Dates: April 1–3, 2025
In this three-part lecture series, John Walsh, B.A. 1961, Director Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, considers the work of Paul Cézanne (1839–1906).
Cézanne once remarked that he wanted to “make of Impressionism something solid and durable like the art of the museums.” His goal was to create “a harmony parallel with nature”—not a speedy imitation of fleeting effects of light, but instead a patient reconstruction in paint based on his own emotional and imaginative response to what was in front of him. Cézanne’s processes of selecting, arranging, abbreviating, and exaggerating, and his inventiveness with the brush, are the key focus of these lectures.
Cézanne’s time among the Impressionists in Paris was brief. A Provençal with a volatile streak, he chose seclusion in his native region of southeastern France for most of his later life; not until his last decade was his genius recognized, as a painter not only of landscapes but also of portraits and still lifes. His fellow artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir observed, “I don’t think you can find any artist who compares with Cézanne in the whole history of painting. To think that he lived until the age of 70, and from the day he first held a brush he became as lonesome as if he were living on a desert island!”
Cézanne was not the only artist of his time to develop new kinds of brushwork that would surpass Impressionism in vibrancy. In these lectures, works by his younger contemporaries Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Vincent van Gogh are held up for comparison. Cézanne’s influence on Cubism and other European Modernist movements is also discussed.
American museums hold an extraordinary number of important paintings by Cézanne. These lectures examine closely and put in context many of these works.
Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund and the John Walsh Lecture and Education Fund.
