Paul Cézanne - Monsieur Quotes

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I had the company of monsieur Gibert. Such people see clearly, but they have the teacher's eye. As the train was taking us past Alexis' place a staggering subject for a picture came into view towards the east: St-Victoire. I said 'What a splendid subject'; he replied, 'The lines are too symmetrical'. Referring to 'L'Assommoir' [a novel of Emile Zola] about which, incidentally, he was the first person to speak to me, he said some very sound things, and praised it, but always from the point of view of technique.

Paul Cézanne
Anyone who wants to paint should read Bacon. He defined the artists as homo additus naturae... Bacon had the right idea, but listen Monsieur Vollard, speaking of nature, the English philosopher, [Bacon] didn't for-see our open-air school, nor that other calamity which has followed close upon its heels: open-air indoors.

Paul Cézanne
Listen, monsieur Vollard, I worked a lot out of doors at Estaque. Except for that there was no other event of importance in my life during the years 1870-71. I divided my time between the field and the studio.... Zola closed his letter by urging me to come back to Paris too [in 1872 Cézanne went back to Paris].... but all the same, something told me to go back to Paris. It was too long since I had seen the Louvre. But understand, Monsieur Vollard, I was working at that time on a landscape which was not going well. So I stayed at Aix (Aix en Provence) a little while longer to study on my canvas.

Paul Cézanne
The Night-watch [large and famous painting of Dutch 17th century painter Rembrandt]... the grandiose - I don't say it in bad part - grows tiresome after a while. There are mountains like that; when you stand before them you shout Nom de Dieu, but for every day a simple little hill does well enough. Listen Monsieur Vollard, if the 'Raft of the Medusa' hung in my bedroom, it would make me sick.

Paul Cézanne
I must tell you that your letter [of Pissarro] surprised me at L'Estaque on the seashore... I have started two little motifs with a view of the sea; they are for monsieur Chocquet who spoke to me about them. – It is like a playing card – red roofs near the blue sea. The sun is so terrific here that it seems to me as if the objects were silhouetted, not only in black and white, but in blue, red, brown and violet. I may be mistaken, but this seems to me to be the opposite of modeling.. [to reduce the pull of perspective to the horizon]

Paul Cézanne