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Cézanne, inspiration of

Picasso and Matisse

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

University of the People

AHIST1401 – World Art History

Julie Lawrence (Instructor)

March 14th, 2022

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Take a good look at these bathers: Paul Cézanne was madly in love with them. From

1870 until the end of his life, in 1906, he composed nearly 200 paintings, watercolours and

drawings on this same theme, subjecting it to increasingly daring experiments — elimination

of perspective and distortions. The Cézanne revolution was underway, and it would influence

all the artistic currents of the 20th century, from Matisse to Picasso, from the cubists to the

abstract painters (visual-arts-cork.com, n.d.).

We ignore who these women are. Are they nymphs, goddesses? Are they beautiful or

ugly, young or old? We only know that Cézanne does not work with live models but from

sketches and photos. Because he intends to seize a subject treated a hundred times by the

masters, from Fragonard to Courbet, to invent his representation system. His philosophy was

to deconstruct the subject by removing any narrative element or figurative detail, then

reconstruct it by simplifying the forms to the extreme. This is probably the essential aspect of

Cézanne's influence on Matisse and Picasso. This brings these revolutionary bathers to the limit

of abstraction. Crying out for horror, critics will see in it the expression, in the artist, of disgust
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for the female body. Matisse preferred to depict naked women and men lounging, kissing,

playing music, or dancing in an idealized landscape. "Joie de vivre," on a more positive note,

is a hymn to the beauty of colour, bodies and the arts. In "La joie de vivre," colour

predominates, and the treatment of the image is linked to Matisse's feelings and not to the exact

representation of reality. Matisse feeds the canvas with his own emotions with this new way of

painting. In "La joie de vivre," the viewer can taste the sweetness and voluptuousness of the

moment. On the other hand, Picasso chose to depict five naked women with angular bodies and

faces, dislocated, in front of a background made up of fabrics of several colours, which attracts

the viewer with their insistent gaze. Picasso's composition and treatment of the models seem

to evolve from left to right, moving towards an increasingly abstract and decomposed

representation of the characters. On the other hand, Picasso took a more significant distance

from Cézanne here, choosing to depict five naked women with angular bodies and faces,

dislocated, in front of a background made up of fabrics of several colours and which attracts

the viewer with their insistent gaze. We meet up with the origins of Cubism in “Les demoiselles

d’Avignon.” The composition and treatment of the models seem to evolve from left to right,

moving towards an increasingly abstract and decomposed representation of the characters.

The tree, at the top, in the center of Cézanne's canvas, establishes a vertical delimitation,

separating the bathers into two groups. On the left, three are from behind, one of which stands

like a Greek statue. The features of the fourth, in the centre, are hidden. Can we see the other

five better, drying and combing their hair in the light? No, because the more their faces are

illuminated, the more they are deprived of features. Like the red-haired woman, whose face is

nothing more than a white spot. Matisse's vertical delimitation closely follows the work of

master Cézanne. All the characters are framed by a forest of trees which opens in the center of

the painting, forming a setting for the characters. There is no actual perspective; the sizes of
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the characters allow the viewer to stage the plans. Matisse also chose not to paint the facial

expressions but focused instead on the gestures and positions of the characters.

On the other hand, Picasso brought much more detail to the faces of his characters.

Moreover, he eliminated the vertical split in the painting, bringing more unity and uniformity

to the characters depicted in "Les demoiselles d" Avignon." The short depth in Picasso's work

originates from the fruit plate, closest to the spectator.

By the simple grey-blue spot appearing below, under the tree, in the heart of the

painting, and by the position of the two central bathers surrounding it, Cézanne represents the

pond and gives the impression of its depth. By juxtaposing spots and hatched lines, he brings

the canvas to life. Note how the simple green touches create the effect of abundant nature.

Matisse also chose water — the pond — to bring depth to his work. Picasso also used nature

to get depth to his work, but with the simple drawing of a few fruits on a plate.

