

nature,

or us

men,

is

more

depth

han

surface,

hence the need to introduce nto our vibration

of

light, representedby

reds and

yellows,

a sufficient

amountof

blue,

to

make the air

palpable.'9

This

passage

generates

a

number

f

questions

hat

must be addressed

n

the

following

sections,

in-

cluding

the

fact

that the

opening

lines

appear

o

lendsupport o modernism's ormalist eadingof

Cezanne. More on that ater.

However,

the

ques-

tion of how Cezanne attains

depth

and how he

models

objects,

particularly

n the late

paintings,

will overcome the

appearance

of conflict with

Crary's nterpretation.

This

question

has been addressed

by

commen-

tators uch as

TheodoreReff andLawrenceGow-

ing.

Cezanne'sassertion hat

nature,

or

us

men,

is

more

depth

than

surface,

has

a

particularly

striking

force when

we

look at a

painting

like

Mont

Sainte-Victoire Seen from Bibemus

(1897,

v.

766),

which

conveys

a

strong

sense of our im-

mersion

in

the world but without

using

the

con-

ventionsof linearor aerial

perspective.

How does

he

create the sense of

depth

then? Reff

believes

that

Cezanne

unifiedhis

compositionsby

balanc-

ing tonal

and

coloristicqualities.

Reff

adds

that

the broadest

definition of the

motif,

such as

the

one

given by

Riviere and

Schnerb,

s

probably

the best: 'a section of nature

ncompassedby [the

artist's]

view

and

for

that

very

reason

isolating

itself, making

a whole of what is a

fragment.'

n

the late worksCezanneoften achieves thatunity

through

a

subtle

manipulation

of

color

and

tex-

turerather

han

orm. 20

eff

observes

hat,

n

the

Bibemus

painting

under

consideration,Cezanne

creates

depth by varying

the

density

and bril-

liance of

the

colors, thereby centralizing the

composition

around he

quarry ocks,

which are

differentiated

rom the

lightly-painted

mountain

in the

background. He goes

on to

argue that

Cezannemakes

frequent

use

in the

late

paintings

of a

device of

overlappingplanes, clearly

out-

lined and

graded

n color

intensity,

to

create

an

illusion of space.He told Osthaus a buyerof one

Bibemus

painting]

that 'the main

thing

in a

pic-

ture s the effect of

distance;

he colors must re-

veal

every

interval

n

depth'

andwent on to 'trace

with his

fingers

the boundariesof the

planes

in

his pictures, explainingprecisely how far they

succeeded

in

suggesting depth

and where

they

failed.' 21

eff's

understanding

f Cezanne's

rac-

tice seems

sound,

except

forthe

emphasis

he

gives

to an

illusion

of

depth,

and

his

analysis

helps

us to see how

fully

Cezanne avoids

separating

vision from the

world,

and how he seeks instead

to

express

intensive

bodily

immersion within

natural

space.

Reff's

description

also

brings

Cezanne's

practice

nto

line with

Crary's

sketch

of

stereoscopic space,

especially

because

Reff's

reading

makes the

unity

of

pictorialspace prob-

lematic for Cezanne,given his penchant o con-

struct it

throughoverlappingplanes

and

grada-

tions of color.

Cezanne's idea

that the

artist creates a

har-

mony parallel

with

nature ndicates

his

convic-

tion that this

harmony

must be formed

from the

elements

entering

nto

his work.His

primary

on-

cern, according

to both Reff and

Gowing,

is to

achieve

color

harmonies,although

his

interest

n

color

relationships

differs

from

the

autonomy

of

color later

championedby

formalist critics.

In-

stead,

his colorharmonies

xpress

a

self-conscious

interpretation

f

nature,

which he

learns

to

read

in

code.

Gowing

cites

Cezanne's statement,

at-

tributed o

him

by

Emile Bernard

n

1904,

that

to read nature s to see

it,

as if

through

a

veil,

in

termsof an

interpretation

n

patches

of color fol-

lowingone another ccording o a law

of

harmony.

These

major

hues

are

thus

analyzed hrough

mod-

ulations.

Painting

s

classifying

one's sensations

of color. 22

Cezanne

interpretsreality through

patches

of

color,

but

also

through

the

cylin-

der,

the

sphere,

the

cone.

While the role he assigns to these geometric

forms

may

once

again appear

o

support

ormal-

ist

interpretations,

eff's

analysis

of theirrole

in

Cezanne's

work

points

in

anotherdirection.Reff

points

out

that,

on one

level,

the idea of reduc-

ing

nature's

diversity

to

simple geometric

solids

is as

conventional

as that of

renderingdepth

in

perspective,

and like that idea

has

provided

the

basis

for

muchacademic nstruction. 23

ezanne,

he

thinks,employs geometry

or another

purpose.

What

is

that

purpose?

Reff

argues

that the cu-

bists distorted

Cezanne's

practiceby adding

the

cube to the cylinder,the cone, and the sphere,

194



Gilmour

Improvisation

n

Cezanne

sLate

Landscapes

sion.

Matchotka

bserves,

as

well,

that he

painter

wants to

represent

our

ability

to

engage

in

al-

ternating

oci of

attention,

which

he

thinkscon-

tributes o

heightened ntensity

of

experience.

If

we considerin this context Cezanne'srepeated

journeys

from Aix toward

Tolonet,

with

Mont

Sainte-Victoire

oming

in and out of

view

along

the

way,

we

begin

o

grasp

heforceof Matchotka's

conclusion

that for Cezanne

grasping

he motif

means

incorporating

all the views one has had

on the

way. 34

t is an act of

interpretation

e-

quiring

him to

embody

that

complex experience

in

a

single image.

Shiff

adds that a crucial

assumption

of im-

pressionist

heory

s that whatever ruthor

real-

ity

is

represented

must relateto the artisthimself

as well as to nature.Indeed,one might say that

the artist

paints

a

'self'

on the

pretext

of

painting

'nature.' '35 his

observation

meshes with the rel-

ativizing

thrust

of the

physiological psychology

of Cezanne's

century,

which

suggests

that

spon-

taneous

encounters

with

things

in the environ-

ment

will be

subject

in

various

ways

to

individ-

ual differences. Critics such as Zola celebrate

the

sincerity

and

spontaneity

of the impression-

ists because

they express

theirpersonalperspec-

tives and

challenge

the academic's

belief

in

a

universal

round

of

experience,

equiring nly

the

methodical

application

of

rules

of

representation

to

produce

a

satisfactory mage.

