The Large Bathers It is hard to imagine that Cézanne’s paintings were considered disturbingly ugly during his lifetime.When his dealer, the powerful Ambroise Vollard, placed one of his Bather paintings prominently in his gallery window, it drew a hostile response.
Even the progressive critic Charles Morice was appalled, stating: “Cézanne’s paintings alarm the public and delight artists – all of the public, but few of the artists.” A more conservative commentator noted that: “Cézanne never was able to create what can be called a ‘picture’, in truth.”
Paul Cézanne was born in 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, in the South of France. Vollard described Cézanne’s mother as, “vivacious and romantic, but quick to take offence”, a personality trait that the artist would later acquire himself.
Cézanne’s father was a lawyer and successful banker, and encouraged his son to follow the same career path. Although reluctant, Cézanne acquiesced to his father’s wishes, attending the University of Aix Law School for three years, while receiving drawing lessons in the evenings.
Deciding that law was not a profession he wanted to pursue, he left for Paris in 1861. Cézanne’s rejection of his father’s ambitions led to a troubled relationship between the two.
Fortunately, however, his father came around to his career choice eventually and Cézanne was financially dependent on him for many years. He received a monthly allowance of 100 francs, and a large inheritance following his mother’s death in 1897. (His father died in 1886.)
Cézanne was a self-taught artist. Arriving in Paris, he hoped to attend the École des Beaux-Arts, but was denied a place – twice. As a result, he had to find a more conventional way of improving his technique, and spent hours in the Louvre copying the great masters, such as Titian, Rubens and Michelangelo.
Soon he was able to join the Académie Suisse, a studio that, for a modest monthly fee, offered students the opportunity to draw from a live model. Here he met fellow aspiring painters Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro.
Cézanne continued with his independent studies and worked diligently to exhibit his paintings at the prestigious Paris Salon, but his work was rejected every time. These submissions came at a price – a price Cézanne was unable to pay on his own. It meant he had to travel back regularly to Aix to secure further funding from his dubious father.
His friend Pissarro encouraged Cézanne to consider trying a brighter palette and livelier, more delicate brushwork. During this period, Cézanne honed his approach, applying repeated exploratory brushstrokes to his pictures. He also began work on a vast series of paintings of the female and male nude, portrayed either singly or in groups, within a landscape setting. Many bore the hallmarks of Titian and Poussin.
Cinq Baigneuses Sous Des Arbres by Paul Cezanne
He also began work on a vast series of paintings of the female and male nude, portrayed either singly or in groups, within a landscape setting. Many bore the hallmarks of Titian and Poussin.
They were mostly painted from memory and using his imagination rather than actual observation. Among them were the three wonderful Bather paintings. The Large Bathers, now at the Philadelphia Museum, was the most resolved of the three, and is today considered one the greatest achievements of modern art. Cézanne worked on this picture for a remarkable seven years, between 1898 and 1905, but he still considered it unfinished.
All three versions of the scene share similar characteristics – the merging of the bathers’s geometric forms with the background, the lack of narrative content, the parallel composition and the amorphous quality of the bathers’ expressionless faces.
It was these distortions that contemporary viewers found unappealing, even though the notion of rawness had become a focus of the avant-garde painting of the time.
This attitude persisted well after Cézanne’s death, reaching a climax in 1937 when the Philadelphia Museum purchased The Large Bathers from a leading American art collector and critic, for $110,000. Criticised by the press as a “scandalous waste of such a vast sum”, the museum was forced to justify the purchase, describing the painting as having the “feel of an unanswered question”, a testament to the “anxiety” Picasso famously declared to be the source of his great interest in Cézanne. The Philadelphia Record pointed out that this money might have been put to better use helping the 40,000 Philadelphian residents without bathtubs, or put towards urban renewal programmes.
The Large Bathers
Cézanne had wanted the painting to defy all genre and style, and to be a timeless work of art. It certainly became an inspiration for some, particularly Picasso and other cubists.
Henri Matisse commented: “At critical moments in my artistic adventure it gave me courage; I drew from it my faith and endurance.” Both Matisse and Picasso agreed that Cézanne “is the father of us all”.
The last decade of Cézanne’s life was mostly spent alone in his studio in Aix, alienated from most of his friends and family due to the onset of diabetes and bouts of severe depression.
In 1906, he was caught in a storm while working in the field. Persistent as ever, he continued for another two hours under heavy showers before finally deciding to return home. The following day the model that he was currently painting called for help, as the artist appeared faint; he was put to his bed and never left – Cézanne had contracted pneumonia, dying a few days later, aged 67.
Like a number of our greatest artists, he barely enjoyed a single day of true recognition of his genius.
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