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My age and my health will never allow me
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to realise the artistic dream I have pursued all my life.
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But I shall always be grateful to the audience of intelligent art lovers
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who have sensed what I was trying to do to renew my art,
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in spite of my halting attempts.
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In my opinion, one does not replace the past,
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one only adds a new link.
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With painter's temperament and an artistic ideal,
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that is to say a conception of nature,
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there should be sufficient means of expression
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to be intelligible to the general public
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and to occupy a suitable rank in the history of art.
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Paul Cézanne
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An exhibition of this scale and ambition takes many years to put together.
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So this one goes back to 2009
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when the conversations were first had
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about "Why had no one ever done an exhibition of Cézanne's portraits?",
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which seems a remarkable fact but is true.
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And, of course, in this case,
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we're partnering with the Musée d'Orsay in Paris
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and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
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At least in the recent or modern period,
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this is the first exhibition that is dedicated to Cézanne's portraits.
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The question of the portraits was a bit of a blind spot.
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Everybody has been a little afraid of the subject,
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because Cézanne did not think himself a portrait artist,
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did not claim to be a portrait artist.
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Cézanne is the great formalist master.
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I mean, he really sets up a kind of abstraction
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that you're going to see unfold in the 20th century
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and he's best known as a still-life and landscape painter
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where you don't generally get
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issues of emotional and psychological expression or affect.
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So the drama of this show, I think,
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is what happens when you replace these inanimate objects
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with not only human beings but people who he knew really well.
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The portraits are fascinating,
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because you can see a sort of Cézanne retrospective.
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You see the different stages of his painting,
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the different interests.
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So what's wonderful in this journey through portraits
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is that, perhaps more than in other subjects in Cézanne's life,
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the artistic journey of the man is revealed.
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What is unique about the portraits
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is that they, even more than work in other genres,
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take you through Cézanne's life.
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When you stand looking at them, you stand where Cézanne stood.
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I think actually one gets a greater sense of Cézanne as a human presence.
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It is said often that Cézanne is the father of modern art,
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with new generations looking to him for inspiration.
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To him, he was nothing at all.
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He just did his work.
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But these new generations think otherwise.
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It's astonishing that I meet painters
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who four generations later
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say they have been influenced by the work of Cézanne.
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So clearly he is someone who opened doors.
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Aix, 9th April 1858
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Dear Émile, a poem...
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Farewell, my dear Émile
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No, on the flowing stream
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I no longer slip as gaily as in times gone by,
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when with agile arms like reptiles
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we swam together across the calm waters.
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Farewell, fine days seasoned with wine!
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Lucky fishing for prodigious fish!
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When in my catch in the cool river
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my surly line caught nothing dreadful.
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Do you remember the pine that stood on the bank of the Arc,
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lowering its leafy head over the chasm that opened at its feet?
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That pine that protected our bodies with its foliage
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from the heat of the sun, ah!
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May the Gods preserve it from the fatal blow of the woodcutter's axe!
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Aix, 7th December 1858
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Dear Émile,
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Alas, I took the tortuous path of law.
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"I took" is not the word.
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I was forced to take law, horrible law with all equivocations.
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It will make my life a misery for three years!
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Have pity on me, an unhappy mortal.
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Aix, 20th June 1859
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I was very much in love with a certain Justine
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who is truly very fine.
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Dear Émile,
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One fine day a young man accosted me.
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"Mon cher", he said.
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"I'm about to show you a sweet little thing whom I love and who loves me."
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I had a premonition that my luck had run out, as you might say,
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and I was not wrong,
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for just as the clock struck midday,
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Justine came out of the dressmaker's where she works,
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and, my word, Seymard indicated, "There she is."
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Since then, I have seen her nearly every day
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often Seymard in her tracks.
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Ah! What fantasies I built,
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as mad as can be,
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but, you see, it's like this...
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I said to myself, if she didn't despise me,
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we should go to Paris together.
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There I should become an artist, we should be happy.
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I dreamt of pictures, a studio on the fourth floor,
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you with me, how we should have laughed.
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I did not ask to be rich, you know how I am.
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Me, with a few hundred francs I thought we could live happily.
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But, by God, it was a really great dream,
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and now I'm so idle that I'm only happy when I've had a drink.
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I can hardly do anything.
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I am inert, good for nothing.
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Aix was a very small town,
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a city of around 20-25,000 inhabitants.
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A small town that still had its ramparts,
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that was still surrounded by walls dating back to the Middle Ages,
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with gates that were locked every night.
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Cézanne and Zola met at the College Bourbon,
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the only college of the time.
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They go on to form a very deep friendship.
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And this friendship will soon lead to the desire
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to become an artist, a creator.
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They talk a lot about poetry, about literature.
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I think it is important to know
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that Cézanne and Zola had a beautiful youth,
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a youth that marked them for all their lives.
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Paris, 3rd March 1861
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You pose an odd question.
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Of course one can work here, as anywhere, given the willpower.
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Moreover, Paris has something you can't find anywhere else,
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museums in which you can study from the Masters from 11 till four.
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Here is how you could organise your time.
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From six to 11 you'll go to the studio and paint from the live model.
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You'll have lunch, then from midday till four,
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you'll copy the masterpiece of your choice,
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either in the Louvre or in the Luxembourg.
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That will make nine hours of work.
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I think that's enough
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and with such a regime it won't be long before you do something good.
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You see, that leaves us all evening free,
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and we can do whatever we like, without impinging at all on our studies.
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Then on Sundays we'll take off and go to some places around Paris.
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There are some charming spots,
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and if so moved you can knock off a little canvas
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of the trees under which we'll have lunched.
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As for the question of money,
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it's true that your allowance of 125 francs a month
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won't allow you any great luxury but you'll have enough to get by.
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Like all artists of this generation, he is an assiduous visitor to the Louvre.
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"The Louvre is an open book that you are continuously consulting."
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So there's a relationship with the Old Masters
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but also a very direct relationship with the previous generation,
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particularly Courbet.
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It's true that in Courbet's world
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he finds this kind of honesty,
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this way of honestly describing his relationship with the world.
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It's what Courbet did with A Burial at Ornans
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when he paints this small village in Franche-Comté
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that is unknown to the Parisian world,
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with a series of anonymous people who are burying someone.
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We don't even know who.
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A painting that doesn't reveal anything,
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a painting which communicates many things through omission,
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through interpretation.
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I think that's very important for Cézanne too.
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And we'll find it in Cézanne later on
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in the figures such as The Card Players
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or The Gardener Vallier.
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These magnified figures, almost made into monuments...
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We're no longer in a portrait context
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but we have a kind of dignity in the representation
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of an anonymous subject in a very commonplace context
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in a provincial French town at the end of the 19th century.
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That is the subject of his painting.
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Paris, 4th June 1861
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I thought that when I left Aix I'd leave the ennui that pursues me far behind.
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All I've done is swap places and the ennui has followed me.
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I left my parents, my friends, some of my routines. That's all.
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I have to admit that I wander about aimlessly practically all day.
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Naïve as it sounds,
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I've seen the Louvre, the Musée du Luxembourg and Versailles.
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You know the potboilers they have in those fine monuments.
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It's amazing, overwhelming, breathtaking.
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But don't think I'm becoming Parisian.
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I've also seen the Salon.
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For a young heart, for a child born for art, who says what he thinks,
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I believe it's there that the best is truly to be found,
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because there every taste and every style meets and collides.
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Paris, August 1861
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We've been together six hours today.
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Our meeting place is Paul's little room.
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There, he's doing my portrait,
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during which time I read or we chat together.
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Paul paints on relentlessly.
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The slightest obstacle sends him into despair.
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Paris, 19th April 1866
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Dear Monsieur Count de Nieuwerkerke,
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I cannot accept the illegitimate verdict of colleagues
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who have no authority from me to assess my work.
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I wish to appeal to the public and to be exhibited nevertheless.
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So let the Salon des Refusés,
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for those that have been refused entry to the Salon,
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be re-established.
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Even if I were the only one in it,
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I would still want the public to know
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that I have no wish to have anything to do with those gentlemen of the jury,
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any more than they appear to wish to have anything to do with me.
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It's very difficult to understand who the real Cézanne is,
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because in the early years of his career as a painter
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he has to find his place in a Parisian avant-garde milieu
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and particularly to find his place in Manet's circle.
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So in some respects he plays Courbet's role,
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the rather uncultivated provincial
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who is a bit provocative, not very well dressed,
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a bit grumpy, a bit inaccessible.
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So he constructs this character perhaps to protect himself better
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and also, in order to strike a more unique tone,
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he quickly detaches himself from the social game.
