Paul Cezanne in Chicago
Until September 5, a superb retrospective "Paul Cezanne" is presented at the Art Institute of Chicago. This is the opportunity to browse some of the most beautiful works of the painter who wrote to his friend Zola:
“All the paintings done indoors will never be worth the things done outdoors. I am very much afraid that all the paintings of the old masters... do not seem to me to have the true and above all original aspect that nature provides".
Museum commentary:
This approach to artistic creation was complex and distinguished Cézanne from the Impressionist circle and from modern art as a whole. It is perhaps not surprising that his fellow artists were among the first to recognize the value of his approaches singular and, at the time, seemingly unsophisticated in color, technique, and materiality. As such, he came to be regarded as an "artist's artist", and indeed many of his supporters and admirers, including Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro in the 19th century and Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso in the 20th century, called Cézanne "the greatest of us all". Today, more than 100 years after Cézanne painted his last artworks, artists still revere his commitment to upholding personal truth in the act of artistic creation."
This exhibition is the first major retrospective of the artist's work in the United States for more than 25 years and the first exhibition on Cézanne organized by the Art Institute of Chicago for more than 70 years. Planned in coordination with the Tate Modern, this ambitious project explores Cézanne's work across media and genres through 80 oil paintings, 40 watercolors and drawings and two comprehensive sketchbooks. This exceptional array encompasses the range of Cézanne's signature subjects and series - little-known early allegorical paintings, impressionist landscapes, paintings of the Montagne Sainte Victoire, portraits and scenes of bathers - and includes both well-known works and rarely seen compositions by the public.
In his art history lectures, Fabrice Roy combines the past with the present, in a poetic and playful evocation of the French 19th century...