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Lot Essay
The recto of this sheet was page XLVI from the sketchbook CP IV; the verso page XLV.
There are few objects in everyday use as humble as a used hand towel hanging on its wooden wall rack, but by choosing to render such a familiar, unremarkable thing with the expressive vigor of his mature watercolour technique, Cézanne invests this subject with a dignified monumentality, and suggests more profound levels of meaning.
In this small watercolour, executed on the eve of the phase of his career, Cézanne radicalizes the illusionistic conventions in use since the Renaissance, and prepares the way for a more modern conception of pictorial volume. The folds in Cézanne's washcloth are indicated summarily; crevice-like cuts darkened with blue-violet watercolour supplant the modulated transitions of traditional chiaroscuro. Cézanne infers the pliancy of the cloth by contrasting its cascading forms - which consist mainly of bare, untouched paper - with the hard, square geometry of the painted wall rack. Both towel and rack are absolutely flat, yet the simple contrast of light against dark creates a powerful sense of volume and depth.
Rewald notes that 'according to Chappuis, the contrast between the towel and the board lead to a painterly solution without any sort of imaginative context' (op. cit.). However, one may suspect that Cézanne has elected to treat this prosaic subject as more than a pretext for the exercise of resolving purely formal issues. As in a significant number of the studies in the carnets, it was probably done late in the day, perhaps before or after the painter washed his hands following a session in the studio or outdoors, or prior to retiring to bed. These ablutions may well have possessed a ritualistic meaning for the aging artist, who during the 1890s increasingly worried about the possibility of illness and death, and feared for his spiritual salvation. Having lapsed from the practice of his Catholic faith in his early adult years, Cézanne now returned to the Church.
Encouraged by his sister Marie, he regularly attended mass, and a Catholic daily became his primary source of news in the world. Like many literary and artistic figures in France during the late 19th century, he was attracted to the powerful and popular Neo-Catholic revival movement, which espoused a return to traditional, anti-materialist values.
One may therefore detect a related subtext in this picture. The artist may have recalled the moment in the mass when the priest washes his hands at the side of the altar prior to the consecration of the communion host, a tradition derived from ancient Jewish ceremony during the Passover sacrifice. Or he may have been contemplating the story of Jesus humbly washing the feet of his disciples (John 13: 4-14), or less likely, the account of Pilate washing his hands after turning Jesus over to his persecutors (Matthew 27:24). For a devout Catholic, the presence of even the most humble object may carry spiritual and symbolical meaning, and be seen as a revelation of divine grace. In his famous letter to Emile Bernard in 1904, when he urged his friend to 'treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone', Cézanne spoke of the natural world as 'the show which the Pater Omnipotens Aeterne Deus spreads out before our eyes' (quoted in J. Rewald (ed.), Paul Cézanne Letters, New York, IV edition, 1976, p. 301).
The landscape study on the verso was done a decade or more earlier. Venturi notes that the touch in it was 'un peu à la Daubigny' (op. cit.), and compared it to a watercolour, no. 1002 in his catalogue (RWC 98, dated 1885-1888; sold Christie's, New York, 6 November 1991, lot 115).
There are few objects in everyday use as humble as a used hand towel hanging on its wooden wall rack, but by choosing to render such a familiar, unremarkable thing with the expressive vigor of his mature watercolour technique, Cézanne invests this subject with a dignified monumentality, and suggests more profound levels of meaning.
In this small watercolour, executed on the eve of the phase of his career, Cézanne radicalizes the illusionistic conventions in use since the Renaissance, and prepares the way for a more modern conception of pictorial volume. The folds in Cézanne's washcloth are indicated summarily; crevice-like cuts darkened with blue-violet watercolour supplant the modulated transitions of traditional chiaroscuro. Cézanne infers the pliancy of the cloth by contrasting its cascading forms - which consist mainly of bare, untouched paper - with the hard, square geometry of the painted wall rack. Both towel and rack are absolutely flat, yet the simple contrast of light against dark creates a powerful sense of volume and depth.
Rewald notes that 'according to Chappuis, the contrast between the towel and the board lead to a painterly solution without any sort of imaginative context' (op. cit.). However, one may suspect that Cézanne has elected to treat this prosaic subject as more than a pretext for the exercise of resolving purely formal issues. As in a significant number of the studies in the carnets, it was probably done late in the day, perhaps before or after the painter washed his hands following a session in the studio or outdoors, or prior to retiring to bed. These ablutions may well have possessed a ritualistic meaning for the aging artist, who during the 1890s increasingly worried about the possibility of illness and death, and feared for his spiritual salvation. Having lapsed from the practice of his Catholic faith in his early adult years, Cézanne now returned to the Church.
Encouraged by his sister Marie, he regularly attended mass, and a Catholic daily became his primary source of news in the world. Like many literary and artistic figures in France during the late 19th century, he was attracted to the powerful and popular Neo-Catholic revival movement, which espoused a return to traditional, anti-materialist values.
One may therefore detect a related subtext in this picture. The artist may have recalled the moment in the mass when the priest washes his hands at the side of the altar prior to the consecration of the communion host, a tradition derived from ancient Jewish ceremony during the Passover sacrifice. Or he may have been contemplating the story of Jesus humbly washing the feet of his disciples (John 13: 4-14), or less likely, the account of Pilate washing his hands after turning Jesus over to his persecutors (Matthew 27:24). For a devout Catholic, the presence of even the most humble object may carry spiritual and symbolical meaning, and be seen as a revelation of divine grace. In his famous letter to Emile Bernard in 1904, when he urged his friend to 'treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone', Cézanne spoke of the natural world as 'the show which the Pater Omnipotens Aeterne Deus spreads out before our eyes' (quoted in J. Rewald (ed.), Paul Cézanne Letters, New York, IV edition, 1976, p. 301).
The landscape study on the verso was done a decade or more earlier. Venturi notes that the touch in it was 'un peu à la Daubigny' (op. cit.), and compared it to a watercolour, no. 1002 in his catalogue (RWC 98, dated 1885-1888; sold Christie's, New York, 6 November 1991, lot 115).