Paul Cezanne (1839 – 1906)
French Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century.
Art has a harmony which parallels that of nature. The people who tell you that the artist is always inferior to nature are idiots! He is parallel to it. Unless, of course, he deliberately intervenes. His whole aim must be silence. He must silence all the voices of prejudice within him, he must forget.. ..And then the entire landscape will engrave itself on the sensitive plate of his being.
Personally I would like to have pupils, a studio, pass on my love to them, work with them, without teaching them anything.. ..A convent, a monastery, a phalanstery of painting where one could train together.. ..but no programme, no instruction in painting.. ..drawing is still alright, it doesn’t count, but painting – the way to learn is to look at the masters, above all at nature, and to watch other people painting..
..and wanting to force nature to say things, making trees twist and rocks frown, as Gustave Doré does, or even painting it like Leornardo da Vinci, that’s literature too. There’s logic of colour, damn it all! The painter owes allegiance to that alone. Never to the logic of the brain; if he abandons himself to that logic, he’s lost.. ..Painting is first and foremost an optical affaire. The stuff of our art is there, in what our eyes are thinking.. ..If you respect nature, it will always unravel its meaning for you.