Faces in Cezanne's Work
Kevin Morgan
I visited the Cezanne exhibit last Sunday.
I got about 1/3 through the exhibit and was enjoying the art when I noticed
in one painting (from his "northern France" landscape period) a very clear
face that jumped out of the scene in the lower right of the canvas. It
was "embedded" in an object (a wall I think), and was made to not really
be noticed. But once I noticed it it was very obvious.
I then noticed that right next to it was another face, although this one
looked more like a skull. It wasn't as obvious...but it looked rather
intentional.
The next painting, I also noticed a face, also "hidden".
Then I started looking for these. I found then in almost every painting.
Suffice to say, I was blown away. It appeared to me to be a VERY major
aspect of his work! Yet I had read/heard nothing about this! (I also
went back and found them in the work I'd just looked at...but had not
seen them!).
In some cases, the faces were very small, and very very obvious; usually
these looked like Cezanne, with a pointy beard, looking into the scene.
Many times, the faces were rather abstract. Very frequently, there would
be two faces side by side, with one looking like a skull. Some could easily
be argued to be "random events". However, as I found so many, so often,
I quickly concluded that very few were in fact random events; I concluded
that we was very intentionally doing this all the time.
In one forest scene, I realize the the entire center section of the forest
actually made a self portrait of Cezanne!! The image worked kindof like
those 3D dot pictures; you wouldn't see it if you looked "at" the forest
as a forest, but when you looked at it differently (though you didn't have
to cross your eyes), the face just jumped right out at you.
My wife (a practicing, degreed fine artist) said that there is only one
text she knows of that speaks to this aspect of Cezanne's work, although
it doesn't point out the preponderance of "faces" throughout his paintings.
Apparently this text also details out the various puns he was making with
the French language words for various objects and their configurations in
his paintings.
Does anyone know of any "expert" review of this aspect of Cezanne's work?
Let me just cite a few examples of what I'm talking about (unfortunately
I don't yet have the exhibition book, or I could go on endlessly; I working
now off a calendar that I picked up):
The piece "Still Life With a Dessert" has Cezanne in the center/lower
part of the picture, with teh yellow bread (?) makding up his hat. (The
calendar starts with a small self portrait sketch; the hidden head here
and the sketch are almost identical!). Also, the lower have of the
glass jar on the left shows two "reflected" flowers (or flower decoration),
which make up eyes on a large face.
The very famous "Mont Sainte-Victoire" has whole row of faces across the
center of the scene! One is more skill like; also, there are some that
"overlap" with others. I see four very easily; one (second from right)
is tilted sharply down, while the other three are even. This scene
overall to me is really a jumble of faces that I believe he very consciously
placed on the canvas; they are everywhere!
The Large Bathers makes up the face of his wife, in the large; the little
island in the middle of the pond is her lips, the lower edge of the pond
her lipts, the foliage on the inside of the two trees her eyes. I wouldn't
have noticed this if my wife hadn't pointed it out; she read about it
in the book I mentioned about (I'll get the name if anyone is interested).
I'll stop here for now.
Is this well known, am I crazy, or...is this little known but fact?
Is it significant? I think these kinds of "hidden" images are very
significant in art myself; they can have powerful effect on the unaware
viewer. What do you think?
-kevin
Jay Elless
In article <4toeg5$c...@hpax.cup.hp.com>, kmo...@cup.hp.com says...
For anyone wanting to explore the concept of "faces" in Cezanne's
paintings, you can find a whole gallery full of his paintings at Mark
Harden's Museum on the Web. Don't have the URL but you can
easily find it by using key words "Mark Harden" in a Web search.
--
+++++++++++++++++++
Jay Elless
+++++++++++++++++++
Mark Harden
The URL is <http://lonestar.texas.net/~mharden>. Thanks for the plug.
Doesn't somebody at Hewlett Packard owe me a response on a sponsorship
deal? :-)
Mark
PS If anyone does find faces in any of my Cezanne scans, please let me
know and I will redo them with better resolution!
Jay Elless
In article <32010383...@news.texas.net>, mha...@texas.net says...
>PS If anyone does find faces in any of my Cezanne scans, please let me
>know and I will redo them with better resolution!
I think it's kind of like looking at clouds -- with a little imagination you can
see just about anything on a particularly cloudy day. Cezzane's loose
style lends itself to this fantasizing, I think. Most of the so-called faces
I see are grotesque -- like gargoyle faces or something. Archimboldo (sp?)
did it better though . . .
Charles Burns
In article <4toeg5$c...@hpax.cup.hp.com>,
kmo...@cup.hp.com (Kevin Morgan) wrote:
>I visited the Cezanne exhibit last Sunday.
(long article clipped)
I was very interested in your article. So interested I left my computer
and headed straight for the nearest book (gasp!) on Cezanne. I must admit
I couldn't see much in the way of faces. I think I need a little help to
see what you are talking about.
If you're feeling very technical, and have some time, how about copying
some of the Cezanne images from Mark Harden's site (with his permission),
and drawing circles around the faces for us (assuming you have some sort of
image editing program). You could then re-post the resulting Jpegs,
perhaps to a binaries group, and let us know where they are!
I would love to get to the bottom of this!
**********************************************
On-the-spot silhouette portraits cut with scissors at all kinds of events.
To find out more visit my Silhouette Parlour at:
http://www.virtual-pc.com/edobarn/Parlour.html
**********************************************
Darren Reynolds
In article <AE29777D...@edobarn.demon.co.uk>,
cha...@edobarn.demon.co.uk (Charles Burns) wrote:
>In article <4toeg5$c...@hpax.cup.hp.com>,
>kmo...@cup.hp.com (Kevin Morgan) wrote:
>
>>I visited the Cezanne exhibit last Sunday.
>(long article clipped)
>
>I was very interested in your article. So interested I left my computer
>and headed straight for the nearest book (gasp!) on Cezanne. I must admit
>I couldn't see much in the way of faces. I think I need a little help to
>see what you are talking about.
>
No, you'll probably have more joy looking at your wallpaper or curtains,
where this approach isn't at all crass.
Did Cezanne torture himself to have his paintings analysed for imaginary
faces? You'll probably find a few arses in there as well, if you look hard
enough.
Darren
CAT
Look close and you will see Elvis in many of Cezanne's paintings.
Long Live The King!
CAT