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Cézanne returned very often to Provence.
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It must be said that the image of Provence in Paris at the time
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was that of a distant land
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where it was a peasant world that was not yet socialised,
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away from Parisian modernity,
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away from the intelligentsia,
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when actually he was the most intelligent,
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the most literary and the most cultivated of his time.
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He could write verses in Latin.
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He knew Seneca, he knew Virgil.
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He knew Latin poetry.
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He knew Tacitus and so on.
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Often when reading the works of art historians,
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I find that they are rather off-track regarding Cézanne.
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They paint him as a rather aggressive, angry, lonely man and so on.
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But it's not quite true. There was another side of Cézanne
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who was a cheerful man,
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who loved music, who liked to sing,
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who even liked to write poems and read them out loud over a lunch or a dinner.
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On the other hand, when he worked, he was a little monastic.
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He had to be alone, he needed reflection,
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he worked slowly.
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As we're told by Vollard and others,
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before any stroke of the brush he was very anxious,
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because one touch could completely transform his painting.
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The Jas de Bouffan was a residence dating from the 18th century
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built for the military governor of Aix.
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Cézanne's father buys this for the family
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from the heirs of the military governor
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who are in debt,
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and Cézanne's father buys it in 1859.
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It will become a summer residence at first.
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For Cézanne it is a place to paint, although he is often in Paris.
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When he comes here, I imagine he's relatively quiet,
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he's left alone in the big living room.
252
00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:30,200
His father is not there very often.
253
00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:33,640
He did not begin to live there permanently until 1870,
254
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:36,440
when it becomes a home for the Cézanne family
255
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:40,400
from 1870 to the death of Cézanne's father in 1886.
256
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:49,640
Cézanne then has the certainty of having a studio.
257
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:53,440
It is his place in Provence here until 1898.
258
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:55,920
His mother dies in 1897,
259
00:20:56,600 --> 00:20:58,480
and it became necessary to sell the property.
260
00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:01,240
I think for Cézanne this is heartbreaking.
261
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:10,480
Aix, 23rd October 1866
262
00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:13,080
Dear Camille,
263
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:19,360
I'm here in the bosom of my family with the foulest people on earth,
264
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:25,880
those who make up my family, who can be excruciatingly annoying.
265
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,800
Aix, 2nd November 1866
266
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:29,080
I have been here in Aix, this "Athens of the North", with Paul Cézanne.
267
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:34,320
A portrait of his father in a big armchair comes over really well.
268
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:39,560
The painting is light in tone. The look is very fine.
269
00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:42,600
The father has the air of a pope on his throne,
270
00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:44,880
if it weren't for the newspaper that he's reading.
271
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:48,440
The people of Aix still get on his nerves.
272
00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:52,160
They ask to come and see his painting so that they can rubbish it.
273
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:54,640
And he has a good way of dealing with them.
274
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:56,280
"Bugger off", he says.
275
00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,840
It's a very early portrait for Cézanne
276
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:05,440
and it's done in his style known as the manière couillarde,
277
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:08,840
which is roughly translated as the "ballsy manner".
278
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:14,080
Cézanne is using a palette knife for much of the composition
279
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:15,760
but also wide brushes
280
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:21,440
and really slathering on the paint in a very kind of physical, gestural way
281
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:25,840
and I think he's after an image that is quite powerful.
282
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:28,600
He wanted to make a statement certainly.
283
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:33,120
He's young, he's new to the Parisian art scene and he's very ambitious.
284
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:38,560
The sitter is of course his father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne.
285
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:43,080
He had started his business in hat-making in Aix
286
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:44,480
and made quite a bit of money
287
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:49,120
and then became a banker and was one of the richest men in town.
288
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:53,560
You see him there sitting in his armchair, reading his newspaper,
289
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:56,720
very much an image of what a businessman of the day would be doing,
290
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:58,160
he's keeping up with the times.
291
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:00,600
The paper that he regularly read
292
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,720
was one of wide circulation, particularly in the south of France.
293
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:05,280
It was called Le Siècle.
294
00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:09,400
It's interesting that he's not reading the paper he normally would have read.
295
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,120
And there is this document, a letter from one of Cézanne's friends,
296
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:17,800
reporting that Cézanne changed late in the composition
297
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:21,920
the masthead on this paper to I'Événement,
298
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:24,280
which was a Parisian paper
299
00:24:24,360 --> 00:24:29,840
that Émile Zola had recently published a defence of the avant-garde.
300
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:31,360
And I think that in a way
301
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:34,600
Cézanne is conflating the support of his friend Zola,
302
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:39,200
who had defended him in this newspaper, with the support of his father.
303
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,880
So it's really kind of an homage to this moment in his career
304
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:46,560
and it is an homage to his father. I think it's quite respectful.
305
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,640
He has a forceful presence in the picture frame
306
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,400
and he's brought up right against the picture plane,
307
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,400
so he's really almost out in your space. He's quite an imposing figure.
308
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,440
There's no doubt that at the inception of a picture like this
309
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:02,000
he intended it for the Salon.
310
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:04,520
And the same year that he paints this painting
311
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,520
he does one of his very good friend, Achille Emperaire,
312
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:10,840
which he actually submits to the Salon and it is rejected.
313
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,800
So this painting doesn't make it into the Salon until 1882
314
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:19,880
and it is, in fact, the first painting by Cézanne accepted at a Salon.
315
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,560
Aix, 24th May 1868
316
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:34,480
My dear Morstatt,
317
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:37,720
We shall have the pleasure of seeing you
318
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,280
without having to wait for the next world,
319
00:25:40,360 --> 00:25:45,320
since in your last letter you told us that you had come into your money.
320
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,920
Such good fortune makes me very happy for you
321
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:51,360
for we are all striving after art
322
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:57,080
without material worries disturbing the work that is so necessary to the artist.
323
00:25:58,120 --> 00:26:01,240
With keen sympathy I clasp the hand
324
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:06,520
that need no longer soil itself in philistine labours.
325
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:09,880
Yours ever, Paul
326
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,440
7th June 1870
327
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:20,680
So I was rejected as before by the Salon,
328
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,560
but I am none the worse for it.
329
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:28,160
Needless to say I'm still painting, and for the moment I'm fine.
330
00:26:32,120 --> 00:26:33,440
At the start of his career,
331
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:38,280
when you look at his double portrait of Alexis Reading to Émile Zola
332
00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:42,640
you have proof that Cézanne was fascinated,
333
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:47,760
like many artists such as Monet, Renoir, by the figure of Manet in the 1860s.
334
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:50,120
It's the most Manet-like painting
335
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:53,680
because you see the elliptical stroke
336
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,200
with which he draws the trousers,
337
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,080
which is comparable to what we see in The Fife Player.
338
00:27:00,120 --> 00:27:04,320
There is also the space sharply segmented into planes,
339
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:10,320
green shutters which are perhaps the same as on Manet's The Balcony,
340
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:14,040
and then, of course, the figure of Zola.
341
00:27:14,120 --> 00:27:21,400
Zola is what Cézanne has in common between Aix-en-Provence and Paris.
342
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,280
He will give him a type of stature
343
00:27:23,360 --> 00:27:26,680
which cannot be considered without the painting
344
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,000
that Manet himself made of Zola.
345
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:34,200
So it's the work which most closely brings together Cézanne and Manet
346
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:39,360
and also shows both the way in which Cézanne absorbs this modernity.
347
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:12,240
Paris, 26th November 1874
348
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,080
My dear mother,
349
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,720
Pissarro has not been in Paris for about a month-and-a-half.
350
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:20,160
He is in Brittany.
351
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:25,760
But I know he has a good opinion of me and I have a good opinion of myself.
352
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:29,880
I am beginning to consider myself stronger than all those around me.
353
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:32,360
I have to work all the time,
354
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:36,600
but not to achieve the finish that earns the admiration of imbeciles.
355
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:39,560
I must strive for completion
356
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:44,640
purely for the satisfaction of becoming truer and wiser.
357
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:46,720
It is a very bad moment for sales.
358
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,120
All the bourgeois baulk at parting with their cash,
359
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:52,560
but that will end.
360
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,920
Aix, April 1876
361
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:04,480
My dear Pissarro,
362
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:08,680
Two days ago I received a large number of catalogues and newspapers
363
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,440
about your exhibition at dealer Durand-Ruel's.
364
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:19,080
I also learned that Monet's La Japonaise had been sold for 2,000 francs.
365
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,600
According to the papers, it seems that Manet's rejection by the Salon
366
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:25,440
has caused quite a stir,
367
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:27,920
and that he's doing his own exhibition at home.