Zola is

famous for the statement

hat a

work

of art is

a

bit of

natureseen

through

a

tempera-

ment. 36What matters

about the temperament,

Shiff

argues,

s

not its

subjectivity

but rather ts

contribution

o

discovery

within art.The

impres-

sionists want

to

address the

problem

...

of

the

individual'smeans of

arrivingat truth

or knowl-

edge

and the relation of individual

truthto uni-

versal

truth. ... The impressionist artists distin-

guishedthemselvesby the manner n whichthey

conceived and

responded

o this

issue. 37

This

manner has

to

do with a

deliberate de-

parture

rom the

camera obscuramodel. We

get

a hint of how

to thinkof

this change when we re-

member

Cezanne's statement

that

to read na-

ture

is

to see

it,

as if

througha veil,

in

terms of

an

interpretation

n

patches

of

color, suggesting

that we

might

think of

the artist's temperament

as like

the veil.

But

if

so,

it

is a veil that supports

discovery

andrenewed

understanding,ather han

one that

mpedes

our access to

the naturalworld.

Relatedto thisthemeof discovery, mpressionist

theory

also features

originality

as one of

its cen-

tral

values.

Cezanne's career

expresses

his dual

commit-

ment to truthand to

originality,

requiring

hathe

experimentwith new techniquesof composition

to

replace

the academic'scolor conventions that

emphasized

chiaroscuro. Shiff's

study

is

espe-

cially strong

n

highlighting

he role

questions

of

technique

have in

impressionisttheory.

He ob-

serves that Cezanne's

technique

of

originality

was characterized

rimarily y

a

unifying

and

rep-

etitious

pattern

f

contrasting

warmand cool col-

ors that seemed to

suppress,supplant,

or

simply

supersede

a differentiated hiaroscuro.

His

use of

color

appeared

naively expressive,

spontaneous.

But

it

also could be seen as

signifying

the natu-

ral andspontaneous. 38

This

emphasis

upon

the

signifying

functionof

color means

that,

even

if it succeeds in

appear-

ing

to

be naturaland

spontaneous,

hat does not

mean that

it

actually

is

a

spontaneousresponse.

On the

contrary,

he stress Shiff

places

on devel-

opment of technique shows the mediatingfunc-

tion of the impression n

its representational

ole,

conceived as evoking a

moment of visual truth.

The concept of the impression

plays a dual role:

as significantperception

t is the source hatgives

impetusto the artist'sexpression,

and as the cre-

ated mage t evokes anexperience

hrough

which

the truecan

be apprehendedn an act

of seeing.

However, this transaction

between artist and

viewer can

never be direct,given the fact

thatoil

paints can

never fully achieve the level

of

lumi-

nosity that

hings possess in natural unlight,

and

therefore he

question of techniquebecomes

el-

evated

o a central ole in impressionist

iscourse.

In summary,

he impression ontainsat

least three

aspects:the

first concerns the artist's

cultivation

of significant

sensory experience, the

second a

search or new techniquesby which toexpress t,

and the thirdthe goal of

producing

effective

m-

ages for the

viewer. This means that mpressions

relateas much

to the functioningof cultural

igns

as they do

to moments of perception,

n that the

created

mpressionemploys representational

e-

vices designed

to evoke seemingly

natural,

spontaneous

responses.

One source

of confusion

about impressions

arises from our thinking

that they belong only

within the domain of the

visible, as we are prone

to do if we think of them

as partaking n no ele-

ment of discourse.Foucault'sposition on the re-

197



The

Journalof

Aesthetics

and

Art

Criticism

lationship

of discourse

to the visible

exposes

this

view as

erroneous.As Gilles

Deleuze has

shown,

although

Foucaultmaintainsa

strong

distinction

between the

visible

and

the

discursive,

he

thinks

they constantlynteract: allknowledgeruns rom

a visible

element to an articulable

one,

and

vice-

versa;

yet

there s no such

thing

as a

common to-

talizing

form,

not even a

conformity

or

biunivo-

cal

correspondence. 39

ogether

hey

constitute

an

ongoing problem

of coordination.Within

his-

torythey

form strata

r

sedimentary

eds

hat

Deleuze

describes as made from

things

and

words,

from

seeing

and

speaking,

from

the visi-

ble and the

sayable,

from bands of

visibility

and

fields

of

readability,

rom

contents

and

expres-

sions. 40Whatthis means for

impressionistprac-

tice is that the experientialcontentsmanifested

in

a

given place, e.g.,

Lac

d'Annency,already

re-

flect

something sayable

as well as

seeable,

and

even if the

impressionistpainter's

ask

is to cre-

ate a visible image thatexpresses

thatencounter,

it will in turn represent something

sayable

as

well as seeable. This

is true for a numberof

rea-

sons, which nclude

at least the fact that he

mage

will be

representative

f something alling

within

nature (about which much has been said)

and

representative

as well of impressionist

theory.

Foucault's dea

of the

interweaving

of the

visible

and the discursive,

neitherof which is

reducible

to the other,complicates

our understanding f

the

impression.

These considerationssuggest

that the idea

of

purelynatural ision is problematic, iven

its fail-

ure to recognize the symbiotic relationship

hat

exists between a naturalsetting

and its cultural

interpretation. ormanBrysonprovidesa way

to

underline his issue when he points out that

every

society's culturalpractices become

coordinated

over time with its view of reality in such a

way

that it is impossible to separate he natural rom

the cultural.This process,

which is referred o

as

naturalisation, oncerns he way a socially

con-

structed iew of the worldappears o

its members

as the only rationalview, even though

the inter-

pretation f the realvaries romone cultural

roup

to another. Bryson adds that naturalisation ...

is

a generalisedprocess affecting

the whole social

formation

and influencing all its activities,

in-

cludingamongothers he production

f images. 41

Thus, questions about the realism of the

image

cannot be posed apart from this

phenomenon.

