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Site for posting class reading responses as comments. Feel free to comment on other posts. History of Art, U.C. Berkeley. Instructor Sarah Hamill.
Fur-Lined Cup, Meret Oppenheim, 1936
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Mark Kohn
ReplyDelete02/02/09
Throughout the “Apples of Cézanne” reading, Schapiro explains at great length the symbolic and metaphorical value of apples in expressing an artist’s feelings about love. Classically, a gift of apples was seen as an attempt of courtship, or as an offering of love. In addition, apples were often used to embody the “ripeness” of human beauty as demonstrated when Schapiro says, “Through its attractive body, beautiful in color, texture and form, by its appeal to all the senses and promise of physical pleasure, the fruit is a natural analogue of ripe human beauty…the apples are both an offering of love and a metaphor of the woman’s breasts.” Here, Schapiro is making clear the symbolic meaning of apples in an artistic context and in doing so, is laying the foundation for an examination of Cézanne’s career as an artist. Schapiro later provides some historical background about Cézanne’s life and reveals that Cézanne was a sexually frustrated boy who used idyllic poetry to vent his unfulfilled desires. Cézanne usually contemplated love, often with his childhood friend Zola, in terms of the duality of realism and idealism where realism represents the physical experience of love, while idealism represented platonic love. These two views on love would trouble Cézanne for much of his life and is clearly reflected in the art he produced. In his attempt to express his feelings about love through the medium of painting, Cézanne’s depiction of women undergoes several transformations. Initially, Cézanne would produce paintings that were characterized by sexual violence as evident when Schapiro explains, “From the obsessed imagination of the unwillingly chaste artist came paintings of a crude sensuality, even of rape, orgy and murder.” This initial depiction of love appears understandable given the sexually frustrated nature of Cézanne’s outlook on love and could be categorized as a pubescent phase. Later on in his career, Cézanne seems to move away from the sexually violent depictions of love and towards a depiction of love that avoids any confrontations of the sexes. This transformation in his depiction of love demonstrates Cézanne’s internal struggle to reconcile his feelings about love as well as his inability to contemplate love, and specifically women, without anxiety. Schapiro echoes this sentiment when he says, “Cézanne’s pictures of the nudes show that he could not convey his feeling for women without anxiety…there is for him no middle ground of simple enjoyment.”
In “The Wild Men of Paris?” reading, Cox explains the influences of Picasso and Braque on the artistic movement known as Cubism. Perhaps the most significant influence on the Cubist movement was Picasso’s visit to the Tracadéro Ethnographical Museum where he was intrigued by “tribal art” and famously categorized it “as works of ‘exorcism’”. This visit to the museum led Picasso to question the conventional methodologies of art and provided the impetus for him to experiment with new ways of producing art. The “excorcism” that Picasso uses to describe how he felt about “tribal art” is integral to the Cubist style of painting since it seeks to deviate from the illusionistic style of painting characteristic of the Renaissance and attempts to bring the visual world within reach of the viewer. Cox eloquently demonstrates this when he says, “…Cubism had overcome the false distancing effect of Renaissance perspective, and discovered a way of pulling the visual world to a point within the viewer’s grasp…Cubism simply restored an understanding of space in visual art repressed by Renaissance perspective.” Perhaps the most illuminating description Cox provides about Cubism is found when he says, “If Renaissance perspective conveys the assurance that there is a correct place from which to see the world, Cubist paintings never finally declare whether there is anywhere to stand at all.” Here, Cox is reinforcing the idea that there is no one “right way” to depict art, therefore, artists should not feel bound to the illusionist perspective found in art from the Renaissance but rather should experiment with new ways of creating perspective that bring the art to the viewer.
