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868! CHAPTER 28 Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism: Europe and America, 1870 to 1900

28-23 P!"# C$%!&&', Basket of Apples, ca. 1895. Oil on canvas, 29 380 ( 29 70. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926).

Cézanne’s still lifes reveal his analytical approach to painting. He captured the solid- ity of bottles and fruit by juxtaposing color patches, but the resulting abstract shapes are not optically realistic.

not unify the picture with a horizon perspective, light and shade, or naturalistic use of color. Instead, he abstracted the scene into a pattern, with the tree symbolically dividing the spiritual from the earthly realm. Pure unmodulated color !lls "at planes and shapes bounded by !rm line: white caps, black dresses, and the red !eld of combat.

Gauguin admired Japanese prints and medieval cloisonné metalwork (see “Cloisonné,” page 321) and stained glass (see “Stained-Glass Windows,” page 392). #ese art forms contributed signi!cantly to his daring experiment to transform traditional painting and Impressionism into abstract, expressive patterns of line, shape, and pure color. Like van Gogh—with whom he painted for a brief period in Arles in 1888, but disagreed about many things, including whether an artist should paint from life or memory— Gauguin rejected objective representation in favor of subjective expression. For Gauguin, the artist’s power to determine the colors in a painting was a central element of creativity. However, whereas van Gogh’s heavy, thick brushstrokes were an important compo- nent of his expressive style, Gauguin’s color areas appear "atter, like the colored glass of Gothic windows.

Where Do We Come From? In 1888, Gauguin, continuing his restless search for an inexpensive and unspoiled place to live, set- tled in Tahiti ($%& 37-1). #e Polynesian island attracted Gauguin because he believed that it o'ered him a life far removed from mate- rialistic Europe as well as an opportunity to reconnect with nature. On his arrival, he discovered that Tahiti, under French control since 1842, had been extensively colonized and that its capital, Papeete, was !lled with French imports, but also !lthy and dangerous. Deeply disappointed, Gauguin tried to maintain his vision of an untamed paradise by moving to the Tahitian countryside, where he expressed his fascination with primitive life in a series of canvases in which he o(en based the design, though indirectly, on native motifs. #e tropi- cal "ora of the island inspired the colors he chose for these paint- ings—unusual harmonies of lilac, pink, and lemon.

Despite the allure of the South Paci!c, Gauguin continued to struggle with life. His health su'ered, and his art had a hos- tile reception. In 1897, worn down by these obstacles, Gauguin decided to poison him- self, but not before painting a mural-sized canvas titled Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? ()*+. 28-22), which he wrote about in letters to his friends (see “Gauguin on Where Do We Come From?” page 867). His attempt to commit suicide in Tahiti was unsuccessful, but Gauguin died a few years later, in 1903, in the Marquesas Islands. Like van Gogh, Gauguin never gained recognition as an artist during his lifetime.

Paul Cézanne. Trained as a painter in his native Aix-en- Provence in southern France, P%,- C./%001 (1839–1906) allied himself early in his career with the Impressionists, especially Pis- sarro ()*+. 28-6), and participated in the !rst (1874) and third (1877) Impressionist exhibitions in Paris. Initially, Cézanne accepted the Impressionists’ color theories and their faith in subjects chosen from everyday life, but his own studies of traditional works of European art in the Louvre persuaded him that Impressionism lacked form and structure. Cézanne declared that he wanted to “make of Impres sionism something solid and enduring like the art in the museum.”8 (see “Making Impressionism Solid and Enduring,” page 869).

Basket of Apples. Still life, even more than landscape, proved to be a very e'ective vehicle for Cézanne’s experiments in remaking Impressionism to emphasize the permanent instead of the transi- tory. In still-life painting, Cézanne could arrange a limited number of selected objects to provide a well-ordered point of departure. So analytical was Cézanne in preparing, observing, and painting still lifes (in contrast to the Impressionist emphasis on spontaneity) that he had to abandon using real fruit and "owers because they tended to rot. In Basket of Apples ()*+. 28-23), the objects have lost some- thing of their individual character as bottles and fruit and have almost become cylinders and spheres. Cézanne captured the solid- ity of each object by juxtaposing color patches. His interest in the study of volume and solidity is evident from the disjunctures in the painting—the table edges are discontinuous, as if seen simultane- ously from above and from the front. Some of the objects also are depicted from di'erent vantage points. In his zeal to understand three-dimensionality and to convey the placement of forms relative to the space around them, Cézanne explored his still-life arrange- ments from di'erent viewpoints. #is resulted in paintings that, though conceptually coherent, do not appear optically realistic. Cézanne’s approach here is reminiscent of Manet’s Bar at the Folies- Bergère ()*+. 28-8).

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