However, he argues that this thesis hardly sup-

ports

he conclusion hatan artist's

epresentations

arereducible o the

dominant ulturalmilieu.

On

the

contrary,

he

asserts,

Essential to the world of naturalisationand of the

habitus s the

mobility

of the

place

at which the

join

between

culturaland naturalworlds lies

hidden,

as

a

kind of

blind

spot

or blank stain within social con-

sciousness;

travelling

over

time and

across the

shift-

ing

cultural

spaces,

its invisible

accompaniment

and

participation

s vital to the

process

of cultural

produc-

tion. ... It is within this

blind

spot

of

culture's

vision

that the

image

is

fashioned.42

The blind

spot

occurs

because the cultural

prac-

titioner's

knowledge

(savoir)

derives from the

habitus,while appearing o be about the natural

world,

and

yet

these

habitus-inspired

nterpreta-

tions

are

open

to modification

hrough

he

prac-

titioner's own initiatives.

Accordingly,

we

may

construe

mpressionistpractice

as

addressing

his

point

of

mobility

and as

grasping mplicitly

the

constructed mages' power to challenge the

pre-

vailing discourse

on nature. Seen in this

way,

impressionismchallenges

the idea of a

world

of

fixed entities that the artist

should seek to

repre-

sent accuratelyby following

disciplined

proce-

dures of imaging. And

we may also say,

follow-

ing Deleuze's Foucault, hat mpressionist

heory

highlights the importanceof ongoing

access

to

the visible, while denying that there can

ever

be

a pure encounterwith nature, ree of any

discur-

sive influence.

We can deepen this reinterpretationf

the

im-

pression by considering

one other

aspect

of

Deleuze's account

of Foucault's reatment

f

the

visible. Deleuze

arguesthat

visibilities are not to be confused

with

elements

that

are visible or more generallyperceptible, uchasqual-

ities, things,

objects, compoundsof

objects.

In

this

re-

spect

Foucault onstructs function hat

s

no

less

orig-

inal than that of the statement.We must

break

things

open. Visibilities

are not forms of objects,

nor

even

forms

thatwould show up under ight, butrather

orms

of luminositywhich are created

by the light

itself

and

allow a thing or object

to exist only as a flash,

sparkle,

or shimmer.43

Deleuze's imperative o break hings

open

directs

us to challenge

assumptions bout he

visible

that

put some of its most salient features ntoeclipse.

198



Gilmour

Improvisation

in

Cezanne's

Late

Landscapes

In

following

this

injunction,

we

may

thinkof the

impression

s

displacing

visible

objects

and

quali-

ties in favor of

something

less definite and less

tangible,

Deleuze's forms of

luminosity.

This

provides an alternative so far not considered.

Shiff,

in

fact,

makes

something

ike this

explicit

when he

says:

Since

atmosphere

or

what Cezannecalled the enve-

lope,

enveloping

llumination)

was consideredas the

most

general

aspect

of one's view of

nature,

it was

also

regarded

as the

primordial

visual

sensation,

the

most immediate and

spontaneous

effect to be ob-

served.As

such,

it was both

original

nd

expressive

of the

individual-in

short,

the

atmospheric

effect

constituted the

painter's impressionism.

With

regard

to its pictorial representation,he atmosphericeffect

demanded the

technique

of

originality-specifically,

in the case of

Cezanne,

the use of a field of

uniformly

intense

vibrating

color,

and the concomitant

suppres-

sion of chiaroscurovalues.44

Shiff's

discussion of the

importance

of visual at-

mospheres

offers a

reason for the association of

spontaneity,originality,

and truthwithin

impres-

sionist

theory.

Cezanne's

statement hat themo-

tifs

multiply

as

to do with his

sense of the

pleni-

tudeof

atmospheric ossibilities

andthe attendant

necessity

to invent

new

techniques

to

represent

undetected

aspects

of

these

atmospheres.

How-

ever,

Shiff's

description

of the

encounter with

the

atmospheric nvelope

as

a

primordial

isual

sensation

has the

potential

o

mislead

us,

unless

we

remember

Foucault's

exposure

of latent dis-

cursive

elements that

exist within

every

visual

moment.

Cezanne's

sense of the

plenitude

of ex-

perience requires

hat

he become

active

in

rein-

terpretingt, engaging

n

visual

improvisations

o

avoid

unthinking

concurrence

with

naturalized

images. Inthe next section,we will considerthe

import

of

some of

Cezanne's

innovations in

technique.

III

I

am now

prepared

o show

more

directly

how

Cezanne's

paintingpractices

nvolve

improvisa-

tions that

alter the

naturalized

mage

and

con-

tribute o a shift in

the

cultural

definitionof real-

ity.

If

we consider

Cezanne's

paintings

of

Mont

Sainte-Victoire

during

he last

years

of his

life,

a

change in what is depictedis as evident as is a

change

in

style.

This is

especially

trueof his

han-

dling

of color

relationships

n these works.

Thus,

in one version of Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen

from

Les Lauves

(1902-1906,

v.

800,

now in

Kansas

City) Cezanne presents the motif in a manner

that

highlights

formsof

luminosity

as much

as

it

suggests

forms

of

things.

He creates

a

unique

color

harmonyby interspersing epeated

strokes

of

green

and ochre

yellow

with

blue-gray

color

patches

that

appear

and

reappear

within

the com-

position.

The dominant one of the

painting

de-

rives from the interactionand balance of

these

contrasting

colors,

together

with their

rhythmic

development

revealed

through

Cezanne's

dis-

tinctivebrushwork.While

he

blue-gray

ominates

in the

painting's

upper

hird,

whereCezanne

gives

definition to the craggy mountainpeak and its

enveloping sky

through

measuredvariations

n

this

hue,

the

green

in the bottomthirddefines

the

plain

below

in

freely

brushedmodulations nter-

woven with hints

of ochre to model the

ground.