368
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:34,520
Here, the frost was so severe that the fruit and vine harvests were ruined.
369
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:39,320
But that's the advantage of art. Painting endures.
370
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:45,600
Oh! I almost forgot to tell you that I was sent another rejection letter.
371
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,560
It's neither new nor surprising.
372
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:56,000
Aix, April 1876
373
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:57,760
My dear Pissarro,
374
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:02,000
If having the Impressionists as background can help me,
375
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,760
I'll show the best I have with them,
376
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,640
and something neutral with the others.
377
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:18,720
The palette is lightening after 1870
378
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:24,280
and what gradually emerges by the end of the '70s,
379
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,800
in terms of the application,
380
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,040
is this so-called constructive brushstroke
381
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,600
where he started to lay everything out
382
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:40,120
with smallish individual brushstrokes running diagonally usually
383
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:41,880
across figure and ground,
384
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:47,760
so that one recognises again the materiality of the marking
385
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:49,800
as well as the subject.
386
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,000
We have on the walls of the Musée Granet
387
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:04,600
a landscape that represents the Jas de Bouffan.
388
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,600
And in this landscape of Jas de Bouffan
389
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:09,840
there is a period of transition.
390
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:13,880
We are in the years 1870-76, maybe 77.
391
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:19,640
So we have a painting that shows on the right-hand side
392
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:24,160
elements that are still impressionistic but in the manner of Cézanne,
393
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:28,760
that's to say that its form is constructive and structuring,
394
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,480
it has a sense, an orientation, an inclination,
395
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:36,640
a coherence which gives an internal architecture to the painting.
396
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,080
But on the left-hand side of the painting
397
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:45,120
we have the future of Cézanne, Cézanne's great originality,
398
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:46,800
the invention of the coloured plane.
399
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:52,680
The coloured plane is a way for Cézanne to reveal space,
400
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:54,440
to modulate the volume
401
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:58,720
without needing either the atmospheric perspective
402
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:03,280
or the Euclidean perspective which has been used since the Renaissance,
403
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:08,440
but to invent a new way of modelling and revealing space by the coloured plane.
404
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:15,080
With this series of planes and this superimposition of planes,
405
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,320
this picture of the view from Jas de Bouffan
406
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:23,880
clearly demonstrates this period of transition between the years 1870-1880.
407
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:29,760
Cézanne applies both one part and then the other
408
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:31,520
in the same canvas
409
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,880
and we absolutely see that evolution in this picture.
410
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:46,480
Paris, 24th August 1877
411
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:48,760
Dear Émile,
412
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:52,760
It seems that a deep depression reigns in the Impressionist camp.
413
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,360
They are not exactly making their fortune.
414
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:00,360
We are living in very troubled times.
415
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,280
Cézanne is one of those artists
416
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,880
who surpasses, most ambitiously,
417
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:23,480
the Impressionist legacy.
418
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:26,680
He invents something else after impressionism
419
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:30,800
which comes from the personal and private trajectory
420
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,720
of an artist who will question passionately
421
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:35,720
the subject of representation
422
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:37,720
and the means of representation,
423
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:41,160
stylistic devices, materials for representation,
424
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,640
questioning most closely the way nature is represented,
425
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:47,080
which also raises the question
426
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,720
of how to represent the human figure in a very particular way,
427
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,600
leading to a particular relationship with portrait art.
428
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:07,080
And gradually we see by the 1870s and during the 1880s
429
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:11,679
the establishing of the style with which we are most familiar,
430
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,040
which is sort of Cézanne's definitive style
431
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:19,520
of breaking down form and of working with the tone of the works.
432
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:27,280
With an economy of means colour gives form.
433
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:29,000
Anything superfluous is removed,
434
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:30,560
anything ephemeral.
435
00:34:30,639 --> 00:34:33,159
You see that only the structure of things is retained.
436
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,120
And this quest for form, for permanence,
437
00:34:38,199 --> 00:34:41,120
for the essence of things, for representations
438
00:34:41,199 --> 00:34:44,320
is what someone such as Picasso was going to look at
439
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:48,040
and sense something there, a new way,
440
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:50,840
a painter's driving force.
441
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,680
Hortense Fiquet is his companion.
442
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:47,880
She gave him a son in January 1872.
443
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,080
Cézanne did not say anything to his father
444
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,800
until the day his father received in the mail here
445
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,720
a letter addressed to his son Paul.
446
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,760
He opens the mail. It's the head of the family who opens the mail.
447
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:02,560
And he realises that he is a grandfather.
448
00:36:03,240 --> 00:36:05,240
He doesn't tell his son.
449
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:06,760
He says, "Listen, my son",
450
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,160
as you are without children
451
00:36:09,240 --> 00:36:12,680
"and without a family, you do not need all the money I send you."
452
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,240
And he partly cuts his allowance.
453
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,360
And there Zola will play a major role.
454
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,760
For ten years, from 1876 to 1886,
455
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:26,600
he will regularly send Cézanne money.
456
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:32,880
23rd March 1878
457
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:35,240
Dear Émile,
458
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:39,160
I seem to be on the verge of having to fend for myself,
459
00:36:39,240 --> 00:36:41,640
if indeed I'm up to it.
460
00:36:41,720 --> 00:36:46,000
Relations between my father and myself are becoming very tense.
461
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:48,880
And I risk losing my entire allowance.
462
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:52,160
A letter from Monsieur Chocquet
463
00:36:52,240 --> 00:36:55,000
in which he mentioned Madame Cézanne and little Paul
464
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:58,800
provided conclusive proof of my situation to my father,
465
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:03,040
who by the way was already alert, full of suspicions,
466
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:06,240
and who had nothing better to do than to unseal
467
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:10,280
and be the first to read the letter that was sent to me,
468
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:15,720
even though it was addressed to Monsieur Paul Cézanne, painter.
469
00:37:20,240 --> 00:37:23,760
Aix, 4th April 1878
470
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:26,560
My dear Émile,
471
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:31,200
Please send 60 francs to Hortense in Marseilles.
472
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,520
I have only been able to secure 100 francs from my father
473
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,800
and I was even afraid that he might not give me anything at all.
474
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:42,080
He's heard from various people that I have a child
475
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:46,760
and he's trying by every means possible to catch me out.
476
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:48,440
He wants to rid me of it.
477
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,160
It would take too long to explain the good man to you
478
00:37:52,240 --> 00:37:56,440
but appearances are deceptive, believe you me.
479
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:01,240
I slipped off last week to see the little one in Marseilles
480
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:05,480
but missed the train back and had to walk the 30 kilometres.
481
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,280
I was an hour late for dinner.
482
00:38:16,720 --> 00:38:19,840
Hortense first and foremost served.
483
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:22,920
She took care of her husband all her life,
484
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:27,240
And contrary to what is often said, they lived much of their time together.
485
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:33,400
We mustn't forget that 50% of Cézanne's life was in the Paris area
486
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:37,560
and the other 50% here in Aix-en-Provence or nearby.
487
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:42,760
So the 50% in Paris they were together.
488
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:47,920
Hortense had the attitude of an artist's wife,
489
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,040
leaving him the freedom that he needed
490
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:52,320
and the same for her too.
491
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:57,840
From time to time things got a bit heated, like all couples.
492
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:01,120
But her everyday life was very busy, nothing was simple for her.
493
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,880
If you imagine that throughout her life
494
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,560
she moved 22 times to Paris.
495
00:39:08,240 --> 00:39:12,000
So she didn't ever have a stable life
496
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:13,680
and she always accepted that.
497
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:20,360
Cézanne was not interested in providing a great deal of information
498
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:24,360
about the inner life of the people he painted.
499
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:29,560
He was interested in recording the human presence in front of him.
500
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:35,520
But what he doesn't do is invite you into Hortense's mind.
501
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:42,520
I think that the assumption that Cézanne and Hortense didn't get along well
502
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:47,040
is based on wanting to read the portraits of her
503
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:49,760
as someone who looks like an automaton
504
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:53,160
or someone who looks miserable or so on and so forth,
505
00:39:53,240 --> 00:39:57,600
that is supposed to indicate that they didn't have a decent relationship.
506
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:00,600
However, among many other things,
507
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:05,760
she was his model and she had to sit still for a lot of time.
508
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:07,440
I have a very good friend
509
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:12,480
who has been a model for an artist for many, many years
510
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:16,000
and she says, "You sit there for a long time,"
511
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:19,880
you try not to make eye contact, you try not to move around
512
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,200
"and at times you're just bored."
513
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:24,640
"You're bored and you know you're going to show it."