I liked the essays we had to read this time. Schapiro’s “The Apples of Cezanne” was a great introduction of still-lifes and their effects and operations in works of art. For Cezanne, just the presence of apples is more calming and honest than painting real live people, in particular, nudes, because the apples invoke in him no pressure or expectations. Schapiro notes that Cezanne’s paintings of the nudes go from one extreme tone to another, from idyllic and pastoral to violent and crude. “Cezanne’s pictures of the nudes show that he could not convey his feeling for women without anxiety… He is most often constrained or violent. There is for him no middle ground of simple enjoyment” (173). If the artist feels this way when creating a work of art, then that work is not as honest and as realized as it could be. Cezanne himself said, “I paint still-lifes. Women models frighten me. The sluts are always watching to catch you off your guard. You’ve got to be on the defensive all the time and the motif vanishes” (185). The apples, then, is more than just an insignificance that most may perceive them to be, “a negation of the interest in subject matter” (177). On the contrary, the apples seem more significant for Cezanne simply because he was comfortable and very open with painting them. Because they cannot “catch you off your guard”, Cezanne is able to be vulnerable and unmasked around still-lifes, able to paint them for what they truly are, how he sees them to be as. Schapiro did state in the beginning that in Cezanne’s youth, “a gift of apples had indeed been a sign of love” (169). The nude paintings Cezanne did were either forced or constrained, limiting his full efforts he could contribute. “He avoids the confrontation of the sexes in the new idyllic pictures” (173). The apples in contribution to the painting help in the “defusing of a sexual theme through replacement of a figure by still-life objects” (175). I liked Schapiro’s article because the still-lifes represent so much more than just an object, and the apples described give actual meaning to the genre of still-lifes.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed reading Cox’s “The Wild Men of Paris?” because I have never really understood Cubism and how it developed. For me, it looks like only someone with a demented mind or a really skewed perception can imagine creating such figures. I think it is rather interesting how space, distance, shape, and form are played on the viewer’s perception. “… The layering of contours to suggest progression into distance, while leaving the precise spatial relationships between each plane unclear” (206). Cubism is modern because it is “an art concerned not with beauty but with the fundamental nature and meaning of the visible” (207); “it was an art not of Platonic idealism and geometry but of intensified realism, which brought the world closer to the spectator, so close in fact that it was within reach” (211). This quote in particular struck a certain chord within me because upon first glance at Picasso or Braque’s works, there is not even the thought that the paintings can be about the same world. Everything looks so displaced in position that it defies naturalism. To say that “Cubism had overcome the false distancing effect of Renaissance perspectives… Cubism simply restored an understanding of space in visual art repressed by Renaissance perspective” (212) made more sense to me because that explained why spatially the figures in Picasso’s works are so cramped and wrong (in the sense of depth and surface). Just like how Impressionism was just another approach to how people perceive things, Cubism also takes perception and offers another approach to communicate to viewers the artist’s view on the world.
Cezanne’s paintings are not what are expected for the type of scenes he was portraying during this time period. His unique art advances modernity through experiences of instinct and personality. Cezanne’s paintings highlight modernity by revealing social behavior through symbols. His art visually appeals to all senses, “especially touch and taste” that brings forward awareness subtly into the scene. I like how Cezanne uses apples as a sign of love and friendship in his paintings. Instead of painting people holding hands or other friendly gestures, he expresses gratitude through metaphor and symbols. The apples are a duality metaphor for love and friendship, but also to expresses human beauty. He embodies idealism and realism in his paintings where idealism is “the platonic love” and realism as “the physical experience”(7). In an era just before impressionism, Cezanne takes art to a more personal level using women and fruit as a metaphor for his romantic, sensual fantasies. Cezanne’s paintings capture a deep unity that binds contrasting figures to each one another in harmony, in accord with his own desires.
ReplyDeleteAs time progresses, so does Cezanne’s paintings. He begins painting still-life that encompasses real and symbolic images. Cezanne continues modernity through his art by defusing “a sexual theme through replacement of a figure by still-life objects” (12). He shifted from openly expressing his erotic desires to disguising sensuality through innocent objects. Cezanne’ was able to use still-life to more readily provide symbols and convey such feelings as have been previously inferred in his works. He was able to paint both still-life and nudes to symbolize his desires. His paintings were idyllic and the pure still-life paintings of apples represented elements that carried a vague likeness to sexual themes. Through Cezanne’s persistent choice to paint apples, the viewer can sense his personal traits. Cezanne’s works revealed a clear path into the era of impressionism.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteVictor Gonzalez
ReplyDeleteSection 7
Cezanne’s Apples
Schapiro’s article on Cezanne’s background and artistic work seems to solidify the idea that art contains the feelings, frustration, and passion of the artist. Schapiro suggests that Cezanne’s painting sometimes reflected his sexual desires and frustrations. This point is perhaps most evident in the fact that he liked to paint a lot of nudes. Schapiro draws similarities between painting and writing, mentioning that Cezanne himself was inspired by famous writers. But aside from the motif of the nude, Cezanne also employed a motif of apples in many of his most famous pieces. The apple was seen as something sultry and seductive (an allusion to the fall of Adam and Eve). Cezanne was a romantic, so it is clear why he chose to employ the apple motif. But it also seems that the apple had a much greater impact on Cezanne’s work as he began to paint still-lifes.
A still-life can be defined as a scene containing objects of everyday use. Nevertheless, the items are not being used in the painting. Instead, you might find a book, fruit, instruments, skulls, or any other number of things. I will be the first to admit that I found some of these painting rather confounding. I appreciated the time that was put forth into making the piece, but what was the point of presenting a table, a vase, a book, and a candle? Schapiro mentions that the objects in still-lifes, whatever they may be, carry with them connotations and implications. For example, an open book represents a writer or a scholar. Similarly, apples represent bounty and life. In this sense, there is a lot more going on in a still-life than what an artist depicts.