The touches of various colours on the bathers are the play of light on their skin. The

sun's rays filtered by the foliage or reflected by the pond's water leave on them blue, green,

purple notes, in the colours of the nature which surrounds them – but never black because, for

Cézanne, the shadow is colourful. We can see how the tiny white spots that point here and there

in the trees create an imperceptible animation. Matisse grew away from these white shadings

and stayed loyal to his colourful palette of colours. On the other hand, Picasso reinforced these

white shadings to create depth and highlight the characters in the forefront, not to animate his

painting. Picasso destroyed all harmony and decomposed perspective space into geometric

facets. Indeed, the colours distribute the idea of the depth and the positioning of the vanishing

point. The cold colours of the background allow the concept of distance when, on the contrary,

the warm colour of the bodies brings them forward. In the end, if this painting deals with two
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classic themes in painting (the nude and the still life), it deliberately departs from all the

traditional rules of this art. We notice in this painting a struggle for an entirely new pictorial

language, which has lost none of its revolutionary force today. The characters are not

represented naturally; the figures are fragmented into geometric shapes without respecting the

proportions of the body. In addition, some parts are disproportionate, such as the eyes or the

nose, too large and not aligned. The human body is thus seen from all directions in space at

once. The colour palette is quite limited. From pale pink to red ochre, Warm colours dominate,

especially in women's bodies. However, cold colours, white, gray, blue, which make up most

of the draperies, offer a violent contrast. The forms are frequently underlined by white or black

outlines, accentuating their destructuring.

As Cézanne decides not to represent the relief of the bodies, a thick black line is used

for him to define the outline. And that's not his only audacity. The artist also eliminates

perspective. All the elements, whether plants or bathers are treated flat and on the same plane,

without depth. Result: shapes and colours blend on the surface of the canvas, creating a fusion

of women and landscape, humanity and nature. Matisse used three planes stretched across the

canvas to bring depth to the "Joie de vivre." Close to us: an allegory of music and an embracing

couple is lying. In the background: stretches an Anadyomene Venus in front of which stands a

crouching figure (like a shell) and, in the background, a couple of entwined muses. These

characters occupy the left of the painting. In the center, two languid Venuses, one elongated

with her back turned, the other half raised and swaying her hips hold back her hair in a very

sensual manner. On the painting's right side, a shepherd, standing and representing the allegory

of music, plays the flute. In the background, a group of dancers form a circle in the middle of

the canvas.
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Matisse's canvas is composed of long stretched and wavy lines, forming an arabesque

line drawing the tree trunks, highlighting the characters' bodies, and evolving from the foliage

to the sky. There is no natural light; the bright colours illuminate the painting. The unreal

colours are laid down in large flat areas of clearly delineated pure colours. The greens, pinks

and reds of the foliage brighten the yellow of the grass, which becomes blue and green in the

foreground. Great clarity emanates from this perfectly balanced painting. From this symphony

of bright colours soft and wavy shapes emerges a sensuality and an incredible joie de vivre.

The horizon line that stretches in blue and purple in the background of the painting represents

a river surmounted by a pink sky that closes the composition. The river is the only straight line

in the painting.

Picasso distanced himself from Matisse and Cézanne here. His painting opens

the way to a new artistic current, Cubism, whose appearance and development will determine

an aesthetic revolution in France and wholly change European art's face. The term cubism is

also used derisively by the critic Louis Vauxcelles during an exhibition devoted to Georges

Braque in 1908 to denounce the "terrible simplification" of landscapes and the reduction of all

sites, figures and houses to geometric patterns, to cubes. We can notice the influence of African

Art as if the characters were created with the use of a sickle. Contemporaries consider this

painting as a natural break in representation (Harris & Zucker, n.d.).

In this undergrowth isolated from the outside world, Cézanne introduces a clever fabric

of relationships between the bathers, but also between them and the trees, to create a motion

effect. In this funny frieze, the figures are connected, hereby the inclination of a body, thereby

an outstretched arm, there again by the branch of a tree. To the right of the painting, the red-

haired woman turning around creates a link with the one leaning towards her. This pushes the

spectator's gaze to circulate among the trees and the bathers without ever settling anywhere.
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Cézanne influenced Picasso and Matisse in keeping the spectator's eye circulating among the

human figures. Although, Picasso chose to reduce nature to a single plate of fruits, reinforcing

the sensitivity and sweetness that these women carry, albeit the brothel, source of inspiration

at the origin of this masterfully executed work (Visual-arts-cork.com, n.d.).

The joy of living is considered one of the sources of 20th-century art; both Matisse and

Picasso would remember it when painting "La joie de vivre" in 1905 and "Les Demoiselles

d'Avignon in 1907. However, both shifted away from their master, Picasso definitely growing

further away from his source of inspiration.

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References

Harris, B. & Zucker, S. (n.d.). Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Khan Academy.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/cubism-early-
abstraction/cubism/v/picasso-les-demoiselles-d-avignon-1907

Visual-arts-cork.com (n.d.). Large bathers (1894-1906) Les grandes baigneuses by Paul

Cézanne. http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/paintings-analysis/large-bathers-
cezanne.htm