514
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:36,360
Aix, 1st June 1878
515
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:43,400
Émile, please send the monthly request of 60 francs to Hortense.
516
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:46,720
27th August
517
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:50,560
Émile, I plan to spend all winter in Marseilles
518
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,480
if my father agrees to give me the money.
519
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:57,600
14th September
520
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:02,280
Hortense's father wrote to her but it came to the Jas de Bouffan.
521
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:06,760
My father opened it and read it. You can imagine the result.
522
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:10,720
But Papa gave me 300 francs this month.
523
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,400
Incredible. Why?
524
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:18,520
Well, I think he's making eyes at a charming maid of ours.
525
00:41:24,240 --> 00:41:27,720
24th September 1879
526
00:41:28,720 --> 00:41:30,480
My dear Émile,
527
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:32,400
Here is what prompts me to write,
528
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:34,880
for nothing happened since I left you in June
529
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,080
that could have led me to write a letter,
530
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:40,200
even though you were kind enough to say last time
531
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:42,240
that I should give you my news.
532
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:49,840
Today and tomorrow are so like yesterday that I don't know what to tell you.
533
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:54,560
I'm still trying to find my way pictorially.
534
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,320
Nature presents me with the greatest problems.
535
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,560
But I'm not getting on too badly.
536
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:08,440
Jas de Bouffan, 27th November 1882
537
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:10,240
My dear Émile,
538
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:12,640
I have decided to make a will.
539
00:42:12,720 --> 00:42:17,200
In the event of my death, I wish to leave half my income to my mother
540
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,720
and the other half to the little one.
541
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:23,200
I need to get the little one recognised at the town hall
542
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:26,440
or I fear my sisters would contest it.
543
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:48,760
The self-portraits are effectively an exhibition within the exhibition.
544
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:50,880
It's a subject on its own.
545
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,040
We can see clearly in the first self-portrait,
546
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:56,480
which is very disturbing with his bloodshot eyes,
547
00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:59,440
there is something nevertheless which speaks of introspection,
548
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:01,840
of a kind of confession too
549
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,840
from this young man who is somewhat ill at ease.
550
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:11,720
And when he resumes the portraits in the 1870s
551
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:16,640
there finally appears the Cézanne who is actually the earnest craftsman,
552
00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:18,160
who adopts certain conventions,
553
00:43:18,240 --> 00:43:20,000
depicting himself in the studio,
554
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:21,880
in a smock,
555
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:24,800
making his way of painting clear too.
556
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:31,640
And in the last self-portrait that he makes of himself around 1900
557
00:43:31,720 --> 00:43:34,480
we see this old man who depicts himself
558
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:36,720
in a very simple costume
559
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:40,080
and you have the impression that he is revealing himself to his painting.
560
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:47,440
So we oscillate between all these aspects,
561
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,920
but nevertheless Cézanne's character
562
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:53,280
is somewhat withdrawn
563
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:58,320
and doesn't prevent a certain moment of truth in the self-portraits.
564
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:08,280
We follow this evolution in terms of the question of self-portraits
565
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,200
which runs through all of the works
566
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:14,760
and which enables us to see Cézanne go back to this old questioning of painting
567
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:16,560
which is quite in keeping with Rembrandt,
568
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:20,360
seeing the passage of time on his physiognomy, on his own face,
569
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,520
"Here is what I was at this moment in my life."
570
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:37,440
So with very few external signs in the self-portraits
571
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,280
Cézanne is telling us something about his personality.
572
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:42,000
But it's fragmented.
573
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:46,080
It's like a giant puzzle for Cézanne's personality.
574
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:43,520
When we consider Cézanne's work,
575
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:46,720
we wonder how he could have lived while selling so few paintings
576
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,040
and, particularly with regards to the portraits,
577
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:54,240
creating works that he had little chance of selling.
578
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:59,000
His father gave him a meagre allowance that he could have made much bigger,
579
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:02,280
but which allowed him to survive in his early years.
580
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:05,680
And then Cézanne, at the end of the 1880s,
581
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,640
will inherit from his father these properties
582
00:46:08,720 --> 00:46:10,320
which provide him with security
583
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:13,520
and ultimately will offer him the luxury of being able to work
584
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,800
independently of the sale of his works.
585
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:18,480
And this material security
586
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,320
implies a very different relationship with the portrait,
587
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:22,760
for example, to that of a Renoir,
588
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:28,840
who was really quite poor and had no family support
589
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,040
and who therefore worked throughout his life,
590
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,320
particularly at the beginning, on portraits in order to survive
591
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,760
and who therefore has a very different approach to the portrait.
592
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:05,440
This self-portrait is not only the representation of Cézanne at work,
593
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:10,440
but it's a self-portrait that is a metaphor for the art of the painting.
594
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,520
Cézanne isn't completely revolutionary,
595
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:19,400
because he forms part of a prestigious tradition which includes Rembrandt
596
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:22,040
with the canvas seen from behind,
597
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:24,400
which is in itself a metaphor for artistic creation,
598
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:27,320
for the artist in the process of doing his work.
599
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:31,520
But something quite miraculous happens,
600
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:36,160
which is the multiplication of the planes being represented.
601
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:42,160
The plane of the easel in relation to the plane of the figure
602
00:47:42,240 --> 00:47:44,880
and, above all, the autonomy
603
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:48,640
of the palette's pictorial surface is fascinating.
604
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:55,200
The palette is directly parallel to the plane of representation,
605
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,360
so it is no longer at all in a plausible position
606
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:00,880
with respect to the artist's hand
607
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,640
and is itself a metaphor for painting.
608
00:48:03,720 --> 00:48:07,240
This is the uniqueness and power of the painting
609
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:09,480
which could tip over into abstraction
610
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:14,680
which Cézanne won't do but what appears on the palette is absolutely marvellous,
611
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,080
especially if we consider that relationship of the palette
612
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,160
to the painting itself.
613
00:48:20,240 --> 00:48:25,200
And that's also why, in addition to the brilliance of the construction,
614
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:27,640
this self-portrait fascinates us today
615
00:48:27,720 --> 00:48:30,080
and why it had its place in our exhibition.
616
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:56,400
Paris, 27th November 1889
617
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:02,280
The numerous studies to which I devoted myself
618
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:05,120
having produced only negative results,
619
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:08,680
and dreading criticism that is only too justified,
620
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:11,480
I had resolved to work in silence,
621
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:15,680
until the day when I should feel capable of defending theoretically
622
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,080
the results of my endeavours.
623
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,560
1st August 1890
624
00:49:25,240 --> 00:49:26,880
Chère Madame,
625
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,360
You must be back from Paris, so I'm sending you my letter.
626
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:35,400
We're going to leave on Thursday or Friday for Switzerland
627
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:37,920
where we expect to end the season.
628
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:41,720
It is very good weather and we are hoping that continues.
629
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:48,200
Little Paul and I have already spent ten days in Switzerland
630
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:53,560
and we found that country so beautiful that we came back eager to return.
631
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:59,360
We saw Vevey where Courbet did the lovely painting that you own.
632
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:01,480
I hope, dear Madame,
633
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:05,200
that you and Monsieur Chocquet and little Maris are well.
634
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:06,360
We are fine.
635
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:09,320
I feel better than when I left,
636
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:11,640
and am hoping that my trip to Switzerland
637
00:50:11,720 --> 00:50:14,400
will put me right completely.
638
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:26,560
We plan to look for somewhere to stay and to spend the summer there.
639
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:30,240
My husband has been working pretty well.
640
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,320
Unfortunately he was disturbed by the bad weather that we had
641
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,560
up until 10th July.
642
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,880
Still he continues to apply himself to the landscape
643
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:44,080
with a tenacity deserving of a better fate.
644
00:51:47,720 --> 00:51:53,600
The most sensational grouping is without doubt
645
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:57,040
the versions of Madame Cézanne in a yellow chair
646
00:51:57,120 --> 00:51:58,160
in this red dress.
647
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:07,120
We see Cézanne simultaneously treat his wife geometrically
648
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:10,640
and in so doing reduce her almost to a still life,
649
00:52:10,720 --> 00:52:16,480
changing her position and the way she is presented in the space,
650
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:18,800
in the same way that you'd imagine
651
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:21,880
he might move elements of a still life itself,
652
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:24,400
a fruit bowl, an apple, a jug.
653
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:29,360
And you can see very clearly that at a certain moment
654
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:33,320
he's in sketching mode, at another moment reworking.
655
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:38,720
And at the same time he's varying this relationship to space
656
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:41,400
and this new perception of space.
657
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:46,680
Here we're touching upon one of Cézanne's major contributions
658
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:48,640
to 20th-century art.