As Schapiro points out, it is interesting to consider how, “Cezanne shifted from the direct expression of his feelings in erotic pictures that include some uninhibited images, to his expression by means of innocent disguising objects” (175). Schapiro refers, once again, to the sexual connotation of apples as “forbidden fruit.” But Schapiro also acknowledges that apples were becoming a popular motif amongst many artists and were a symbol of love from antiquity. So how can we know that Cezanne wasn’t just painting apples? Schapiro argues that there seems to be a connection between the nudes in his earlier work and the motif of the apples in his newer work. The way I see it, once the nudes were gone the apples came into the picture. Thus, it makes sense that the apples were a substitute for those erotic nudes that he used to paint.
Cezanne was not the first to employ the apple motif in his art, but he seems to have certainly made it his own by painting them in different colors and various settings: “He was able to express through their more varied colors and groupings a wider range of moods, from the gravely contemplative to the sensual and ecstatic” (185). The literary and historic motif that inspired Cezanne in his youth, the apple, became a signature in some of his most celebrated work.
Cezanne's painting began in an era right before impressionism had taken off. But even though he was not a beginning part of the impressionist era of painting where artists depicted how the scenes and places made them feel, not necessarily how they looked, he was still about to take his art to a more personal level using metaphorical objects and scenes to convey his message. In 'The Amorous Shepherd', Cezanne uses the blurred bodies of the nudes and the symbol of the apple to portray his feelings of seduction and sultriness into the painting, romanticizing the work. Without using 'go-to' signs for friendship or love, he has conveyed a sense of belonging with the group and effectively shows a personal scene.
ReplyDeleteYears passing by, from 1885 to 1905, we see in 'The Bathers' that Cezanne has become more impressionistic in his style and portrayal of nudes and the scenes he finds them in. While using the same subjects but depicting them in a new and different way, he confronts the idea of modernism and impressionistic art. This painting, it is said, was "the most confusing" for people studying Cezanne and it tended to lead them toward grouping Cezanne in the realm of abstract painters, when really he abstracted their faces and forms in order to not have to look at them closely for fear they would 'catch him off guard'.
In all, Cezanne's works are emotional pieces that are well structured, if not slightly colorless artworks. Evolving from more classic stylings to a slightly more modern interpretation, Cezanne was an artist who lived to see the ages of the great masterpieces of old, and the comings of the new and daring works of impression.
Schapiro’s “The Apples of Cezanne” discusses the symbolic use of apples in Cezanne’s paintings. “Since his own youth,” writes Schapiro, “a gift of apples had indeed been a sign of love.” His use of apples as a symbol has personal ties. As a youth, he offered apples as a sign of companionship to his friend Zola. Through his correspondence with his friend Zola, one can gather Cezanne’s “erotic fancy” and his “frustrated desires”.
ReplyDeleteThese emotions were paralleled in his paintings with scenes of “rape, orgy and murder” in his works. These scenes were undoubtedly the product of imagination from a reluctantly celibate man, for he remained without any experience in the realm of love until the 1870s. Until this change occurred, Cezanne created paintings that departed from precedent in two key ways: “The nude women among the clothed men at the picnic--a romantic fancy in a realistic picture; and the violence of contrasts, the pervading restlessness in images of holiday pleasure.” Thus, we find Cezanne’s works to be modern art with their anomalous qualities.
With Schapiro’s description of Cezanne’s person history, the reader can gain a better understanding of the feelings driving the themes of the painting. Schapiro does a thorough job of explaining why his works display eroticism. With his paintings like Luncheon on the Grass, he is letting his mind run wild with thoughts on what sexual encounters could be, for he has never experienced it for himself. Cezanne’s painting is a wild interpretation on an event, the kind of which he has never encountered.
The disappearance of sexual themes from Cezanne’s work was an interesting point that the author brings up. When he finally has sex and conceived a child, the subject of eroticism is no longer an appealing theme to continue depicting. He no longer had to turn to painting to release his sexual frustrations. Thus, there is a switch in the use of fruit. It is no longer a symbol of eroticism. Perhaps it returns to merely act as a symbol of love as it did in Cezanne’s youth.