In the

middle section

green

strokes

intensify

against ascending blue, suggesting treetops ap-

pearingagainst

he

rising slope, reachingupward

towardthe mountain's

majestic form,

and

ochre

patches punctuate

his middle

space, providing

glimpses

of

dwelling places

that nestle into

tree

and hill to form

its overall

atmosphere.

Rather

than

obeying

rules

of local color and

chiaroscuro

transition,

Cezanne's

color

composition

creates

its

atmosphere hroughspectral

modulations

and

rhythmic

brushwork o

constitutethe

wholeness

of the

scene.

In

part,

he

achieves this

by employ-

ing

hues

as

metaphors

or

interactive

orces, mak-

ing

a

single reality

out of

mountainand

sky by

using

similar

colors to

characterize hem

both.

But he

also achieves that

unity by employing ac-

cents of

the

green,

which we are

prone

to read

as

signs

of

vegetative ife,

to define

shadowed

edges

of the mountainand to model the clouds above.

Similarly,

ochre

yellow patches appear

to

lend

substance

o the

land,

o serveas

signs

of

dwelling

places,

and

to

highlight regions

of

the mountain

face

that

reflect

light

from

above. The

resulting

harmony onveys

a

feeling

of

meditative reedom

and

peacefulness.

It seems far

more

personaland

intimate han

he

distancedperspective mployed

in

most

traditional

andscapes.

Similarly,

a

contemporaneous

version

of the

same site

(1904-1906,

v.

803,

now in

the Pushkin

Museum)

follows

many

of the

same

techniques

of harmonization,while confrontingus with a

199



The Journal

of

Aesthetics

and Art Criticism

strikingly

different

mood and

atmosphere.

n the

Pushkinversion Cezanne

heightens

the

intensity

of the colors to

produce

strong

contrasts,

or even

clashing

forces,

that

convey

a sense of unease

and

dark oreboding.Thispaintinggives a more dra-

matic

presence

to

the mountain

by

moving

it for-

ward,

enlarging

t within the

overall

space.

In this

case the

greens

and

yellows

have a

greater

n-

tensity,

which is

partly

due

to

their

specific

hue

and

partly

due

to the staccato character

of the

brushwork,

making

them dominant

n the lower

two-thirds

of the

painting.

They

are accented

by

strokes

of

red,

orange,

and blue

to create a

dy-

namic

rhythm

of

upward

movement,

culminating

in mountainand

sky

above.

While

the

format

s

similar

to the Kansas

City painting,

the brush-

work is more agitatedand irregular,producing

a

heightened

sense

of

edges

to

the

mountainand

a

threatening

storminess

to the

sky.

Cezanne

achieves

this

effect

in

the

upper

hird

by

darken-

ing

the blue

patches

and

interspersing green

strokes on

both mountain

and

sky

that reiterate

the colors

of the

lower

regions.

The color

use,

in

this

case, highlights

color

differences,

while the

agitated

rushwork

eightens

he

intensity

f

these

opposed

forces. There

are,

in

addition,

countless

othervariations

n

the MontSainte-Victoire

heme

in Cezanne's

ast

years.

Yet

the

sense

in

which these

paintings

are

im-

provisations

depends

less

upon

their

being

vari-

ous

versions

of

the same

subject

matterthan

it

does

on the

way

Cezanne

utilizes

the

painting

process

itself to

create

improvisatorygestures.

What

I

mean is that

he

so

alters

the

idea

of the

naturalizedmage

thathis

contemporaries

ended

to be confused

abouthow

to readthese

paintings.

This

is

especially

true of his

handling

of

color,

which

alters

received

ideas about

the

role

that

color

plays

both

in

nature

and

n

landscapepaint-

ing. But we have seen as well how the brush-

work contributes

o a

sense

of

receding planes,

giving

us a new basis

on which

to

interpret

an

image

as

representingdepth.

Many

contemporary

Cezanne nterpreters

on-

sider

his

handling

of

color modulations

as

cru-

cial to the

revolutionary

achievements

of

his

art,

as we have seen

earlier

when

recounting

he

views

of

Reff,

Gowing,

and Bois.

The

Gowing-Reff

idea

of

the

importance

of

the

culminatingpoint

in his

paintings

may

overstate

he

importance

of

a

single principle

in

his mature

work and

may

lead some to conclude thathe simply invents a

variantmeans

by

which to

convey

the

solidity

of

objects,

conceived

as real

things

n external

pace.

Nothing

could

be more

misleading.

If we

look more

closely

at

Gowing's

treatment

of Cezanne,we find himarguing hat Cezanne's

painting

after the

mid-1880s

displays

a

system-

atic

methodof

color

construction,

ne that

he ar-

rived at

only

after

considerable

experimentation

and one

that

requires

considerable

effort

to dis-

cern.

Gowing

dates

this

system

from

a watercolor

painting

entitled

The GreenPitcher

(1885-1887,

v.

1138),

in which Cezanne

models

the vessel

around

a

white

spot serving

as its

culminating

point. Gowing

writes:

On eitherside of the

point

culminant,

eft blank

on the

paper .. the colorswere arrangedn order, irstblue,

then emerald

green

(to

specify

the

materialcolor

of

the

pot),

then

yellow

ochre.

At this

stage

one

hardly

notices

that a deliberate

system

is

being employed,

but close

inspection

leaves

no

doubt

about t. No

pot

ever

produced

his

logical sequence

arranged

ike the

blue, green, yellow

bands of the

spectrum

and

spread

out

on

paper

n

its natural

order.45

Yet,

although

Gowing

insists

that

Cezanne's

ap-

proach

o color

is

logical

and

systematic,

he

por-

trays

Cezanne's

later

work

in

anything

but

sim-

plistic

terms.

What

Cezanne

learns

from the

watercolor

xperiments

s how to translate

form

into

metaphoric equences

of color that

do not

have

to

reflect

any

observed hues.