659
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:51,360
You see the same model
660
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:54,040
a few hours apart,
661
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:57,440
whose face is different, who doesn't have the same attitude,
662
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:00,040
suggesting a different psychological state,
663
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:03,320
but who doesn't give you many clues to help understand and decipher her.
664
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:06,760
You have a serial effect which is very interesting
665
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:08,920
and which is also interesting to compare with
666
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:11,760
the serial effect in Monet in the same period,
667
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:14,800
who is also someone who went beyond impressionism.
668
00:53:17,040 --> 00:53:20,280
With Monet it's a race with light, with time.
669
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:23,800
The motif of cathedrals, or haystacks...
670
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:27,160
We all know about this magnificent serial work that he created.
671
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:35,360
With Cézanne it's a race to the essence of the model, of the character.
672
00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:59,920
This is Boy in a Red Waistcoat
673
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:02,720
and it is my favourite painting in the show
674
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:05,600
and in fact my favourite painting at the National Gallery of Art.
675
00:54:06,720 --> 00:54:12,720
It is a portrait of a young boy named Michelangelo di Rosa,
676
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:17,520
who was a model and this is the only paid model that we know he ever used,
677
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:21,520
this Italian boy that was a regular model in the neighbourhood.
678
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:24,400
Cézanne goes to the Louvre
679
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:30,520
and he's looking at Renaissance Florentine Mannerist portraits,
680
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:33,480
people like Bronzino and Pontormo.
681
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:36,440
They are wonderful in that they are
682
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:41,400
evocations of a very particular kind of arrogant youth.
683
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:45,800
Fashion was at a high level at this moment
684
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:47,880
and so they tended to be beautifully dressed
685
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:51,040
and they were also soldiers, they were very fit.
686
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:54,600
So it's a very particular moment, I think, in the history of adolescence
687
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:57,160
that Cézanne is responding to.
688
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,240
His son is about the age of this young model
689
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:03,160
and I think it is a really beautiful portrayal
690
00:55:03,240 --> 00:55:07,320
of this very human phenomenon of adolescence.
691
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:11,680
A young man who is still very much a boy.
692
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:13,880
The features are very delicate.
693
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:19,920
The expression is one of simultaneous confidence and a little trepidation,
694
00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:21,920
maybe even melancholy.
695
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:26,720
And then in the pose he's got this wonderful sort of swagger.
696
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:30,600
His hips are cocked, which sets his whole body in motion,
697
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:35,480
and then again this very thin touch, these little almost washes
698
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:38,760
with which he describes the face, the brow and the nose
699
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:43,200
and that wonderful little mouth, all within a perfect shape of the oval.
700
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:46,440
And I think it's an extraordinarily moving image
701
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:49,200
of a boy becoming a man.
702
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:53,840
So he establishes the figure
703
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:56,920
by, on the left side of the composition,
704
00:55:57,040 --> 00:56:01,000
really creating a kind of stability and solidity
705
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:04,720
and then, as you move across to the right side of the canvas,
706
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:07,640
things start to sort of undulate and curve
707
00:56:07,720 --> 00:56:11,840
and the whole composition sort of starts to slide to the right.
708
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:15,680
This is a game that he plays with still life very frequently,
709
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:20,600
where he'll set up orbs and jars and plates on a rectangular table
710
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:23,200
and it feels very staid and secure
711
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:25,680
and then the longer you look at it
712
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:30,840
the more you realise that everything is floating and moving and instability
713
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:33,480
where you thought things were fairly tied down.
714
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:37,240
So it's his constant game
715
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:43,640
of creating a convincing, solid evocation of visual reality
716
00:56:43,720 --> 00:56:47,240
but at the same time complicating that experience
717
00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:48,600
as one of artifice,
718
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:53,080
as one of a game played with coloured paint on a two-dimensional surface.
719
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:57,520
As an experience, as a visual experience standing in front of the painting,
720
00:56:57,600 --> 00:56:59,440
it's incredibly alive
721
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:04,040
and it almost feels like something sort of spiritual or philosophical
722
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:07,520
as you're visually experiencing what Cézanne has conveyed
723
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:12,080
about this figure or with this figure about reality or humanity.
724
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:41,440
I think seeing Cézanne's portraits in the context of a portrait gallery
725
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:44,560
is especially interesting and obviously the context here in London
726
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:48,040
is quite different from the context in either Paris or in Washington.
727
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,680
What's unique about the exhibition here
728
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:55,320
is that we're focusing on portraiture first and foremost,
729
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:56,720
so portraiture as a medium.
730
00:57:56,800 --> 00:57:58,720
And of course the National Portrait Gallery
731
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:04,040
was the first portrait gallery in the world when it was founded in 1856.
732
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:06,160
And I think the origins are quite interesting.
733
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:07,680
It was essentially founded
734
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:11,920
to collect portraits of eminent British men and women
735
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:13,880
that had made British history
736
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:18,360
and to reflect on the idea of achievement, nationhood,
737
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:20,640
biography and character.
738
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:22,000
So although we live now
739
00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:25,280
in an era saturated by portraits or self-portraits,
740
00:58:25,360 --> 00:58:29,640
whether it's selfies or Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat,
741
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:33,280
perhaps we're more resonant now than ever before
742
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:36,840
because people have this great interest in identity, self-portraiture
743
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:38,560
and representation.
744
00:58:56,360 --> 00:58:59,080
I think it has been lined... - Yes.
745
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:03,440
There's liner's paper there, and this is the original edge.
746
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:05,040
Yes, you see there it's the same thing
747
00:59:05,120 --> 00:59:08,400
but you can see clearly that that's just the edge of the painting...
748
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:11,640
I think there's many factors that make an exhibition successful
749
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:14,400
and I wouldn't say that's just to do with attendance,
750
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:17,400
i.e. the idea that an exhibition is a blockbuster and successful
751
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:19,320
if lots of people come and see it.
752
00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:24,320
The issues around a great exhibition as a former curator myself
753
00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:27,120
is the integrity with which it's realised.
754
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:30,480
And that really begins with someone's vision
755
00:59:30,560 --> 00:59:34,040
of what the exhibition should do and say and achieve.
756
00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:36,360
And then the question is how you execute that
757
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:40,160
and explain and convey that to an audience.
758
00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:47,000
It's not that clear... - Top, bottom and left edge...
759
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:49,480
Maybe they've just got their left and right muddled?
760
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:53,600
It's definitely visible at the top. - Maybe.
761
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:55,720
I think that's the abrasion...
762
00:59:55,800 --> 00:59:59,080
That abrasion has always been there, so it's not like it's...
763
01:00:00,720 --> 01:00:04,240
What height are we going to because this is hanging higher?
764
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:08,120
It can't be centred on that because it's going to be too big.
765
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:11,880
Yes, let's look at it again with that one.
766
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:14,680
It's good we can look right into his bloodshot eyes.
767
01:00:14,760 --> 01:00:16,480
It's OK. Yeah, that's good.
768
01:00:33,400 --> 01:00:35,800
November 1894
769
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:43,280
Paul is so peculiar, so fearful of seeing new faces,
770
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:47,320
that I'm afraid he may let us down and not come to dinner,
771
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:49,520
despite his wish to meet you.
772
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:54,320
What a pity that this man has not had more support in his life!
773
01:00:55,120 --> 01:01:00,200
He is a true artist who suffers too much self-doubt.
774
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:02,880
He needs to be cheered up.
775
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:12,760
This is one of his beautiful works, even though it is unfinished.
776
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:19,240
The library, the papers on the table, the little Rodin plaster sculpture,
777
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:22,920
the artificial rose that he brought at the start of the sessions,
778
01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:25,400
everything is of the first rank.
779
01:01:26,600 --> 01:01:29,680
And of course there is also a character in this scene,
780
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:32,560
which is painted with meticulous care,
781
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:37,000
with a richness and an incomparable harmony of tones.
782
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:40,000
He only sketched in the face, however,
783
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:44,600
always saying, "Hm... Perhaps I'll leave that to the end."
784
01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:47,440
Alas, the end never came.
785
01:01:48,800 --> 01:01:53,800
One fine day, Cézanne sent for his easel, brushes and paints,
786
01:01:53,880 --> 01:01:57,400
writing to me that the project was clearly beyond him,
787
01:01:57,480 --> 01:01:59,600
he had been wrong to undertake it,
788
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:02,560
and apologising for abandoning it.
789
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:06,560
I insisted that he come back, telling him what I thought,
790
01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:10,680
that he had started a very fine work and that he should finish it.
791
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:13,320
He came back,
792
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:15,920
and for a week he seemed to work,
793
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:20,560
adding fine films of colour, as only he knew how,
794
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:24,280
always retaining the freshness and sparkle of the painting.