N. Cox’s article, “The Wild Men of Paris?” discusses how the works of Picasso and Braque together form the basis for Cubism as an art form. Braque argued “Cubism had overcome the false distancing effect of Renaissance perspective, and discovered a way of pulling the visual to a point within the viewers grasp.” (Cox 212) Cubism contrasts strongly with Renaissance paintings and Cox (221) wishes to emphasize, “the important point is not that Cubism overthrows the illusion of perspective, but it overthrows the certainties of the viewer.” Cubist paintings are unlike Renaissance paintings in that there is no “assurance that there is a correct place from which to see the world.” (Cox 221)
ReplyDeletePicasso gained inspiration for his paintings through “African” and “Oceanic” art. (Cox 196) These tribal and, as some called them, “primitive” objects acted as a visual guide for Picasso’s work. (Cox 197) When creating the piece “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” Picasso first sketched a picture of the brothel with a medical student, a sailor, and five prostitutes. The final product of the painting removed the medical student and sailor and resulted in a “compositional compression” which made the women seem closer together in space. (Cox 196) The chiseled look of the bodies and the mask-like faces of the women demonstrate Picasso’s use of tribal art as a visual guide and make the painting quite unsettling to the viewer. Rather than modeling his subjects, Picasso carves them, thus giving them a sculptured appearance. While Renaissance art created the “illusion of three dimensional objects projected on to a perspectival screen… Cubist paintings represented (unsystematically) layers of carved or etched surfaces where the prominent aspects of objects jutted forward and jostled with each other.” (Cox 219)
Braque, on the other hand, drew his inspiration for Cubism from Cezanne’s work. Cezanne attempted to capture the “oscillation between breadth and depth” that occurs in our world everyday. (Cox 206) For him, art was not about beauty but the ability to “capture vision itself.” (Cox 207) He was not concerned with the geometry in painting; he believed that it is not important to focus on lines or use lines because lines do not exist in nature. Braque differed from this view of Cezanne’s in that he makes bold use of line drawing in his paintings. (Cox 209) He, along with Picasso, both make use of a grid-like structure in their paintings that attribute their works to Cubism.
Picasso drew inspiration from “African” and “Oceanic” art while Braque drew it from Cezanne, but both artists had their unique styles that resulted in Cubism. Cox sums up Cubism by saying, “It is as if we were looking at a mysterious world, rather than our own world translated into another language.” (Cox 216)
In “The Apples of Cezanne” Schapiro discusses the development of Cezanne artwork, from the destructive and passionate nude figures to the famous still-life fruits in his later works. Also, throughout the entire reading, Schapiro emphasizes Cezanne’s use of apples in his artwork and explains their symbolism.
ReplyDeleteTo me, one of the most interesting parts of the reading was the story about the beginning of Zola and Cezanne’s friendship. At the time, the offering of apples was a symbol of love. As adults, affection is often showed through commodity, but Cezanne’s story reminds us that the simple pleasures, like a sweet ripe apple, can mean so much as a child. While he was young, Cezanne wrote erotic poetry and finally had a companion, Zola, to confide in. Throughout adolescence, and even through adulthood, Cezanne struggled with women. He longed for sexual fantasies to be met, but was never truly comfortable with women. He wanted to feel love, on both a physical and emotional level, but was so shy. Thus, “from the obsessed imagination of the unwillingly chaste artist came paintings of crude sensuality, even of rape, orgy and murder.” In comparison to the popular paintings of lackadaisical Parisians enjoying an afternoon picnic, Cezanne’s paintings of figures in nature were anything but innocent. His paintings included fully clothed men having thoughtful conversations, while naked women were also present and even the trees, shadows, and accessories hinted at erotic ideas. One of Cezanne’s role models was Manet, a painter who “de-sacralized the female nude.” The women in his painting were seen as objects of society and thought of as inferior to the men. Inspired by Manet, Cezanne was not afraid to paint his sexual fantasies.
However, by the end of the 1870s, the production of Cezanne’s erotic paintings greatly declined. It seems that Cezanne gave up painting women, for they only seemed to bring out anger and frustration in his work. “There is for him no middle ground of simple enjoyment.” Instead of openly expressing his sexual desires through nude figures, Cezanne switched to using basic objects, such as fruit, which represented symbols. Apples were used constantly by Cezanne and can be seen with “an erotic sense, an unconscious symbolizing of repressed desire.” Furthermore, the apple was seen as a symbol of love and beauty and also the woman’s breasts. For example, in the Cupid painting, Cupids were gathering apples to give as a gift to Venus, the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility.
When looking at still-life paintings, the viewer must look beyond the basic function of the object painted. Often, the artist has taken his sentiments and is expressing them through the still-life objects. Thus, the meaning is not always so forward and direct. For example, Cezanne’s painting of the wrinkled and misplaced tablecloth with fruit looks like a simple scene, but one can see the that perhaps Cezanne misses the simplicity of his country life in Aix, where he grew up. It’s important to note, that while the still-life objects may seem simple, each artist has a very distinct style. Each artist’s choice of color and brush stroke can mean something different. For the viewer, it’s a matter of imagination in finding unity among a few simple objects. It’s the ability of still-life artists, like Cezanne, to paint such simple objects while incorporating personal feelings that can be conveyed to the viewer. Through his apples, Cezanne expressed a wide “range of moods, from the gravely contemplative to the sensual and ecstatic.” In his still-life artwork, Cezanne finally found a balance and satisfaction with his work, which he had never been able to achieve before.
