The beginning of the "modern" era typically refers to the advent of psychology. In the art world, this introspection, this distinct delineation between sensation and perception, not only gives rise to a uniquely new individual dignity (where you sit in the universe is just as compelling as where I sit), but an individual aspect and validation regarding what is art, what can be art, whom can art represent, and whom can art enoble, that is, everyone and everything. Art is everywhere, among all of us, each of us.
It is no coincidence then that Paul Cézanne painted during the rise of the bourgeoisie, a middle-class that asserted itself, demanding dignity, and responded to by artists like Cézanne who shared their aesthetic and led the way to a vocabulary that could be as precise as it could be frighteningly, decidedly ambiguous. While Freud may have defined the epoch, Cézanne gave it a meaning beyond words and as such, is often referred to as the Father of Modern Art. It was his revolution that would give us the Impressionists, Fauvism, Abstraction, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism, in almost direct lineage. He sits at the head of an unprecedented artistic dynasty.
For today, I chose one of his early, more representational paintings from MoMAs collection: The Bather, 1885.
I chose it for several reasons. It is indeed representational for the most part and is perhaps, an easier segue into the more confusing aspects that we may generalize as Modern. But this is distinctly modern in many many respects. Let me begin with execution for starters. George Eastman had invented film a year before. For the young man, Cézanne is working from a photograph rather than a live model. This will become increasingly popular among many other artists including Picasso as photography becomes more available to the general public.
But well beyond that bit of technique, regard the line. Cézanne is a master of line, and his 'outline.' if you will of a young adolescent not only defines the figure, defines dimensions Cezanne is almost willing to dispense with, like the third (the painting yields itself to the reality and flatness of the two dimensions of a canvas, something Cezanne was quite happy to remind us whenever he could), but also defines a kind of holiness, a setting apart of subject his from his environment in an almost sacred way, not accidentally I would assert, in the way that lead separates the carefully cut pieces in a spiritual stained glass window, the way, say, Picasso and Max Beckmann and even Mondrian and Roy Lichtenstein would go on to do.
This is not a conventional sacred figure, however. It is not The Christ, certainly, although one, I think, is invited to make comparisons. It is you. It is I. Holy and imperfect as we are. A little short, maybe, a little wide. And in the most modern sense, afraid, trepid at least, placed in an ambiguous environment, undefined conventionally, painted in an unsettling palette, and suggesting both movement in his legs and paralysis in his torso. Like the last moments of Godot, he seems to plan to move, but waits instead. He is more Hamlet than saint (and you'll forgive the reference but Shakespeare is one of those authors who transcends time, he could be entirely modern three hundred years before his time), and further, we are denied the truth of his eyes.
Everything about this painting says vulnerability to me, but courage as well. He is alone. Except for all of us who share the moment, understand the feeling, share his vulnerability. It is the most intimate of communions when you enter his space, hoping me may look up.
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