795
01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:28,240
But his heart was no longer in it.
796
01:02:28,320 --> 01:02:32,280
He left for Aix, leaving behind the portrait,
797
01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:34,840
as he had left so many other paintings,
798
01:02:34,920 --> 01:02:38,640
things of wonderful vision and realisation.
799
01:02:46,360 --> 01:02:51,200
Aix, 6th July 1895
800
01:02:52,040 --> 01:02:57,320
I had to abandon for the time being the study that I'd started of Geffroy,
801
01:02:57,400 --> 01:03:00,720
who placed himself so generously at my disposal,
802
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:03,840
and I'm a little embarrassed at the meagre results I obtained,
803
01:03:03,920 --> 01:03:06,440
especially after so many sittings,
804
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:10,320
and successive bursts of enthusiasm and discouragement.
805
01:03:10,400 --> 01:03:12,880
So I've landed up home
806
01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:15,360
which I perhaps should never have left
807
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:19,240
to embark on the chimerical pursuit of art.
808
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:24,480
30th April 1896
809
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:26,600
My dear Monsieur Gasquet,
810
01:03:28,080 --> 01:03:32,120
You do not see, then, the sad state to which I am reduced.
811
01:03:32,200 --> 01:03:36,840
No longer my own master, the man who does not exist.
812
01:03:36,920 --> 01:03:41,920
Yet you, who would be a philosopher, want to finish me off?
813
01:03:42,040 --> 01:03:45,160
But I curse the Geffroys and the other scoundrels
814
01:03:45,240 --> 01:03:49,800
who, for a 50-franc article, have drawn the attention of the public to me.
815
01:03:50,720 --> 01:03:55,600
All my life, I have worked to be able to earn my living,
816
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:57,760
but I thought that one could paint well
817
01:03:57,840 --> 01:04:01,400
without attracting attention to one's private life.
818
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:06,280
Certainly an artist wishes to improve himself intellectually
819
01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:07,600
as much as possible,
820
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:10,400
but the man should remain obscure.
821
01:04:11,280 --> 01:04:14,640
The pleasure must be found in the study.
822
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:16,279
If it had been left to me,
823
01:04:16,360 --> 01:04:19,800
I should have stayed in my corner with a few friends from the studio
824
01:04:19,880 --> 01:04:23,640
with whom I might go out for the odd drink.
825
01:04:34,600 --> 01:04:37,160
August 1897
826
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:40,240
My dear Solari,
827
01:04:40,320 --> 01:04:43,440
On Sunday, if you're free, come visit.
828
01:04:43,520 --> 01:04:47,360
If you come in the morning, you'll find me around 8am in the quarry
829
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:50,120
where you drew with me before.
830
01:04:50,200 --> 01:04:54,080
Then if you would like to, we will have lunch in Tholonet.
831
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:56,720
You must come eat a duck with me.
832
01:04:56,800 --> 01:05:00,480
Done in olives. The duck, of course.
833
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:14,680
26th September 1897
834
01:05:16,640 --> 01:05:18,120
Dear Gasquet,
835
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:21,720
Art is a harmony parallel to nature.
836
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:24,880
What can those imbeciles be thinking
837
01:05:25,000 --> 01:05:29,000
who say that the artist always falls short of nature?
838
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:36,680
Aix, 1st November 1897
839
01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:38,360
Dear Solari,
840
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:42,400
I received your letter telling me of your forthcoming marriage.
841
01:05:42,480 --> 01:05:45,200
I have no doubt that in your future companion
842
01:05:45,279 --> 01:05:49,000
you will find the support indispensable to every man
843
01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:52,840
who has a long and often arduous career ahead of him.
844
01:05:54,920 --> 01:05:58,240
I know your writing brings you difficulties
845
01:05:58,320 --> 01:06:02,480
but be brave, as you have to, to succeed.
846
01:06:04,080 --> 01:06:06,640
By the time these few words reach you,
847
01:06:06,720 --> 01:06:10,040
you'll have heard of the death of my poor mother.
848
01:06:11,200 --> 01:06:12,400
Paul
849
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:03,040
Aix, 3rd February 1902
850
01:07:03,120 --> 01:07:05,360
My dear Monsieur Aurenche,
851
01:07:06,520 --> 01:07:09,800
I haven't been able to feel close to anyone here.
852
01:07:09,880 --> 01:07:12,920
Sometimes I have flights of enthusiasm,
853
01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:15,840
more often painful disappointments.
854
01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:17,720
Such is life.
855
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:23,760
When you are sad, think of old friends and do not give up art altogether.
856
01:07:23,840 --> 01:07:28,640
It is the most intimate expression of who we are.
857
01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:35,080
Aix, March 1902
858
01:07:35,720 --> 01:07:38,080
Dear Monsieur Aurenche,
859
01:07:38,160 --> 01:07:40,160
I have a lot of work to do.
860
01:07:40,240 --> 01:07:44,000
That is what happens to anyone who is someone serious.
861
01:07:44,080 --> 01:07:47,200
That is the only true recourse we have here on earth
862
01:07:47,279 --> 01:07:50,400
to take our mind off the worries that hound us.
863
01:07:54,120 --> 01:07:57,400
Aix, 8th July 1902
864
01:07:58,440 --> 01:08:00,040
Dear Gasquet,
865
01:08:00,640 --> 01:08:04,200
I am pursuing success through work.
866
01:08:04,279 --> 01:08:09,360
I despise all living painters except Monet and Renoir,
867
01:08:09,440 --> 01:08:12,320
and I want to succeed through work.
868
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:20,200
Aix, 9th January 1903
869
01:08:20,840 --> 01:08:22,800
Dear Monsieur Vollard,
870
01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:27,000
I work tenaciously.
871
01:08:27,080 --> 01:08:29,800
I glimpse the Promised Land.
872
01:08:29,880 --> 01:08:32,680
Will I be like the great leader of the Hebrews?
873
01:08:32,760 --> 01:08:34,680
Will I be able to enter?
874
01:08:35,559 --> 01:08:37,440
I've made some progress.
875
01:08:37,520 --> 01:08:39,680
Why so late and laboriously?
876
01:08:40,520 --> 01:08:45,120
Is art really a priesthood that requires the pure in heart
877
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:48,359
who completely surrender themselves to it?
878
01:08:52,640 --> 01:08:56,279
Cézanne, when looking at his correspondence,
879
01:08:56,359 --> 01:08:59,880
is always very kind to Vollard.
880
01:09:00,000 --> 01:09:01,800
He considers that Vollard helped him
881
01:09:01,880 --> 01:09:03,160
and it is true.
882
01:09:03,240 --> 01:09:08,040
In 1895 Cézanne is almost 60.
883
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:11,120
He has not yet had a solo exhibition in Paris
884
01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:14,080
and the first one who is going to hold this exhibition
885
01:09:14,160 --> 01:09:16,720
is a young gallery owner,
886
01:09:16,800 --> 01:09:20,200
newly established in Paris,
887
01:09:20,279 --> 01:09:22,840
who is therefore interested in his work
888
01:09:22,920 --> 01:09:28,000
and holds an exhibition in 1895 of his paintings.
889
01:09:28,800 --> 01:09:33,440
Then we have this magnificent anecdote about the portrait of Vollard.
890
01:09:33,520 --> 01:09:35,399
Vollard recounts the story.
891
01:09:35,479 --> 01:09:39,640
After 115 horribly long sessions
892
01:09:39,720 --> 01:09:42,440
he asks if he is happy with his painting.
893
01:09:42,520 --> 01:09:45,000
Cézanne tells him, "Yes, I am not too unhappy with the front,"
894
01:09:45,080 --> 01:09:47,319
the front of the shirt.
895
01:09:47,399 --> 01:09:51,920
And when asked why he had not painted a tiny square on his hand,
896
01:09:52,040 --> 01:09:53,359
Cézanne told him,
897
01:09:53,440 --> 01:09:55,200
"I do not want to be wrong."
898
01:09:55,280 --> 01:09:57,240
"I shall go to the Louvre this afternoon
899
01:09:57,320 --> 01:10:01,480
and if I find the right values I could finish these two small areas."
900
01:10:02,120 --> 01:10:05,559
Very small but they still exist on the picture today.
901
01:10:05,640 --> 01:10:07,640
And he explained to Vollard by telling him,
902
01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:11,040
"If I am wrong on these two small squares,
903
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,360
I would be obliged to redo the whole picture."
904
01:10:43,559 --> 01:10:46,120
We're here in his studio.
