Carol Armstrong, "Cezanne in the Studio: Still Life in Watercolors"
2004 | English | PDF | 160 pages | 17.4 Mb

In Cezanne in the Studio: Still Life in Watercolors, Carol Armstrong places this great painting within the context of Cezanne’s artistic and psychological development and of the history of the genre of still life in France. Still life—like the medium of watercolor—was traditionally considered to be “low” in the hierarchy of French academic paintings. Cezanne chose to ignore this hierarchy, creating monumental still-life watercolors that contained echoes of grand landscapes and even historical paintings in the manner of Poussin—the “highest” of classical art forms. In so doing he charged his still lifes with new meanings, both in terms of his own notoriously difficult personality and in the way he used the genre to explore the very process of looking at, and creating, art.

Carol Armstrong’s study is a fascinating exploration of the brilliant watercolor paintings that brought Cezanne’s career to a complex, and triumphant, conclusion. The book includes new photographic studies of the Getty’s painting that allow the reader to encounter this great watercolor as never before, in all of its richness and detail.