With every reading that I complete in this course, I become further amazed with the complexity and numerous interpretations and values that works of art can possess. Before reading Meyer Schapiro’s essay, “The Apples of Cezanne”, I never would have imagined that mere apples can represent a vast variety of emotions and desires. A line in Schapiro’s essay that really resonates with me concerns still-lifes stating that, “In the work of art the [important meanings of the objects on the manifest plane] has a weight of its own and the choice of objects is no less bound to the artist’s consciously directed life than to an unconscious symbolism” (13). Through this line, Schapiro conveys to readers that the objects that an artist depicts in his works of art can provide an insight to both his conscious and unconscious cognitions. With this in mind, it makes sense that Cezanne was able to utilize apples to represent the many thoughts and feelings he was experiencing. Who would have ever thought that a simple apple on a canvas or blank piece of paper could exist as a map of the complexities of one’s mind? I stand, or rather sit here, truly astounded.
ReplyDeleteAnother point that Schapiro makes that I found intriguing is when he states that “still-life…consist of objects that, whether artificial or natural, are subordinate to man as elements of use, manipulation and enjoyment; these objects are smaller than ourselves, within arm’s reach, and owe their presence and place to a human action, a purpose” (19). The reason I find this point of Schapiro’s so intriguing is that not only does it claim the inferiority of objects, but it seems to imply that humans give life to these objects as well. These lives that are provided to the objects by the hand of an artist have the purpose of conveying to viewers the complex thoughts running through the artist’s mind. In addition, I suppose the objects’ lives also depend on the viewer; not all viewers will have the same opinion concerning an object. Thus, an object’s life and purpose can also depend on how a viewer perceives and interprets the object’s representation to be. In the essay Schapiro states that “there is in still-life a unity of things like the unity of a scene of action” (24). This unity that Schapiro mentions is the harmony that exists between objects and humans; the actions that humans take form the lives of objects. It might be a little far out there, but I suppose that it can be argued that humans may also be dependent on objects as well. Artists, such as Cezanne and his apples, utilized objects as representations of their inner thoughts and emotions; perhaps such representation was a way to organize and get their thoughts out of their minds. Often times thoughts and strong desires can torment the mind, and I know that art is one medium in which one can purge their mind of such suffering. So perhaps, objects can be viewed as superior to humans in that humans depend on their existence to express their ill thoughts.
Hannah Loper
ReplyDeleteThrough Schapiro’s article “Apples of Cézanne”, the author focuses on the artist’s use of apples within his paintings. Schapiro notes how apples had held symbolic meaning for innocence, love and friendship. However these apples are also thought to maintain exotic notions. The ripeness of the fruit is seen as sensuous and lush and compared by Cézanne’s friend Zola, to the shape and structure of breasts and the female body. Furthermore the apples and use of fruit within his paintings is described by Zola as being aassociated with man’s “great appetite for life and awe before the boundless fertility of a nature that embraces human society (18).
Cézanne’s own emotions and frustrated passions are seen in his work. Time is seen to catalogue his frustrations as they change. For example Cézannes fear of women and female sexuality is seen in The Battle of Love, which depicted a group of nude men and women in a violent flight. The artist further vents his emotions towards women in Luncheon on the Grass, which reveal a group of fully dressed men, and nude women enjoying a picnic. The painting marks the differentiation of the sexes by making the women over sexualized, by making them objects of fascination by the male species. The two sexes seem detached from one another and inherently strange to the other. The contrast of their colors also transmits a feeling of opposition as the whiteness of the female body is compared to the blackness of the men’s suits. Cézannes later transition to still life is thought to be an expression of his uncomfortability with the female form. Schapiro exemplifies this by saying “The painting of apples may also be regarded as a deliberate chosen means of emotional detachment and self control” (13).
In “The Wild Men of Paris”, Cox discusses the emergence of the cubist movement and the influence of Braque and Picasso upon the art community. Both artists reimagined the ways in which structure could be depicted in terms of line, weight, mass, shape, spatial relationships and color. Picasso was particularly inspired by “primitive” art and may have been particularly inspired by “erotic fantasies of the primitive”. (197, 198) Picasso was criticized for his non-traditional stance on “nature, tradition, and decency” as well as for depicted “chaos” (199). However he inevitably became an icon for transgression art, despite traditionalist’s stance on the nature of his work. Braque came to defend himself from critiques by noting that he sought to depict the “absolute woman rather than a particular woman” (211).
In his essay “On Dreams”, Sigmund Freud writes, “Dream-symbolism extends far beyond dreams: it is not peculiar to dreams, but exercises a similar dominating influence on representation in fairy-tales, myths and legends, in jokes and in folk-lore.” (Freud 28) Here Freud emphasizes that dream symbolism is not exclusive to dreams, but manifests itself in art forms as well. The subconscious mind enters conscious thought through dream-symbols, and Freud argues that dream symbols are primarily traced back to “erotic wishes”. Freud’s explanation about the way dream symbols are the conscious manifestation of unconscious thoughts and desires helps to explain the use of Cezanne’s apples in still life paintings.