Although

he

does

not

apply

the watercolor

echnique

directly

to his oil

paintings,

where

he remains

more faith-

ful to the material

color

that

things possess,

he

does

begin

to

explore

the

modulatorypossibili-

ties color has

for

defining depth

and

volume,

moving away

from traditional

trictures

hat

tied

color

usage

to local color

and chiaroscuro

differ-

entiationanddepthandvolume to a preexisting

spatialorganization.46

s

we

have

seen,

Cezanne

also

probes

color

interactionsto

see

how

they

may

alter

an

image's

intensity

and

tone.

Gowing

concludes

that

after

1900 Cezanne

joins

the

material

equation

with the

metaphoricsystem,

developing

a

painting practice

in which color

contrastsbecome

the internal ife

of art.He

found

that

painting

could

make

nothing

else and

needed

nothing

else. 47

Thisoutcome

may suggest

hat

Gowing's

analy-

sis lends

support

o formalist

eadings

f

Cezanne,

but this appearances deceiving.Why?The an-

200



Gilmour

Improvisation

n

Cezanne

s Late

Landscapes

swer

is

that the

metaphoric

ystem

lacks the

au-

tonomy

that formalism

requires.

What

I

mean is

that

Cezanne's

color

practices

make the

painter's

colors

nto

metaphorsor

impressions.

Rather han

usingcolorsonlytodesignatenaturalized bjects

(what

Deleuze calls forms

of

self-evidence ),48

Cezanne

employs

them

for the

metaphoric

ask

of

evoking atmospheres

forms

of

luminosity ).

Thus,

we do not have to choose between think-

ing

that colors must

represent

natural

objects

or

else must have a

totally independent

function

within

pictorial space.

When we rememberCezanne's

preoccupation

with

depth,

his

metaphoric

use of color becomes

all the more

important.

Bois describes the

way

Cezanne weaves color molecules

together

to

give

a sense of

reality

to his

images.

Bois holds

thathe follows a molecular

process

which is not

simply

additive,

but

multiplying.

His works are

geologically

constructedof

layers,

or ratherof

levels,

of skeins of

molecules more

or

less

loose,

each skein

responding

both to the one

that

pre-

cedes

it

andto the

whiteness

of

the

support.

None

of

these

levels

entirely

fuses with the others.

Cezanne is

very

careful that his

colors

don't

mix. 49

Bois favors this

description

because he

sees

Cezanne's

olor

technique

s

creating

weav-

ings thatput a spaceinto play thatis not purely

visual

and

thus

llusionistic but tactile as well. 50

But even

more to the

point,

we

may say

that he

transforms

mages

from obvious

signs

of

the real

into cultural

orms that

open up

new understand-

ing

of the

real.

To

develop

this theme

further,

want to return

to

Bryson's

account

of

the

naturalization

rocess

and

the

way

he thinks

image-making

its within

cultural

practice. Bryson rejects

the

perception-

based

account of

paintingby

Gombrichbecause

of

its

assumption

hat the

problem

of

painting

s

to findadequate chemata o depictmaterial eal-

ity. Assuming

a

universal basis for

perception

and

mage-making,

s Gombrich

oes,

he

painter's

task

is

directed

to

creating

more

and more ade-

quate

schemata of

representation.

While

Gom-

brich's

theory

demands

hat

images

be tested

by

matching

them

againstperceived reality,Bryson

is

skeptical

hat the

required omparisons

can be

achieved, given

the fact

that

he

believes

that our

cultural

odes enter nto

the

very

definitionof

the

real.

Ratherthan

conceiving

the

realism of the

image

as

having

to do with the

creation

of

cor-

rectschemata,Bryson argues hatpainters ace a

more

complex

task,

one

involving

the

interplay

betweenconnotational nddenotational lements.

As

Bryson

sees

it,

simple

acts of

recognition,

ike

the ones we so

easily

make of

nativity

mages

in

medievalpaintings,dependuponthe existenceof

well-established

conographic

odes. In this

sense,

the

recognition

of mountain

andscapes,

or even

of Mont

Sainte-Victoire

andscapes,

s

relatively

undemanding

because of the clear

iconographic

tradition that has

governed landscape

imagery

since

the

Renaissance.

However,

Bryson

thinks

that to

place

the

emphasis

on denotational

le-

ments alone

s

to

miss

the crucial

point

abouthow

painters

achieve the sense of

reality

n the created

image. Bryson

recalls RolandBarthes's dea that

an

image gains

enhanced

reality

ffects

by

em-

phasizingdetailsrather hanby relyingon

simple

iconographicrecognition,

and

Bryson

adds that

the

major

lines

of

technical

advance in

the

Renaissance,

from

perspective

o

anatomy,

rom

physiognomics

to

atmospherics,

will

all take

place

in the connotational

register. 5'

He

be-

lieves that he iconographic odes, which arerel-

atively straightforward,

ave dominatedour

un-

derstandingof referential

veracity, whereas the

connotational lements actually contributemore

to

it because they call upon

our tacit knowledge

of featuresof experience that we grasp infor-

mally. He follows Bourdieu

in holding that

tacitknowledge is not

learnedby formula,but

by example;

it

does not require a legalistic codex,

or

articulation-into-explicitness.he readingof

a

certaingestureperformedn the course of a con-

versation,or of a certain

costume,or of a certain

vocal accent,does not need firstto route tself to-

ward

a

central

exicon

for an act of decoding; ts

meaning

is embodied in local circumstance. 52

This

is

as

true,he thinks,

of pictorial mages as it

is of

gestures,clothing,

and oral expressions.

Bryson'sanalysis sconvincinghere,especially

when we

thinkof how Cezanne

goes to such elab-

orate

engths

to

play

with color as a connotational

element. While

traditional

uses of color appear

to

highlight

its

denotational mport,

Cezanne's

paintingpractices challenge this tradition,mak-

ing the iconographicschemata

play a relatively

trivialrole

in

the Mont

Sainte-Victoire aintings,

while

elevating the connotationalelements to a

central

place.

He

displays why the

effective

image

requiresmore handenotational

larity.