905
01:10:46,200 --> 01:10:49,559
You have large bay windows with the northern light,
906
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:51,200
because it is a constant light.
907
01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:54,200
After his mother's death,
908
01:10:54,280 --> 01:10:57,559
the Jas de Bouffan was in co-ownership with his two sisters
909
01:10:57,640 --> 01:11:02,800
and his brother-in-law requested division to sell the estate.
910
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:05,440
With money Cézanne had two solutions,
911
01:11:05,520 --> 01:11:07,680
either to buy out his sisters
912
01:11:07,760 --> 01:11:09,400
but he'd have no more money to live on,
913
01:11:10,080 --> 01:11:13,760
or let them sell and he'd have to live elsewhere.
914
01:11:14,280 --> 01:11:16,160
He chose the second solution
915
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:18,360
and he quickly bought this land,
916
01:11:18,440 --> 01:11:22,120
which suited him because it was far from the city centre,
917
01:11:22,200 --> 01:11:26,520
and with his plans he built the studio he had always wanted.
918
01:11:27,840 --> 01:11:30,880
My grandfather, so Paul Cézanne's son,
919
01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:34,720
was first with his birth, then as a little boy,
920
01:11:34,800 --> 01:11:36,800
finally the link with life
921
01:11:36,880 --> 01:11:39,520
that was very important as an anchor
922
01:11:39,600 --> 01:11:42,559
for the painter in his daily life.
923
01:11:42,640 --> 01:11:50,480
And then, growing up, there was this mutual respect that developed
924
01:11:50,559 --> 01:11:52,480
and very quickly, as a young man,
925
01:11:52,559 --> 01:11:55,120
my grandfather found himself in charge
926
01:11:55,200 --> 01:11:58,559
of all the problems of everyday life the painter did not like.
927
01:11:58,640 --> 01:12:03,240
He took over and managed the day-to-day,
928
01:12:03,320 --> 01:12:07,280
because, in fact, apart from his painting Cézanne was a little lost.
929
01:12:10,920 --> 01:12:14,520
Aix, 22nd February 1903
930
01:12:15,120 --> 01:12:17,680
Dear Monsieur Camoin,
931
01:12:18,440 --> 01:12:22,840
Very tired, 64 years of age...
932
01:12:22,920 --> 01:12:27,520
My son, now in Paris, is a great philosopher.
933
01:12:27,600 --> 01:12:31,760
By that I don't mean the equal of Diderot, Voltaire or Rousseau.
934
01:12:31,840 --> 01:12:37,280
He is rather touchy, incurious, but a good boy.
935
01:12:39,400 --> 01:12:43,480
Aix, 13th September 1903
936
01:12:43,559 --> 01:12:45,840
Dear Monsieur Camoin,
937
01:12:46,600 --> 01:12:49,280
Thomas Couture used to tell his pupils,
938
01:12:49,360 --> 01:12:54,200
"Keep good company, that is, go to the Louvre."
939
01:12:54,280 --> 01:12:57,280
But after seeing the Great Masters who repose there,
940
01:12:57,360 --> 01:12:59,120
one must hasten to leave
941
01:12:59,200 --> 01:13:05,000
and, through nature, revive in oneself the artistic instincts and sensations
942
01:13:05,080 --> 01:13:07,000
that reside within us.
943
01:13:15,080 --> 01:13:20,120
Aix, 25th January 1904
944
01:13:21,200 --> 01:13:23,920
My dear Monsieur Aurenche,
945
01:13:24,040 --> 01:13:28,840
My realisation in art I believe I attain more each day,
946
01:13:28,920 --> 01:13:31,559
if a little laboriously.
947
01:13:31,640 --> 01:13:36,040
For if the keen sensation of nature, and I certainly have that,
948
01:13:36,120 --> 01:13:39,640
is the necessary basis for all artistic conception,
949
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:44,040
on which rests the grandeur and beauty of future work,
950
01:13:44,120 --> 01:13:48,800
knowledge of the means of expressing our emotion is no less essential,
951
01:13:48,880 --> 01:13:54,320
and is acquired only through very long experience.
952
01:14:03,160 --> 01:14:06,480
Aix, 15th April 1904
953
01:14:07,160 --> 01:14:09,200
Dear Monsieur Bernard,
954
01:14:12,800 --> 01:14:17,559
to treat nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone,
955
01:14:17,640 --> 01:14:19,280
everything put in perspective,
956
01:14:19,360 --> 01:14:24,360
so that each side of an object, of a plane, leads to a central point.
957
01:14:33,920 --> 01:14:37,920
Lines parallel to the horizon give breadth.
958
01:14:38,040 --> 01:14:41,840
Lines perpendicular to this horizon give depth.
959
01:14:41,920 --> 01:14:46,880
Now, we men experience nature more in terms of depth than surface,
960
01:14:47,000 --> 01:14:50,440
whence the need to introduce into our vibrations of light,
961
01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:52,760
represented by reds and yellows,
962
01:14:52,840 --> 01:14:58,120
a sufficient quantity of blue tones, to give a sense of atmosphere.
963
01:15:04,640 --> 01:15:07,280
Aix, 12th May 1904
964
01:15:08,040 --> 01:15:10,080
Dear Bernard,
965
01:15:10,160 --> 01:15:13,120
Nature appears to me very complex,
966
01:15:13,200 --> 01:15:16,040
and the improvements to be made are never-ending.
967
01:15:17,200 --> 01:15:21,680
One must see one's model clearly and feel it exactly right,
968
01:15:21,760 --> 01:15:26,240
and then express oneself with distinction and force.
969
01:15:26,760 --> 01:15:29,080
Taste is the best judge.
970
01:15:29,160 --> 01:15:30,360
It is rare.
971
01:15:30,440 --> 01:15:34,880
Art speaks only to an excessively small group of people.
972
01:15:36,360 --> 01:15:38,559
The artist should scorn all opinion
973
01:15:38,640 --> 01:15:42,400
not based on the intelligent observation of character.
974
01:15:48,160 --> 01:15:52,000
Aix, 11th November 1904
975
01:15:53,240 --> 01:15:55,040
Dear Monsieur Vollard,
976
01:15:55,120 --> 01:16:00,240
A little tardily, I acknowledge receipt of your transfer of 2,000 francs,
977
01:16:00,320 --> 01:16:03,000
and I enclose herewith two signatures.
978
01:16:04,600 --> 01:16:09,160
My father is delighted with the success of the Salon d'Automne
979
01:16:09,240 --> 01:16:11,040
and he is most grateful to you
980
01:16:11,120 --> 01:16:13,880
for the care you have taken with this exhibition.
981
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:16,600
He will be very happy to see the four walls
982
01:16:16,680 --> 01:16:20,040
of the room that was graciously devoted to him.
983
01:16:20,120 --> 01:16:24,240
I await the first batch of photographs that you are about to send.
984
01:16:26,400 --> 01:16:30,880
My father is as keen as ever on his art, as you can imagine.
985
01:16:31,000 --> 01:16:34,120
The canvas of the bathers is making progress.
986
01:16:37,640 --> 01:16:39,880
Aix, 1905
987
01:16:40,440 --> 01:16:42,280
My dear Bernard,
988
01:16:42,360 --> 01:16:46,600
The Louvre is the book from which we learn to read.
989
01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:50,920
However, we should not be content with holding on to beautiful nature.
990
01:16:51,040 --> 01:16:56,000
Let us try to capture its spirit, let us seek to express ourselves
991
01:16:56,080 --> 01:16:59,240
according to our individual temperaments.
992
01:17:00,200 --> 01:17:03,840
Time and reflection modify our vision, moreover,
993
01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:07,200
and at last we reach understanding.
994
01:17:45,800 --> 01:17:49,000
When we touch Cézanne we are touching an icon.
995
01:17:49,080 --> 01:17:52,000
And when you see how his way of addressing the portrait changes
996
01:17:52,080 --> 01:17:57,400
all the resonances which appear in the great Picassos of the Rose Period,
997
01:17:57,480 --> 01:18:01,840
in Modigliani, in Giacometti,
998
01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:05,280
in all these great artists who will make history in the 20th century,
999
01:18:05,360 --> 01:18:07,160
you understand why Cézanne is
1000
01:18:07,240 --> 01:18:10,080
this great intermediary between the 19th and the 20th centuries.
1001
01:18:10,160 --> 01:18:12,760
He was an extraordinary portrait painter
1002
01:18:12,840 --> 01:18:17,400
and probably the most important since Rembrandt
1003
01:18:17,480 --> 01:18:21,600
in that he is really painting humanity.
