The only ones who are not subject to the charm of Cezanne are precisely those artists or collectors who have shown by their errors that their sensibilities are defective. Degas himself is seduced by the charm of this refined savage, Monet, all of us …. But my enthusiasm was nothing compared to Renoir’s. I thought of Cezanne’s show in which there were exquisite things, still lifes of irreproachable perfection, others much worked on and yet unfinished, of even greater beauty, landscapes, nudes and heads that are unfinished but yet grandiose, and so painted, so supple …. All of the artists mentioned above, as well as Mary Cassatt, acquired works by Cezanne through Vollard either at or shortly after this exhibition, the paintings ranging widely in subject, scale, and technique. They saw something in Cezanne’s painting that no theoretical discussion or academic understanding of the discipline could fully explain. Many of the works were incredibly raw, to the point of being nearly incomprehensible, and yet the artists found them deeply moving. The diverse display of mostly traditional subject matter-still lifes, landscapes, portraits, pastoral nudes-rendered in Cezanne’s radical experimentations with style apparently stunned even them. In 1895, Pissarro, Monet, Renoir, and Armand Guillaumin convinced the art dealer Ambroise Vollard to present a comprehensive show of Cezanne’s work up to that point. And yet Cezanne’s submission Bathers at Rest must have on some level impressed Degas, who recreated the unusually bent position of its central figure in his own sketchbook and went on to acquire several works by Cezanne.
Caillebotte and Monet championed his inclusion, while Degas contested it. When Cezanne participated in the third Impressionist exhibition of 1877 with canvases and watercolors of landscapes, portraits, and still lifes-themes he would develop throughout his career-he was considerably more successful. This painting, of which Cezanne also made a watercolor version (see “Artist-Owned Works by Cezanne” above), particularly offended the critics because of its confusion of traditional and antitraditional elements. Looking at his paintings today, more than a century after they were made, these oversized marks convey the special feeling of still being able to see his works in the process of being made or cohering into an image. Viewers saw in his works an emphasis of something-an exaggeration of feeling-but the precise mechanics of how Cezanne broke apart traditions of earlier mark making was exceedingly difficult to describe.
Over time, he developed a type of personal mark making that allowed him to spatialize his sensations, using large brushstrokes that did not cover the entirety of the canvas.
His singular approach set him apart within the Impressionist circle even as he participated in advancing their aims through innovative approaches to color and technique. An associate of critically minded painters active in both Impressionist and Symbolist circles, he referred to himself as a painter with strong sensations. Perhaps Cezanne’s fellow artists were among the very first to appreciate his work because his approach was entirely new.
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