ReplyDeleteIn the article “The Apples of Cezanne: An Essay on the Meaning of Still-life”, Meyer Schapiro analyzes the recurrence of Cezanne’s use of apples in his still life paintings throughout his lifetime. In the essay, Schapiro notes Cezanne’s anxiety about both painting and interacting with women. Deeply sexual, yet inexperienced, Cezanne’s early attempts at working with nude models ended in paintings that exuded obsession, violence, rage and even images of rape. As his artwork progressed, Cezanne’s work could be clearly identified by the recurrence of apples painted in still life. Apples, along with other fruits, have long stood as symbols of sexuality and the female body. As Schapiro notes, fruit are “ beautiful in color, texture and form, by its appeal to all the senses and promise of physical pleasure, the fruit is a natural analogue of ripe human beauty.” (Schapiro 6)
Combining the idea of Cezanne’s troubled and anxious relationship with women and the idea of fruit as a highly sexualized symbol, Schapiro predicts that Cezanne eventually used apples in his works as metaphors for the female figure. Cezanne’s method of painting the apple figures did not differ much from the way one would paint a human nude, for Cezanne “loves their asymmetrical roundness and the delicacy of their rich local color which he sometimes evokes through an exquisite rendering rarely found in his painting of nude flesh.” (Schapiro 28) It seems that Cezanne replaced the female nude for the apple, because the apple had the ability to evoke the same sensations as a female nude would, however apples would do so unconsciously.
Freud’s assertion holds true in the case of Cezanne’s apples and perhaps reveals one of the most fundamental traits of still lifes; sexual subconscious symbols appear not only in dreams, but in art as well. In the same way that dream symbols reveal subconscious thoughts, an artists choice of subjects for a still life hold in them deep symbolism that can evoke emotions in viewers. For the still life painter, the objects they paint are not merely objects at face value, but hold deep unconscious symbolic meaning.
Cezanne and after
ReplyDeleteElisabeth Sevy
2/2/09
Shapiro’s work, The Apples of Cezanne discusses at length the significance of the many apples in Cezanne’s work. Throughout this piece you start to see how much of an artist’s feelings and personal issues are portrayed in their work. Cezanne’s emotions and frustrations were clearly brought to light in his art as a means of communication and release. Art was his way of communicating and expressing his emotions.
She mentions that apples are typically a sign of courtship or a friendship offering. Through the drawings of the apples, Shapiro also points out that Cezanne is expressing his frustration with sex and love. He debated between the two types of love and through his painting tried to show this. This subject of love was often brought up in regards to his childhood friend, Zola. He questioned idealism versus realism. Shapiro states, “…idealism being the name for platonic love and realism for the physical experience Cezanne could only imagine.”(Shapiro, 7)
Cezanne almost goes through stages in his art while dealing with his frustrations. His first pieces are very sexually violent and then later his works tend to shift away from violence. The differences between male and female become obsolete in his painting and this is Cezanne working through more sexual frustrations. This just shows how confused with love he is. Male and female are virtually the same. And in later pieces, he just avoids placing men and women in the same picture entirely. The work will be “either young men at the river—or women alone; he avoids the confrontation of the sexes in the new idyllic pictures.” (Shapiro, 10)
Shapiro has clearly mapped out Cezanne’s artistic career and has thus shown me all that he has been through. You can tell that with each developing style of art, Cezanne is going through a different issue
Richard Shin
ReplyDelete2009-02-02
I found the relationship between sexuality and Cézanne’s paintings, a theme throughout the first reading, quite interesting, in how the author extracted such meaning from his paintings using methods of psychoanalysis, interspersed with letters and other writings as sources. Many of his paintings, especially his early ones, depicted women in fulfillment of his sexual fantasies, reflecting his troubles and anxiety with the other sex. “The Amorous Shepherd,” for example, depicts a pastoral scene in which a “pagan figure” gives fruit to a “shy beloved girl,” which, along with the background and other elements in the painting, Schapiro interprets as reflecting elements of the painter’s conscious and unconscious mind. Similarly, Cézanne’s “Pastoral,” unlike Manet’s “Déjeuner sur l’herbe” that it resembles, carries suggestions of the artist’s “uncontrollable feelings,” as manifested by nude women scattered about with clothed men, and “the eroticized thrust of the trees and clouds.” “A Modern Olympia,” inspired by Manet, and “Un Après-Midi à Naples.”