Cezanne's

use

of color also

illustrates

Bryson's contention

that themeaningsof the codes of connotation,

201



The

Journal

of

Aesthetics and

Art

Criticism

by

contrastwith the

codes

of

iconology,

are

there-

fore

non-explicit

and

polysemic. 53

Because

they

are

nonexplicit

and

polysemic,

they

have to be read in

context,

and Bourdieu's

account of culturalpracticesholds that these in-

formally

coded

aspects

of a culture

require

its

participants

o

produce

regulatedmprovisations

to determine heir

significance

and

applicability

in

a

given

circumstance.

These

interpretive

m-

provisations

are

regulated

n the

sense

that

the

cultural odes

orient he

participant

without

ully

determining

how

they

are

to

be

interpreted

n

specific

contexts. Cezanne's

painting practices

treatcolor

in

this

open,

fluid

way. Although

color

relationships

are

subject

to

regulationby

codes

of

connotation,

Cezanne shows

that

they may

be

altered without completely puttingthem aside.

Thus,

he shows

in the Kansas

City

Mont Sainte-

Victoire hat

blue

may

be transformed

rom a lit-

eral

sign

for the

sky

into a

metaphoric

ndicator

of an atmosphere nveloping sky, mountain,

and

rising hill, and in so doing he makes it into

a

fluid form nteractingwith othercolors to

express

the complex play of forces in that place.

Impro-

visation

is

necessary

as well on the viewer's part

because

the reality effects Cezanne achieves

through

his colors are unconventional, equiring

active interpretation y the viewer.Bryson

thinks

this is true in general because

the non-denotative or sub-iconographiccodes

offer

the image up to tacit interpretationss volatile as

the

play of contexts. ... The codes of connotation are

under-determined.

t is context which in the last in-

stance supplies the point of insertion

of the imageinto

the murkydepths of the social formation

..; the signi-

fiers

move in the manner

of the dance; they commu-

nicate, so to speak, from the body to body, on

the

hitherside of words ;gesture is the last outpost

of

the

sign as it crosses from the codified into the concrete

(where it disappears).The glance of the viewer is

ten-

tacular; t pulls the image into its own orbit of

tacit

knowledge,

taking t as provocation o performan act

of

interpretation

which is strictly speakingan improv-

isation, a minutely localised reaction

that cannot-

impossible dreamof the stereotype-be

programmed

in advance.54

Finally, Bryson thinks that the interpreter

must

improviseby attending o questionsof

technique,

given

the fact that the absenceof explicit artic-

ulation is in no way an index of limitedknowl-

edge;

it is

ratheran index of the

degree

to which

the rules

governing

the

process

are embodied in

technique. 55

We have seen in

this section how much the re-

ality effect of Cezanne's images depends upon

improvisations

in

technique,

which means

(as

Shiff

observes)

that he

self-consciously

created

the sense of found order n his

landscapes.56

f

this observation

seems

in

any way paradoxical,

it is

only

because we have

thought

of

landscape

painting

as

already

determined

by

forms of

order

before he artist ver takes

up

his

brushes,

whereas

Cezanne's

andscapes,shaped

as

they

are

by

the

discourseof

impressionism,

offer active

improv-

isations to achieve the effect of found order.

IV

In this final

section,

I

want to evaluateCezanne's

landscape improvisations

n

light

of

Foucault's

claim that the visible and the

sayable

are irre-

ducible to each other.Foucault's

claim does not

mean hat he

landscape's

isible content ies

open

to view, while

discourseabout t will

always

fail

to give

it adequateexpression. On the

contrary,

he thinks the visible presents tself with

a

meas-

ure of reserve, and that elements

of

invisibility

accompany it, similar to the

way that

shadows

accompany he light. At

the same time,

he

thinks

that our participation

n

discourse,

while

always

reflecting a measure of

intelligibility,

confronts

lacunae that mpel us towardmore

satisfying

ar-

ticulations. In addition, Foucault

holds

that

the

two domains have continuing

effects

on

each

other,with the result hat heir

nteraction

xposes

forms of invisibility

andgaps in

discourse.

Thus,

there is an interface

between the visible

and

the

sayable that s withoutresolutionor

recourse.

Seen in these terms, the practice

of

landscape

painting s a mixed domain, ncludingdiscursive

elements as well as forms of

visualization.

Ac-

cordingly, the painter expresses the

visible

in

strokes and lines, in color patches

and

modeled

forms, whose import depends on

cultural

nter-

pretationsalready n place. But their

mport

may

also be alteredby improvisations n

visual

pres-

entation that reveal gaps in existing

discourse.

Thus, the paintermay create

something

visible

in responseto the visible, but in

doing

so

reflects

existing modes of discourse that

may

have

to be

modified

in light of his work.

Cezanne's painting practicesexemplify these

202



Gilmour

Improvisation

n

Cezanne

s Late

Landscapes

principles.

Inspiredby

the

theory

of the

impres-

sion,

and its

resistance

to

academic codes of

in-

terpretation,

e

createsnew

techniques

by

which

to

articulate is

understanding

f the

visible,

which

presents tself notas anopenbook,butas a basis

from

which he

must wrest

intelligible

meaning.

The

existing

culture f

landscape

maging

assumes

that its

codes of

representation

re

more or

less

capable

of

expressing

what s

seen,

but

Cezanne's

impressionist

programquestions

he

obviousness

of these

codes and

searches

or

ways

to alter hem

in

response

to

encounterswith

visible

things.

In

addition,

Deleuze's

comment hat

natures a form

of

visibility 57

ndicates

that,

for the

painter

at

least,

nature s a

problematic

subject

matterre-

quiring ongoing

visual

interpretation,

and

this

means hatexistingcultural iscourses boutnature

may

have to be

questioned

as

well.

Because the

motifs

multiply

when

Cezanne

encounters

na-

ture,

he cannot

ontinue o

follow

established

ways

of

representing

t.

Above all

he must

reject

the

distanced

approach

of camera

obscura

painting.

Looked at in

this

way,

Cezanne's

sustained

struggle

to

create

paintings

that

can

realize the

richness of

his visual

experience

requires

hat

he

redeploy

existing painting

resources

o

heighten

their

expressive

possibilities.

