I spent all afternoon and most of the evening painting at Brooklyn Artists Gym; decided to do a large painting based on my study of trees in Paul Cezanne’s back yard, the one I did the first day I arrived in Aix-en-Provence 3 weeks ago today.
Here’s the painting – it’s done in Oil Pastel on Canvas and is something like 3 feet by 4 feet in size.
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You know the study for this painting was Cezanne’s Back Yard, but the painting drew, somewhat, on the ideas I got back in Paris a couple of days before when I saw an exhibition of Pierre Klossowski at the Centre Pompidou. Besides liking the drawings on paper (canvas to me) I found out that Pierre Klossowski was the brother of the painter Balthus. While the sexual symbolism is not my thing – the feeling and quality of Klossowski’s work is my thing and decided, then and there, I would buy an expensive book (in French, no less) based on the exhibition, and find a way to use that insight in my painting when I got back to the New York.  And this painting of Cezanne’s Back Yard was my first attempt and using crayon, or Oil Pastel, on Canvas.
While my inspiration may have started with Klossowski, it was mostly about my time in Cezanne’s last studio in Aix.  And here’s the movie I made just as got done working on this large painting – my hands all “green” with oily pastels, have drunk 4 glasses of Red Wine at an opening that happened at BAG last night – where I freely moved back and forth to the studio area and to the photography opening.
Note: This post was created before my Paris Trip and I never got around to posting it. When I left Aix on Thursday morning, I gave Marsha Wooley my copy of the World View of Paul Cezanne, as I had finished the book.
When I looked at Cezanne’s paintings while in Paris, or when I was in Aix, I did not really find I could get anything directly, any additional insight, as a result of reading The World View of Paul Cezanne. I’m not saying that I think it’s authentic or not …. I really don’t know for sure.Â
Enjoy the post anyway for what you can get out of it.
“..On the rarest of occasions, a painting may run away from the artist, but he follows it so alertly and faithfully that in a flash his technique grows and develops so that a single inch of canvas shows a development that otherwise might not have occurred at all.
  Generally, however, there must be a delicate balance between the painting and the artist, in which the artist works upon the painting like a force of nature and it responds, reacting itself as its elements are gradually built up. That is, in the reality of the canvas, the strokes, colors, shapes, values, and so forth will react to the artist’s manipulations in the same way that rocks and natural objects will react to the wind, light and temperature.”
“… These artist’s tracks are the tracings of the mind in paint, the neurological tracings of the emotions on canvas, as the brush faithfully follows the inner nuances of the artist’s life and sensations; and those tracings, I believe, will naturally seek to express themselves in shapes that are also found in nature. That is, as the wind makes certain characteristic tracings in the sand, forming the patterns we consider natural rather than artificial, so the brushstrokes will also form patterns on the canvas that are natural in the same fashion. Further, I believe that these natural patterns or shapes reflect or mimic inner forms which all objects are made.”
   From these basics, the artist elaborates and creates; building up images from the springboard of those neurological tracings; so that each brushstroke must be alive and wiggly as if a living thing were being transferred to the canvas. A limp brushstroke is far worse than none, for it will deaden all around it. Yet the artist must learn though self-examination when and how to apply his strokes, and in this matter there is no one in the world, dead or alive, that he can copy.”
To me, this says the artist becomes - any teacher can only take an art student so far – for example,  there are things I am experiencing, as I paint, that no one taught me, or could teach me - as Life itself - is the Teacher.
But that’s why, following anyone who you admire, too closely, can be the death of your own creativity – and that would be as true even if I followed Cezanne in a slavish way; the real value of a guide is to awaken your own creativity.
Here’s the last of the three videos I made which comprise most of the footage from that day – I’ve provided the first two video URLs as well. Enjoy
Video Part 3 (the longest segment) – also note the Tree Breast at 1 minute into this clip – it’s special and way off the path (you have to climb down to it and it’s not seen from the road). Also, there’s some footage of the best and most expensive restaurant in Aix-en-Provence, Le Clos De La Violette, at the end of the file (but the URL link does not seem to work).
My guide, Christine Boulet (who lives in Aix-en-Provence and who I met the day before)  on this 4 or 5 hour walk to my favorite Painter, Paul Cezanne, happened on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 and took most of the afternoon and early evening. At the end of the long, long walk/hike, it rained.Â
Note: The quality of the video that gets uploaded and shown on YouTube is considerably less than the original files – I noticed that, no matter what I do, preparing and uploading online video footage for streaming video makes the videos loose a lot of the details.
Also, my recollection of the color of the sky – it was much bluer than richer than what is coming over from the videos. My take on that – whenever we translate an experience from one form to another (IE: a part of my life is transformed into a video) something is lost (in this case, a lot is lost).
On the other hand, what is gained is the memory I have as I look at these videos that warms my heart and brings back the fresh air, whooshing sounds, thundering and pungent smell of the the moist earth – the rich warm reddish browns of the earth and the brilliant blue of the sky.  A gray-lavender band of wood, part of the foliage / trees is pushed more towards lavender by the rich greens of the tree leaves and grass on the grounds.Â
After the first hour, or so, of our walk, we had the sandwiches and Pepsi Light (we brought no water – or sunglasses) – the heat got to be almost unbearable and when we reached a midway point there was a water fountain – near a dam – and I got my shirt all wet, just to deal with the the intense heat/sun.  But then, as the afternoon progressed, it cooled down and rained and that was magical.
My guide, Christine Boulet, was wonderful company – but little of that is really translated in this movie and yet, I hope all of that comes though, past the limitations of the medium of Online Streaming Video – via YouTube.
Again, Enjoy and for any of my readers on ArtNewYorkCity.com – I’d love to hear your feedback. Bear in mind, I’m not the best photographer – fortunately, Christine Boulet took over for much of the footage, she has a much steadier hand than I – but I’m learning.
A picture says 1000 words, so they say, and a video – much more than that. Here’s an inside view of Paul Cezanne’s studio that I took yesterday. I also was able to touch the jacket and painting clothes left in the studio at the time of his death in 1906.
Also did a study in the garden adjacent to Cezanne’s studio – which is more of a holy shrine, almost, to many of the visitors who come to Aix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zbDPYexwOYÂ Part 4B – Settled on this spot (in the video) to paint my first picture in Aix from – I spent a little more than an hour and then I heard the gates closing so I packed up quickly before being locked in!
It was very emotional for me to be standing in Cezanne’s studio – seeing and touching these past relics of his work. Cezanne painted what he saw – and I can see, how much he has affected Aix – being just about it’s most famous citizen – many streets are named after him.