1004
01:18:21,680 --> 01:18:24,720
They are, some of them, difficult paintings
1005
01:18:24,800 --> 01:18:30,520
if one is thinking about portraits as images of faces
1006
01:18:30,600 --> 01:18:34,360
but the expression is in the whole canvas.
1007
01:18:34,440 --> 01:18:39,920
As Matisse said, "Expression for me isn't in gesture or in face"
1008
01:18:40,040 --> 01:18:42,120
but in the whole composition,"
1009
01:18:42,200 --> 01:18:47,800
and this is a major gift that Cézanne gave to modern painting.
1010
01:18:48,320 --> 01:18:50,400
Cézanne's tone is completely unique.
1011
01:18:50,480 --> 01:18:52,520
It's almost as if it escaped from its period,
1012
01:18:52,600 --> 01:18:55,440
already far in advance,
1013
01:18:55,520 --> 01:18:58,440
moving towards the abstract.
1014
01:18:58,520 --> 01:18:59,800
And that's why, I think
1015
01:18:59,880 --> 01:19:03,760
that artists such as Picasso, Braque and others
1016
01:19:03,840 --> 01:19:08,360
saw in Cézanne a forefather, a figurehead,
1017
01:19:08,440 --> 01:19:10,480
because he paved the way to this possibility.
1018
01:19:10,559 --> 01:19:12,760
Cézanne is a painter's painter, above all.
1019
01:19:12,840 --> 01:19:15,200
It's difficult painting.
1020
01:19:15,280 --> 01:19:16,720
You have to go engage with it.
1021
01:19:16,800 --> 01:19:19,280
But all the great artists of his generation
1022
01:19:19,360 --> 01:19:21,240
and younger artists who followed him
1023
01:19:21,320 --> 01:19:24,720
truly appreciated the absolute nature
1024
01:19:24,800 --> 01:19:26,320
of the vision and mission
1025
01:19:26,400 --> 01:19:29,120
of someone who was essentially a modern artist.
1026
01:19:36,120 --> 01:19:40,600
Aix, 3rd August 1906
1027
01:19:42,520 --> 01:19:44,520
My dear Paul,
1028
01:19:44,600 --> 01:19:46,080
I get up early
1029
01:19:46,160 --> 01:19:51,120
and it's only really between five and eight that I can lead my own life,
1030
01:19:51,200 --> 01:19:53,320
by the time the heat becomes stupefying
1031
01:19:53,400 --> 01:19:57,559
and saps the brain so much I can't even think of painting.
1032
01:20:00,360 --> 01:20:02,320
I caught bronchitis.
1033
01:20:02,400 --> 01:20:05,840
I've abandoned homeopathy for old-fashioned mixed syrups.
1034
01:20:07,120 --> 01:20:10,280
It's a shame that I can't give many demonstrations
1035
01:20:10,360 --> 01:20:13,080
of my ideas and sensations.
1036
01:20:13,760 --> 01:20:16,320
Long live the Goncourts, Pissarro,
1037
01:20:16,400 --> 01:20:19,440
and all those who have a propensity for colour,
1038
01:20:19,520 --> 01:20:22,400
which represents light and air.
1039
01:20:23,920 --> 01:20:28,040
I know that with the terrible heat you and Maman will be tired,
1040
01:20:28,120 --> 01:20:31,200
so it's a good thing that you were both able to get back to Paris
1041
01:20:31,280 --> 01:20:36,320
in time to find yourselves in a less burning atmosphere.
1042
01:20:37,480 --> 01:20:40,840
I must remind you not to forget the slippers.
1043
01:20:40,920 --> 01:20:44,360
The ones I have are just about giving up on me.
1044
01:20:46,920 --> 01:20:52,160
Aix, 26th August 1906
1045
01:20:53,320 --> 01:20:54,880
My dear Paul,
1046
01:20:56,080 --> 01:20:57,760
When I forget to write to you,
1047
01:20:57,840 --> 01:21:01,720
it's because I lose track of time a little.
1048
01:21:01,800 --> 01:21:04,040
It's been terribly hot,
1049
01:21:04,120 --> 01:21:08,400
and in addition my nervous system must be much weakened.
1050
01:21:09,520 --> 01:21:12,200
Painting is the best thing for me.
1051
01:21:13,200 --> 01:21:16,720
I go to the river by carriage every day.
1052
01:21:16,800 --> 01:21:18,640
It's nice enough there,
1053
01:21:18,720 --> 01:21:21,440
but my weakness is getting me down.
1054
01:21:22,640 --> 01:21:26,120
I'm going to go up to the studio.
1055
01:21:26,200 --> 01:21:28,800
I got up late, after five.
1056
01:21:29,400 --> 01:21:30,800
I'm still working happily,
1057
01:21:30,880 --> 01:21:36,640
and yet sometimes the light is so bad that nature seems ugly to me.
1058
01:21:36,720 --> 01:21:40,000
So one has to choose.
1059
01:21:41,000 --> 01:21:43,680
My pen is hardly moving.
1060
01:21:44,360 --> 01:21:47,559
I embrace you both with all my heart,
1061
01:21:47,640 --> 01:21:54,559
and remember me to all the friends who still think of me across time and space.
1062
01:21:55,320 --> 01:21:59,360
A big hug for you and Maman.
1063
01:22:01,640 --> 01:22:05,160
Aix, 8th September 1906
1064
01:22:05,840 --> 01:22:07,559
My dear Paul,
1065
01:22:07,640 --> 01:22:11,640
Today... It's nearly 11. A new heat wave.
1066
01:22:12,160 --> 01:22:15,600
The air is overheated, not a hint of a breeze.
1067
01:22:16,160 --> 01:22:20,360
The only thing such a temperature is good for is to expand metals,
1068
01:22:20,440 --> 01:22:25,280
encourage the sale of drinks, make beer merchants happy,
1069
01:22:25,360 --> 01:22:30,520
an industry that seems to be attaining respectable proportions in Aix,
1070
01:22:30,600 --> 01:22:34,720
and swell the pretentions of the intellectuals of my country,
1071
01:22:34,800 --> 01:22:39,920
a load of old sods, idiots and fools.
1072
01:22:40,880 --> 01:22:45,280
The exceptions, and there may be some, keep their heads down.
1073
01:22:48,400 --> 01:22:51,880
Finally, I must tell you that as a painter
1074
01:22:52,000 --> 01:22:56,160
I'm becoming more clear-sighted in front of nature,
1075
01:22:56,240 --> 01:23:00,760
but the realisation of my sensations is still very laboured.
1076
01:23:01,600 --> 01:23:05,200
I can't achieve the intensity that builds in my senses.
1077
01:23:05,760 --> 01:23:11,160
I don't have that magnificent richness of colour that enlivens nature.
1078
01:23:11,240 --> 01:23:13,840
Here, the motifs multiply,
1079
01:23:13,920 --> 01:23:16,040
the same subject from a different angle
1080
01:23:16,120 --> 01:23:18,760
provides a fascinating subject for study,
1081
01:23:18,840 --> 01:23:25,240
and so varied that I think I could occupy myself for months without moving,
1082
01:23:25,320 --> 01:23:27,840
leaning now more to the right,
1083
01:23:27,920 --> 01:23:30,160
now more to the left.
1084
01:23:32,840 --> 01:23:34,480
My dear Paul,
1085
01:23:34,559 --> 01:23:39,440
I have the utmost confidence in your management of my affairs.
1086
01:23:40,040 --> 01:23:44,320
Your father, who embraces you and Maman
1087
01:23:49,640 --> 01:23:53,760
Aix, 15th October 1906
1088
01:23:55,800 --> 01:23:57,320
My dear Paul,
1089
01:23:58,559 --> 01:24:01,840
Everything goes by with frightening speed.
1090
01:24:03,240 --> 01:24:05,360
I'm not doing too badly.
1091
01:24:05,440 --> 01:24:08,360
I look after myself, I eat well.
1092
01:24:09,400 --> 01:24:11,400
My dear Paul,
1093
01:24:11,480 --> 01:24:14,840
To give you the satisfactory news you want,
1094
01:24:14,920 --> 01:24:17,880
I would have to be 20 years younger.
1095
01:24:18,000 --> 01:24:20,520
I repeat, I eat well,
1096
01:24:20,600 --> 01:24:24,840
and a little boost to morale would do me a power of good,
1097
01:24:24,920 --> 01:24:27,680
but only work can give me that.
1098
01:24:29,240 --> 01:24:34,480
All my compatriots are idiots beside me.
1099
01:24:36,840 --> 01:24:40,800
I embrace you and Maman.
1100
01:24:41,800 --> 01:24:45,840
Your father, Paul Cézanne
88189
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