In

this,

he

finds en-

couragement

from

the

emerging impressionist

discourse,

which

urges

him

to

cultivate

original-

ity

in

his

representational

echniques,

and

he

achieves

such

originality by

improvisations

n

color

management,

n

brushwork,

and

in

the vi-

sualization

of

depth.

Yet

these

innovations

in

techniquerepresent

ar

more

than

Bell

suggests

when

he

hails

Cezanne

as the

Christopher

olum-

bus of

a

new

continentof

form.

His

passionate

attempt

o

become

more

ucid in

frontof

nature

has

as

much to

do

with how

we

interpret

nature

as

it

does with

how

we

interpret

art. In

this re-

spect, Cezanne'slate landscapesalter our grasp

of the

visible

world

by

exposing

lacunae

in

the

discourses

we use

to

describe

nature

and

n

those

we use

to

interpret

art.

JOHN

C.

GILMOUR

Division of

Human

Studies

Alfred

University

Alfred,

New

York

14802

INTERNET:

[email protected]

1. Clive Bell, TheDebt to Cezanne, n ModernArtand

Modernism:

A Critical

Anthology,

ed.

FrancisFrascina

and

CharlesHarrison

London:

Harper

and

Row,

1984),

p.

76.

2.

Wassily Kandinsky,

Concerning

the

Spiritual

in

Art,

trans.

M. T. H. Sadler

(New

York:

Dover,

1977),

pp.

46-47.

3.

Ibid.,

p.

47.

4. Ibid., p. 57. On the previouspage he treatsCezanne's

compositions

as

simple

melodic

works,

whereas

he

him-

self aims

for a more

complex,

symphonic

omposition.

But

he is

positive

about

Cezanne

as a

predecessor

orhis own

work,

crediting

him

particularly

with

having given

a

strong

role

to

rhythm

n

painting.

5.

Ibid.,

p.

50.

6. Pierre

Bourdieu,

Outline

of

a

Theory

of

Practice, trans.

RichardNice

(New

York:

Cambridge

University

Press,

1979),

p.

21.

7. Richard

Shiff,

Cezanneand the

End

of

Impressionism:

A

Studyof

the

Theory,

Technique,

nd Critical

Evaluation

of

ModernArt

(University

of

Chicago

Press,

1986).

8. Jonathan

Crary,Techniques

f

the Observer:

On

Vision

andModernity n the NineteenthCentury MITPress,1996),

p.

29.

Crary's

discussion of

the camera

obscura

appears

n

chapter

wo.

For a related

discussion,

see Joel

Snyder,

Pic-

turing

Vision, Critical

Inquiry

7

(1980): 499-526.

Snyder

argues

that the camera

obscurais built

and modified in

re-

sponse to

painting practices such as

linear perspective.

He

thinks

that,

rather han

the camera

confirming

an

account of

natural

vision, it seems

natural because it

confirms

artistic

practices

thathave

come to be

regardedas realistic. See

es-

pecially

pp.

511 ff.

9.

Crary,Techniques

f

the

Observer,

p.

34.

10. Isabelle

Cahn, et

al., Cezanne

(New York: H.

N.

Abrams

n

association

with the

PhiladelphiaMuseum

of

Art,

1996),

p.

18. See also

Paul

Cezanne, Letters,ed. John

Re-

wald, trans.

SeymourHacker, rev.

ed. (New York:

Hacker

Art Books,

1984), p. 322.

11.

Cezanne,p. 18. See also

Cezanne, Letters,p. 261.

12.

Crary,Techniques

f

the

Observer,p. 2.

13.

Ibid.,

p.

70.

14.

Ibid., p.

73. The

importance

of this

is shown

by

Crary

when he says

that for Locke

and other

of his

contempo-

raries,

primaryqualities

always bear

a

relation

of

correspon-

dence, if not

resemblance, o exterior

objects,

and conform

to classical

models of the

observer,

such

as the

camera ob-

scura.

In

Schopenhauer his notion

of correspondence

be-

tween

subject

and

object

disappears;

he

studies

color

only

with reference

o sensations

belonging

to the

body

of the

ob-

server.

He makes

explicit the irrelevance

of

distinctions

be-

tween

interiorand

exterior, p.

75. Besides

grounding his

analysis in GoetheandSchopenhauer,Craryalso cites work

by

Maine

de

Biran,

Johannes

Muller, and Helmholz

in

sup-

port

of his

claims.

15.

Ibid., p. 86.

16.

Ibid., p. 125.

17.

Ibid., pp.

126-127.

Crary

s

anxious

to avoid

formu-

lating

his account

as a master

narrativeof

historical

devel-

opment.

He

clearly

wants

to

follow

Foucault

n

constructing

a

genealogy,

rather

than an

overarchinghistory.

However,

W. J.

T.

Mitchell

charges

hat

Crary

s often

guilty

of

sweep-

ing

formulations

hat

fit into the kind

of idealist

history he

wishes

to

challenge.

See

Mitchell,

Picture

Theory

(Univer-

sity

of

Chicago Press,

1994), pp.

21-23.

18.

Crary,Techniques

f

the

Observer,p.

9. In

addition

o

the social factors Crarydiscusses, there is also the impor-

203



The Journal

of

Aesthetics

and

Art Criticism

tance of other

developments

in Parisianculture

in the first

half of the

century.

For an excellent

discussion

of

this,

see

Nicholas

Green,

The

Spectacle

of

Nature:

Landscape

and

Bourgeois

Culture n

NineteenthCenturyFrance

(Manches-

ter

University

Press,

1990).

Green shows

how Parisiancul-

turedrifts towarda fascinationwith spectacles(generated n

partby proliferation

f

shop

windows and

other

commercial

developments)

and

how it

begins

to

imagine

nature

as a

healthy space

(in contrast

with the unhealthiness

of

urban

spaces)

and

as a recreational

pace.

These themes

go

beyond

the

scope

of

the

present

essay.

19.

Cezanne,

p.

18.

20.

Theodore

Reff,

Painting

and

Theory

in the

Final

Decade,

in

Cezanne:

The Late

Work,

ed.

William Rubin

(New

York:Museum

of Modern

Art,

1977),

pp.

