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Aquarelas Cezanne PDF
Aquarelas Cezanne PDF
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This content downloaded from 143.106.1.138 on Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:57:08 UTC
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TECHNIQUE
WATERCOLOUR
CEZANNE'S
BY KURT BADT
EZANNE'S watercolours demonstrate,
beside the effects intended and the means
used to attain them, the difficulties arising
from the creative process of the artist
himself. This is evident from the fact
that, out of his nearly four hundred aquarellesmore than
three hundred and fifty are unfinished. But it is noteworthy that not one of them has been abandoned because
of technical mistakes.
There are, I think, three different types of unfinished
watercolours by Cezanne.
First : sheets intended as complete pictures composed
to fill up a square and be marked off with a frame.
They show part of the objects fairly finished whilst others
are only indicated.
Second: sheets likewise intended as complete pictures, but giving the effect of complete " realisation"
by means of single strokesof colour whilst a large portion
of the paper is still blank.
Third : pictorial, rhythmical and colouristic motives
without the intention of constituting a picture in the
usual meaning of the word.
Sheets of the first type are proof of C6zanne's difficulty in retaining his " poetical vision " in the face of
nature, with its changing aspects and infinity of details.
Whilst painting, Cezanne must have discovered particularities which did not harmonize with the shape of
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Cezanne'sWatercolourTechnique
over the attempt to imitate natural objects. I would
almost term them poetic abbreviations discovered in
small objects in nature, similar to those that a lyric
sometimes reveals by means of the extraordinary combination of a few words.
From about the year 1885, when the artist turned
more vigorously towards watercolours and developed
his own very particular manner, his technique did not
change very much until his death in 19o6.
After a general preparation with the pencil, he
operated with light coloured touches and colour strokes,
which he put separately one beside the other ; then he
covered them over in order to obtain more intense and
more differentiated tones.
C6zanne wished to secure these particular characteristics of the aquarelle,the ground shining through the
colours, and the light reflected from the white ground
of the paper. Therefore he produced deeper tones by
several layers of transparent paint, every one of which
shows its precise contours. So skilfully did Cezanne
repeat this practice that he achieved depth of transparent
colour never reached before, and succeeded in producing
a very delicate gradation from the dark to the brighter
tones. I know of no case in which Cezanne used a
real " wash," modifying a single colour from a hardly
visible tinge into intensity. He reserved a special
nuance of colour for every nuance of darkness. In this
respect Cezanne's watercolours are at the extreme
opposite to Turner's.
Cezanne painted with exact movements of his hand,
making the beginning and end of his strokes clearly
visible, but generally without participating in the final
effect. It consists of delicate curved pencil lines,
irregular hatches, bundles of strokes, forming dark
bands of different breadth. They served C6zanne for
the beginning of the coloured execution of watercolours. He followed them up with the brush, intensifying and transferring them into coloured values. He
doubled or tripled the touches, deepened and enlarged
the half-tints, until a phantastic creation of coloured
darks came into existence out of which single objects
emerged. Autonomous harmonies were developed
binding objects together. The pictorial and not the
objective significance was the leading principle.
The sharply accentuated darks approach the objects
from the surrounding space and often prove to belong
to things situated on a plane behind the brightlycoloured object. They are knitted together, regardless
of their plastic value and meaning, into mysterious,
written characters upon a flat surface. When dark
objects are shown in front of a light background, the
darks flicker like flames, waver up and down, changing
in colour. Throughout the dark masses a rhythmic
current runs from body to body, from zone to zone,
embracing masses and space alike.
From a complex vision of such darkly coloured bands
Ctzanne's watercolours actually originate. The dark
bands were maintained during the whole working
process as a harmonious and rhythmic basis of the
composition.
From what kind of an artistic conception did this
technical process emanate ? The first supposition is,
"
fortement Ntabliespar des contrastesvifs sur des prdparations
lavies au bleu de prusse." Maurice Denis had noticed a
247
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Cezanne'sWatercolourTechnique
medium, his pictorial equivalent for darks, just as, in
earlier periods of painting, it had been brown or greyblack. In both cases it is a means to an end-and
often, the blue tinges, which we still see on the unfinished
aquarelles,are only the preparations intended to be
over-painted according to the requirement of the
painting. In the completely finished watercolours we
find no outstanding blues, but a general deep blue
" sound " running through the colouristic composition.
There is a corresponding general factor on the
light-side of Cezanne's palette, the ochres, changing
from yellowish to brown and reddish. These ochres
provide a kind of basis contrasted with the blue foundation. As they blend easily with red, blue and green,
they are chosen by Cezanne for the subdued transitions
forming the approaches of strong colours to each other.
Used throughout the whole picture they guarantee a
second, a softer, colour unity to the composition.
ANCIENT
AT
BRONZES
IN
THE
ROYAL
PALACE
BY EVA L. R. MEYEROWITZ
BENIN
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