Paul Cézanne Watercolors
with a Light Touch
Cézanne turned to watercolor painting in his later years. Empty spaces and simplification led to his minimalism with color that appears complete.
Dans les bois / In the Woods
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French
Watercolor on paper, circa 1900
Private Collection
Excerpt from Wendy Welch, Vancouver Island School of Art edited:
This is an example of how the repetition of abstracted shapes and lines gives the effect of a complex forest. The simplicity of this work, allows the viewer to trace each of the singular brush marks made by Cezanne throughout the construction of this painting. There is a beautiful purity in the use of transparent watercolor; every shape and mark made can be seen. It's deceptively simple. As with most of his watercolors, this painting reveals a complex transition and layering of space leaving the color of the paper to exist as foreground, middle ground and background.
Paysage en Provence / Landscape in Provence
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French
Watercolor on paper, 12" x 16" (w x h), 1900-04
Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, France
Paysage avec arbres / Landscape with Trees
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French
Watercolor and pencil on paper,
8" x 5" (w x h), circa 1885-1890
Sothebys March 2023 UK auction estimate,
$125,000 - $185,000 USD
Excerpt from Sothebys notes edited:
Paul Cézanne's sketchbooks are a personal insight into the artist's working process. Not intended for the public, and therefore unguarded, these sketches show the experimental spirit of the artist. Cézanne rejects the conventional means of rendering perspective. Depth and volume are created through shape and color, demonstrating a new approach to spatial arrangement, a turning point in the history of art. It heralds Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque's later development of Cubism.
Cézanne's son was the original owner of the present work, keeping it in his personal collection until it ultimately found its way to the UK's Sir Kenneth Clark. Clark helped to save the nation's art collection during the WWII Blitz by driving trucks full of art to caves in the Welsh mountains. Eventually David Lindsay, 28th Earl of Crawford, acquired this work from Clark, where it was auctioned in 2023.
Corner of Lake Annecy / Coin du lac d'Annecy
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French
Watercolor on Arches paper, 1900
Private Collection
La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue des Lauves /
Mount Sainte-Victoire seen from the Lauves
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French
Watercolor and graphite on paper,
21" x 19" (w x h), circa 1902-06
Sothebys May 2023 auction estimate
$4,000,000 - $6,000,000 USD
Private collection
Excerpt from Sotheby's note edited:
In 1901 Cézanne bought land at Les Lauves, where he built a studio and moved in the autumn of the following year. This was painted from his studio. While areas of watercolor suggest undulations in the mountain and the subtle effects of light and shadow caused by them, the white, unpainted areas of the sheet evoke the imposing volume of the rocks.
In 1904 Emile Bernard arrived on Paul Cézanne's doorstep. Cezanne, the older artist, was on his way out to paint and invited Bernard to accompany him. They went from Cézanne's home to his studio, where Cézanne collected his watercolor materials, and then headed out for a view of a valley at the foot of Sainte-Victoire. Peering over his shoulder while talking, Bernard watched as Cézanne built up his watercolor with patches of translucent color. "His method was unique, excessively complicated, and totally different from usual techniques. He began on the shadows with a single patch, which he then overlapped with a second, larger one; and then with a third one, until these patches, which produced screens, modeled the object by way of coloring it."
Rochers Près des Grottes
au-dessus de Château Noir /
Rocks Near the Caves above Château Noir
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French
Watercolor and pencil on paper,
19" x 13" (w x h), 1895-1900
MoMA, New York, NY
Feuillage / Foliage
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French
Watercolor and pencil on paper,
22" x 18" (w x h), 1895
MoMA, New York, NY
Excerpt from MoMA notes edited:
Cezanne's late watercolors like this "are acts of construction in color." Here he applied discrete unblended lines and patches of color around lightly sketched pencil contours and built depth from color by translating dark-light gradations into cool-warm ones. In this mosaic, colored lines and planes and overlapping shades fix the depth of the subject. In this way Cezanne redefined modern drawing according to color "modulation", his term for that which enabled him not only to capture the light of his native southern France, but also to his approach with abstraction.
Route avec arbres sur une pente /
Road with Trees on a Slope
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), French
Watercolor and graphite on paper,
12" x 19" (w x h), 1904
Beyeler Foundation, Riehen, Switzerland
No comments:
Post a Comment