45-46.

21.

Ibid.,

pp.

46-47.

A similar

point

is made

by

Pavel

Matchotka,

who also

discusses Mont

Sainte-Victoire

Seen

from

Bibemus,

when

he states that

the

space

is far from

flat;

it

is not a

space

of

deep,

continuous

recession

but one

of

stepwise depthcreatedby transitionsbetweenedges. Pavel

Matchotka,Cezanne:

Landscape

Into Art

(Yale

University

Press, 1996), p.

98.

22. Lawrence Gowing,

The

Logic

of

Organized

Sensa-

tions,

n

Cezanne:

The Late

Work,

d.

Rubin, p.

57.

23. Reff,

Painting ndTheory

n the

Final

Decade,

p.

47.

24. Ibid., p. 48,

emphasis

added.Gowing similarly

nter-

prets

Cezanne

as

focusing

on the

roundedness

of

objects.

He

holds that

the ine of

vision from

the

eye

meets

a flat surface

at

every point

at a different

angle....

The

variation n the

an-

gles

at

which a flat surface

presents

tself

to the

eye

is

thus

differentonly

in

degree

from the

angles

at

which the line

of

vision

strikes

a rounded

urface. n

this view

flat

planes

share

with the forms

of circular ection

a common

property

n the

geometry

of

vision.

Gowing,

The

Logic

of

Organized

Sen-

sations, p.

57.

25. Yve-Alain

Bois, Cezanne:

Wordsand

Deeds,

Octo-

ber

84

(1998):

33.

26.

Ibid.,

p.

34.

The first

quote

s

reported

by

Francis

Jour-

dain,

the

second

by

KarlErnstOsthaus.

27.

Ibid.,

p.

37.

28.

Reff,

Painting

nd

Theory

n the

Final

Decade,

p.

47.

29.

Michel

Foucault,

The

Archaeology

of Knowledge,

trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith

(New

York:Pantheon, 1972),

pp.

193-194. Presumably

Foucault ater carried

out such

an

analysis

in This s Not

a

Pipe,

ed.

and trans.

James

Harkness

(University

of California

Press,

1983),

where

a

painting

by

Magritte having

this

title)

is

subjected

o

archaeological

di-

agnosis.

30. The emphasison discourseis mine, not Shiff's. How-

ever, he

highlights

the role

that

impressionist

heory

has on

Cezanne

and

criticizes those art

historians

who treathim

as

a transition

igure (post-impressionist)

between

impression-

ism

and modernism.

For

my purposes

there

is no need

to

enter

into this art-historical

ispute;

what matters

s the

way

the

culture

of

impressionism

manifests

itself

in

Cezanne's

work.

Onthe art-historical

ssue,

see

Shiff,

Cezanne

and the

End

of Impressionism,

haps.

1-4.

31. I

have in mind here a view

of the nature-culture

ela-

tionship

similarto the

one

put

forward

by

Joseph Margolis

when he

says

that the structure

of

reality

and the structure

of human houghtareinextricably ymbiotized: hat s, there

is

no

principled

means

by

which

to decide

correctly

what

the

'mind' contributes

to what we take to

be the world's

real

structure r what

the 'brute'

world contributes

hat makes

ts

seeming intelligibility

apt

for our

correctly representing

whatever

structure

t has

independent

of

inquiry.

Joseph

Margolis,

Interpretation

Radical But Not

Unruly:

TheNew

Puzzle

of

theArts

and

History

University

of California

Press,

1995),

p.

3.

32.

Shiff,

Cezanne

nd

the End

of Impressionism,p.

12-13.

33.

Matchotka,

Cezanne:

Landscape

Into

Art,

p.

17.

34.

Ibid.,

p.

19.

35.

Shiff,

Cezanne

and

the

End

of

Impressionism,

.

20.

36.

Quoted

in

Shiff,

Cezanne

and

the End

of Impression-

ism,p. 29.

37.

Ibid., p.

17.

38.

Ibid., p.

123.

39.

Gilles

Deleuze,

Foucault,

ed. and trans. Sean

Hand

(University

of Minnesota

Press,

1988), p.

39.

40.

Ibid., p.

47.

41. Norman

Bryson,

Vision

and

Painting:

The

Logic of

the

Gaze (London:

Macmillan,

1985), p.

14.

42.

Ibid., pp.

14-15.

43.

Deleuze,

Foucault, p.

52.

44.

Shiff,

Ce'zanne

nd

the End

of Impressionism,

.

172.

45.

Gowing,

The

Logic

of

Organized

Sensations, p.

58.

46.

For

a

discussion

of how

Cezanne's

color

modulations

undercut raditional

deas

of

local

color,

see

Norman

Turner,

Cezanne,

Wagner,Modulation,

The Journal

of

Aesthetics

and

Art Criticism 56

(1998):

353-364.

Although

Turner's

discussion

s

useful, particularly

n his

analysis

of local

color,

his

treatment

s flawed because

he

fails to

relatecolor

to

dis-

course. For

example,

he

characterizes

Cezanne's

approach

this

way:

he

posits

the

act of

looking

at

the actual

world

not

as a

simple receipt

of

reputed

ixed

types

of

reality

but

as an

evolution

of the

self,

p.

362.

This

division

between

world

and self fails

to confront

contemporary

ultural

models.

47.

Gowing,

The

Logic

of

Organized

Sensations, p.

61.

48.

Deleuze,

Foucault, p.

48.

49.

Bois,

Cezanne:

Wordsand

Deeds,

p.

39.

50.

Ibid., p.

40.

51.

Bryson,

Vision

and

Painting, p.

65.

The

general

dis-

cussion of

the

denotation/connotation

uestion

can be

found

pp.60 ff.Forgeneralcriticisms f Gombrich eechapterhree.

52.

Ibid., p.

73.

53.

Ibid., p.

71.

54.

Ibid., p.

154.

55.

Ibid., p.

74.

56.

Shiff,

Cezanne

and the

End

of Impressionism,

.

217.

57.

Deleuze,

Foucault, p.

70.

204

gilmour - improvisation in cezanne

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