Later, as Schapiro explains, the overt sexuality in his paintings largely disappears, but the theme still lingers. Through, for example, the apple mentioned in the subject of this essay, and other still-life objects Cézanne remains fixated with, he expresses his “repressed desire,” or “latent erotic sense.” While Schapiro admits that the motivations behind his still-life painting carries greater complexity than this relatively simple psychoanalytical explanation, the apple as a metaphor for love and an analogue of “ripe human beauty,” with its curved form and attractive texture, had nevertheless been well-established. Some of his still-life paintings carried direct symbolism, through his choice of subject matter (a skull and a burnt-down candle, for example), but the apple remained a more mysterious, yet fixed, unwavering motif.
Sometimes, the apple provided for a pure aesthetic form; Lionello Venturi, quoted by Schapiro, explains that “the simplified motif gave the painter an opportunity for concentrating on problems of form,” and that still-life painting can completely obviate meaning in the subject, and instead focus purely on its depiction. Émile Zola, a close friend of Cézanne, was particularly enthused about the use of still-life as “a source of tones,” but it seems doubtful that his enthusiasm reflected his friend’s actual reasons for painting still-life.
For example, as Schapiro notes, Cézanne shows a “unique detachment from both social formality and appetite in the conception of the objects on the domestic or studio table.” Indeed, the apples of Cézanne exist typically as pure, idealized forms, rather than present within human life. Schapiro speculates that this resulted from Cézanne’s introverted personality, as still life lacked the “disturbing impulses and anxieties aroused by other human beings,” yet provided “new sensation” for Cézanne to depict. Nevertheless, we cannot underestimate the poetic connotations provided by and his appreciation of the beauty of his subjects, Schapiro insists. We can perceive a “caressing vision,” depicting the sensuousness of apples, in their “finely asymmetrical roundness” and “delicacy of their rich local color,” lacking even in the many paintings depicting nude bathers he created in the meantime.
Dreams are very fitting when examining modern art. To start, no one remembers every detail of a dream, just as impressionism and many forms of modern art intentionally leave out details of their subjects. Also, in a dream there are usually only one or two important things, and everything else is background. This phenomenon is evident in many modern paintings, especially Monet’s Impression Sunrise, where the background is very washed out, and the sun and dark boats are the very evident subjects.
ReplyDeleteFurther exploration of sleep and its effects are detailed in Freud’s On Dreams. Freud provides much evidence of what happens when dreams are formed, and how that effects dreaming. Connection between Freud’s remarks and modernism is very evident for certain observations. One point that Freud makes is that there is a censorship in the brain that “only allows what is agreeable to pass through and holds back everything else.” He goes on to explain how thoughts can be in a “state of repression” which keeps them subconscious. Freud continues to explain that during sleep these thoughts that are in a state of repression are no longer held back, allowing the brain to form them into dreams. This whole concept of being repressed can be compared to many principles in modern art.
A major component of modern art is the artist’s influence on how the subject is portrayed. Unlike many time periods of art where accurately representing the subject dominated, the modern era is greatly influenced by the fact that the artist influences the image, adding a personal style that conveys a message. This type of influence is just like the censorship that Freud discusses. There are many examples of censorship in modern art. One example is impressionists, where detail is often very diluted. Through using only large brushstrokes or only using dots, impressionists effectively censor the image by limiting the amount of detail they show, making the viewer have to fill in the missing detail. Censorship is even more evident in works by Picasso and Pollock, which show ranges of censorship from distortion to complete abstraction. In these works censorship can be of the form of preventing the viewer from having a clear vision of what the artist is portraying, focusing the work instead on just distortions of brushstrokes.
Another interesting connection between Freud and modern art is the idea of dream symbols. Freud explains how dream symbols can be used to help people understand dreams, just as symbols are often used in modern art to convey meaning. Symbols can be very important in modern art when the artist is trying to convey deeper meaning through the work. In dreaming symbols can be used similarly to interoperate dreams. Symbols become even more important to dreamers and artists when it comes time to understand what is “typical”, which is important for both showing something people recognize and also being able to compare things to what is typical. Dream symbols, as with dreams in general, offer a good metaphor for how modern art can convey a message.
In The Apples of Cezanne: An Essay on the Meaning of Still-life by Meyer Schapiro, clearly emphasized Cezanne’s use of sex and sexuality in his painting. Whether or not his paintings literally depicted sexual activities or eroticized figures, sexual innuendos still seem to lie in his art, according to Schapiro. Yet, most importantly Cezanne seemed to go through phases in his art work, and the fact that most of his earlier work was very sensuous left his later work, even that of simple fruit still-lives, up for interpretation in terms of content. Why does he choose to paint apples and nude women? What is the connection?
ReplyDeleteTo Schapiro Cezanne was fascinated with sex and sensuality. In most of his early paintings Cezanne paints beautiful curvaceous young women, and in some cases men. He is not afraid to depict “crude sensuality, even of rape, orgy and murder.”(7) Schapiro states that Cezanne was once a shy and insecure young man, unfamiliar with his female counterpart, almost to imply that his subject matter in his art was a fantasy world for the artist. What ever the reasoning Cezanne was clearly greatly interested in sex.
