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拍品專文
The year 1882 marked a turning point in Cézanne's life. After many years working in and around Pontoise, Cézanne left to live in L'Estaque in the south of France. This move to Provence is traditionally seen as marking the beginning of Cézanne's mature period - a period in which, after having fully absorbed Impressionism and developed his own individual style, Cézanne began to push back the frontiers of painting by seeking to expose the underlying form and rhythms of the rugged Provence landscape.
One of Cézanne's very last paintings of the landscape around Pontoise, Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise was painted sometime in the summer of 1882 during a brief return visit to the area. Little is known about Cézanne's movements during the summer of 1882 but as this work and a few others testify, at some stage during the summer, Cézanne spent a brief period revisiting his friend and mentor Camille Pissarro. Once again, the artists resumed their practice of working side by side in the landscape. Indeed, as a very similar view by Pissarro (fig. ) affirms, Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise as a work that was undoubtedly painted at Pissarro's side. Pissarro was "a father to me,' Cézanne recalled many years later, "He was a man to be consulted, something like 'le bon Dieu', (Cézanne to Borely, 1902 cited in Pissarro: R. Shikes and P., Pissarro: His life and work, New York, 1980, p.115) For his part, Pissarro, recognising that his art was being surpassed by his former pupil, recalled that Cézanne " was influenced by me at Pontoise and I by him, You may remember the sallies of Zola and Béliard about that. They imagined that the artists are sole inventors of their own styles and that to resemble someone else is to be unoriginal. Curiously enough, in Cézanne's show at Vollard's in 1895, there are certain landscapes of Auvers and Pontoise that are similar to mine. Naturally - we were always together! But what cannot be denied is that each of us kept the only thing that counts, the unique "sensation." (Ibid, p.128.)
A comparison between Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise and Pissarro's view (which was painted from slightly higher up the same hill ) reveals just how far Cézanne's painting had developed from the days when he worked under the older man's influence. Pissarro focussed on versimilitude whilst Cézanne looked for something much greater than this in his landscape. Whereas Pissarro attempted to show the experience of the landscape as a visual phenomenon by capturing a sense of atmosphere by concentrating on the delicate fleeting sensation of a precise moment in time, Cézanne's painting reveals his classicising vision. It is a unique abstracting vision that attempts to impose an order on the landscape and at the same time reveal its material presence and timeless essence. In Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise Cézanne is beginning to look through the landscape towards a universal principle of spatial organisation underlying all life.
The strict constructive ordering that was to become so pronounced in his L'Estaque landscapes is also present in this very different landscape in the careful positioning of forms and in the way in which Cézanne has concentrated the activity of the painting at the centre of the canvas. Framed by the sparse foreground of the undulating hill and the precise upright of the trees to the far right of the picture, this strong compositional device - typical of Cézanne - allows the artist to give equal emphasis to every area of the canvas without losing a sense of the overall pictorial order. Abandoning all sense of aerial perspective, Cézanne has constructed the landscape from a series of carefully angled rectangular brushstrokes of equal size and intensity with such brilliance that the landscape takes on such a sculptural quality that it seems to have been chiselled out of colour.
Nestled in the gentle rolling hills around Auvers, the houses of the small community of Valhermeil seem to have been enveloped by the landscape in this work. Cézanne has chosen to show the landscape unfolding into the distance in the panoramic format that characterises his later works. Indeed, with its high vantage point, looking down over the local fields, the expansive view offered in Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise seems a direct translation of the scale and grandeur of his L'Estaque paintings here transposed from the wilder terrain of Provence to the cosier rural countryside of Pontoise.
Clearly, the seeds of change that would characterise Cézanne's work of the later 1880s and '90s are already apparent in this commanding painting. Possibly the very last work he painted in the company of Pissarro in Auvers, it is a fitting farewell to the landscape that had nourished and developed his art and to the place where he had grown into the most radical landscape artist of his generation.
One of Cézanne's very last paintings of the landscape around Pontoise, Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise was painted sometime in the summer of 1882 during a brief return visit to the area. Little is known about Cézanne's movements during the summer of 1882 but as this work and a few others testify, at some stage during the summer, Cézanne spent a brief period revisiting his friend and mentor Camille Pissarro. Once again, the artists resumed their practice of working side by side in the landscape. Indeed, as a very similar view by Pissarro (fig. ) affirms, Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise as a work that was undoubtedly painted at Pissarro's side. Pissarro was "a father to me,' Cézanne recalled many years later, "He was a man to be consulted, something like 'le bon Dieu', (Cézanne to Borely, 1902 cited in Pissarro: R. Shikes and P., Pissarro: His life and work, New York, 1980, p.115) For his part, Pissarro, recognising that his art was being surpassed by his former pupil, recalled that Cézanne " was influenced by me at Pontoise and I by him, You may remember the sallies of Zola and Béliard about that. They imagined that the artists are sole inventors of their own styles and that to resemble someone else is to be unoriginal. Curiously enough, in Cézanne's show at Vollard's in 1895, there are certain landscapes of Auvers and Pontoise that are similar to mine. Naturally - we were always together! But what cannot be denied is that each of us kept the only thing that counts, the unique "sensation." (Ibid, p.128.)
A comparison between Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise and Pissarro's view (which was painted from slightly higher up the same hill ) reveals just how far Cézanne's painting had developed from the days when he worked under the older man's influence. Pissarro focussed on versimilitude whilst Cézanne looked for something much greater than this in his landscape. Whereas Pissarro attempted to show the experience of the landscape as a visual phenomenon by capturing a sense of atmosphere by concentrating on the delicate fleeting sensation of a precise moment in time, Cézanne's painting reveals his classicising vision. It is a unique abstracting vision that attempts to impose an order on the landscape and at the same time reveal its material presence and timeless essence. In Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise Cézanne is beginning to look through the landscape towards a universal principle of spatial organisation underlying all life.
The strict constructive ordering that was to become so pronounced in his L'Estaque landscapes is also present in this very different landscape in the careful positioning of forms and in the way in which Cézanne has concentrated the activity of the painting at the centre of the canvas. Framed by the sparse foreground of the undulating hill and the precise upright of the trees to the far right of the picture, this strong compositional device - typical of Cézanne - allows the artist to give equal emphasis to every area of the canvas without losing a sense of the overall pictorial order. Abandoning all sense of aerial perspective, Cézanne has constructed the landscape from a series of carefully angled rectangular brushstrokes of equal size and intensity with such brilliance that the landscape takes on such a sculptural quality that it seems to have been chiselled out of colour.
Nestled in the gentle rolling hills around Auvers, the houses of the small community of Valhermeil seem to have been enveloped by the landscape in this work. Cézanne has chosen to show the landscape unfolding into the distance in the panoramic format that characterises his later works. Indeed, with its high vantage point, looking down over the local fields, the expansive view offered in Maisons à Valhermeil vues en direction d'Auvers-sur-Oise seems a direct translation of the scale and grandeur of his L'Estaque paintings here transposed from the wilder terrain of Provence to the cosier rural countryside of Pontoise.
Clearly, the seeds of change that would characterise Cézanne's work of the later 1880s and '90s are already apparent in this commanding painting. Possibly the very last work he painted in the company of Pissarro in Auvers, it is a fitting farewell to the landscape that had nourished and developed his art and to the place where he had grown into the most radical landscape artist of his generation.