A visit to Cézanne studio. The discovery of his creative genius
di // pubblicato il 01 Novembre, 2011
- Translated by Patrizia Cani -
“For an artist, the sensation is the basis of everything.”
So said Cézanne according to the testimony of his friend Gasquet, of which the painter has left us a wonderful portrait painted around 1896. Reading these words is surely easier to understand why this artist has left such a deep mark in the arts to become an inspiration for the modern generations, including the Surrealists, the Cubists and the contemporaries.
The sensation will always be a cornerstone of his art together with the simplification and the rationalization of the represented subject. There could be no better place than his studio to fully understand the creative process of an artist, even if in the case of Paul Cézanne we must use the plural, since various are the places where his artistic passion was drafted and completed.
That's why the exhibition that opens next October 20 in Milan's Royal Palace appears as a privileged opportunity to learn and appreciate the work of this outstanding character, both for those who have already appreciated him, and for those who do not know him yet. Also a great occasion for the younger generations, who study his works at school and now have the opportunity to meet directly with his production.
"Cézanne. Les ateliers du Midi" is the title of this exhibition which traces chronologically the stages of evolution of Cézanne with about forty works from major museums around the world: the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, the Tate British in London, the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norkolk, the Musée de l'Orangerie, the Petit Palais in Paris together with the Musée d'Orsay, (which presents ten masterpieces), the Princeton University Art Museum, the Hermitage of San Petersburg and the National Gallery in Washington.
The exhibition is produced by the Department of Culture of the City of Milan, the Milan's Royal Palace and Skira, with the extraordinary participation of the aforementioned Musée d'Orsay and is curated by Rudy Chiappini in collaboration with Denis Coutagne, Guy Cogeval Director of the Musée d 'Orsay and Philippe Cézanne, the artist's great-grandson.
The exhibition follows the artist's biography focusing and exploring the themes that he has followed consistently throughout his busy life and have evolved with him, from landscape to still life, from portraits to the great figures.
This insistence on the same motives denotes the constant torment that accompanied him and that always made him a little mysterious. A lifetime devoted to artistic research, where his language starts from strongly materic structures to consequently conquer the brightness of colour and finally, with volumetric rigour, reaches the innermost essence of reality: "Art is a harmony parallel to nature [...] nature viewed and nature felt, what is there (pointing to the green and blue landscape) and what is here (touching his forehead). Both of them have to blend in order to last. " (Testimony of J. Gasquet)
This tribute that Milan dedicated to the great artist of Aix-en-Provence is conceived to enter into the world of Cézanne, in the land that saw the birth and growth, among the people who surrounded him, to penetrate into his poetry through the places and faces of his life.
Shy, solitary, methodical and persevering character, appears today as the antithesis of our world made of screams and randomness. A personality which is powerfully able to touch the strings of our contemporary world like no other artist of his age has ever done.
His studio is a place symbolic of his painting and his life, where Paul Cézanne could express his art away from the hassles of everyday life, in the silence of a privileged dimension that allowed him to be able to listen to his interiority: a place of mind and memory of Renaissance atmosphere.
Such will be his first studio, in the curved wall grand salon on the ground floor of the family home at Jas de Bouffan, where, in 1859, 20 years old, he painted four large panels of the Seasons, ironically signing Ingres.
This is the laboratory of his youth experiences, left by his father, 
which was contrary to his artistic vocation and left that space free for him just because of its bad construction conditions. A few decades later, from 1881 to 1885, the property will be completely rearranged, and his father, now surrendered to the bright career of the son, will build a loft in the attic of the house, where Paul will realize significant still lives, a constantly important theme for him.
Bright colours for the flowers which, although painted less and less frequently, stand out for their liveliness; what dominate, however, is surely the fruit, among which the apple is by far the most popular: " I renounced to painting flowers, they wither too quickly, while the fruits are more loyal, they are there as if apologizing for fading."
His compositions are becoming increasingly monumental and fruit and contour lines are simplified into cylinders, spheres and cones, which are arranged in a perspective that appears internally dynamic. Its stylistic evolution will lead to the creation of painting where the colours structure the subject, that expands and contracts depending on the plays of light. Perspective planes multiply creating a play of tensions between surface and depth: inanimate and vital nature in the same time.
The other place that recount us directly about Cézanne is his latest studio, the Atelier des Lauves, on the outskirts of Aix, where a building on the hill was exclusively used as a painting studio.
This is his shelter place, a place of meditation and of extol of his artistic philosophy, which he produced according to its preferred orientation creating 
the ideal place for the last but incredibly fruitful years of his life. The studio is on the first floor, with light coming from the south towards the town, and to the north opens with a window that frames his mountain, Sainte Victoire, incredible limestone formation overlooking the valley of the Arc: a theme taken up by the artist in an almost obsessive way in his later years. The painting in this studio looks like a small privileged world, which freed itself and again takes possession of the fragmented touch, where the colour is graded in coloured spots harmoniously articulated. The Mediterranean light of the Midi penetrate strongly in his works, as years before it had done in contact with the art of Camille Pissarro and the open air, lightening its palette. In Cézanne's last paintings in this studio, the light seems to come from inside the pictorial matter, no more atmospheric but structuring, thanks to a series of modulations conducted with both transparent and dense brush strokes, thick and invaded by dark shadows.
Once again are his words are the best to understand his poetic art:
"Drawing and colour are not separate, when you paint you're also drawing. When colour is at the highest level of richness, the form is in its fullness. The contrasts and the tonal relations are the secret of drawing and modelling."
Thanks to this explaining formula, the figure of Cézanne and his world are understandable in a simple and straightforward way, allowing you to get to know, not only the artist, but also the man and his small big world of Midi.