However, why would Cezanne continue his career by painting multiple still lives of fruit? It is possible that they stand for a sexual innuendo, or apples are a connection the Garden of Eden; a symbolic relation to the moment when ever tasted the “forbidden fruit”. “From the place of the still-life objects in these paintings and drawings, one may suppose that in Cezanne’s habitual representation of the apples as a theme by itself there is a latent erotic sense, an unconscious symbolizing of a repressed desire.” (12) Just like his earlier works, it is possible that Cezanne painted what he desired his later works just may have been more subtle.
Altogether, Cezanne was a modern painter who painted what he felt, yet what he saw. The connection of the two is symbolic and complex. As an artist Cezanne most likely noticed many things in the world around him, but the importance lies in what he chose was significant enough to paint, in his case women, nudity, sexuality, and fruit. The connection and pattern in subject matter is pretty apparent, something which Schapiro bluntly addressed.
While reading Meyer Shapiro’s “The Apples of Cezanne”, I noticed a reocurring theme throughout the entire essay--the change of symbolism. The fact that every piece of still life generallly has more meaning than what is shown simply in the painting. We found that Cezanne goes through genres of his work where certain objects of still life mean different things overtime. One of the works that schapiro analyzes in depth is the use of the apple by Cezanne.
ReplyDeleteIn the beggining, the apple was a classic offering of affection to a young girl-- “a natural analogue of ripe human beauty” (Schapiro), the depiction of the apple helps draw a line between the two different sexes. The apple helps differentiate between the classic male and female roles during that time. Also, while the depiction of the apple might not necessarily resemble the certain times, it shows what the artists feels about those specific times. On the contrary of still life being that of simply fruit, artists started painting nude still life, which was where a majority of the morphing of the use of still life took place. Sexuality, whether it was depicted through people, fruit, (etc.) or both started to change drastically in the artwork that was being produced. Men and women were starting to be contrasted through “the detachment of the figures” (Schapiro). Women were soon portrayed as the inferior, while men had power--the portrayal of still life had drastically changed-- “the meaning of clothes and nakedness as signs has changed” (Schapiro).
We soon see that interaction between the two different sexes changes once again-- “confrontation” is avoided completely. Still life was incorporated soon after this into artwork to introduce a new theme of sexuality into the artwork. Where Cezanne uses the apple as a way to relate people and sexuality in his artwork.
Symbolism changed drastically over the next few decades. The views towards how women and men should be displayed and how they should be displayed together kept changing. While women started on a pedistoole, they go through phases of being the inferior, and then being used as subjects of sexuality.
For each artists, each component of the artowork can mean something different, which was something that i found interesting. For what the apple meant to Cezanne could have meant something completely differently to another artist. Cezanne was using the apple as a more sexual contribution to his paintings, linking together certain aspects within his paintings, where the apple could simply be an apple to another painter. The versatility of the minds of artists is what allows the use of similar objects in different paintings that allow for significantly differnt meanings from each individual paintings.
I did not enjoy Schapiro's essay about Cezanne's obsession with apples. I do applaud his extensive analysis of Cezanne's lifelong interest in apples as a symbol of erotic desires. I found that his comparison of a barrel of apples as a still life to a single apple. I would not have thought about interpreting a still life in that fashion by comparing the barrel as a connection and celebration of a peasants diligent efforts in securing a harvest vs. a single apple as an exploration of the intimacy of a parlor from the bourgeousie class. I did find the article insightful in explaining the history of the apple symbol since ancient Greek/Rome. I was not aware of the connection between apples and a woman's bosom. However the article was overwhelmingly long so I did not find it enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteI was excited to read the excerpt from Freud's "On Dreams". I was expecting the cheap explanation of specific symbols that you can find on the shelves of Barnes and Nobles. However it was helpful to be reminded that symbols mean different things according to the individual who had the dream-thoughts. It was a dense but concise summary of Freud's fundamental theory about the conscious, unconscious, and repression. Since his thoughts are so ingrained in our culture, it was helpful to read this excerpt and be reminded that this was a novel area of study that would affect the intellectual movement of the time and artists' inspiration.
I read "The Wild Men of Paris" after "On Dreams". I am glad that I read it in order since the article made a reference to Freud's theory of psychology. I also enjoyed the discussion of why Picasso is a household name vs Braque. Not merely because Picasso is that much more superior than Braque, but because Picasso was able to market himself more effectively. I often forget all of the human factors outside the actual work of art.
Overall very insightful art pieces, with the sketches of Cezanne and tribal art that influenced Picasso. I only wish there was an easier ratio of text to art.