Madame Cézanne Essay

Further into Cézanne’s career, portraiture was common. In his work, Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Armchair of 1890 (Figure 10), Japanese influence cannot be denied. The “great simplification and flattening of modelling and color, the structural anchoring of the figure against the edges of the picture, and the horizontal weighting combined with a diagonal accent,” (Berger 118) that Cézanne used in his painting were common features in Japanese work. Although Cézanne did not specify whether he viewed Japanese art as stimulation, to refute the notion that these techniques were borrowed from the Japanese would be a mistake.
Additionally, “Cézanne’s interest in the Japanese artefacts in Zola’s private collection is demonstrated by his watercolor of
a Japanese Buddha,” (Tanaka 210). This work portrays the figure seated with his hands in prayer position and painted in light yellow with areas of brown (Tanaka 211). Cézanne’s depiction of the figure is not complete, however, “he lacks the halo and sword, but there is a grimacing lion mask on his abdomen which is similar to that seen on the original sculptures,” (Tanaka 212). The capability for Cézanne to understand Buddhism was “related to his notion of the worship of nature, an idea which is fundamental to Japanese Buddhism, especially when assimilated to the beliefs of Japan’s native religion, Shinto,” (Tanaka 213). Cézanne did not partake in conversations regarding the Japanese art form, but he did converse with individuals who did. This knowledge makes it discernible how Cézanne learned about the art form.
Going back to Cézanne’s circles, his mentor, Picasso, was fascinated by Japanese artists. This is perhaps why Cézanne’s “painting style incorporated both the watercolor technique of Japanese painting and the color structure of Ukiyo-e, enhancing the effect of his colored surfaces by the use of visible brush strokes and subtle contours,” (Tanaka 214). Since Picasso was so infatuated with Ukiyo-e prints and Japanese art, it is unquestionable that Cézanne’s mentor passed some of these newly adopted procedures to him.
While there were several other Impressionists who conformed to methods of the Japanese, the last person of interest is Édouard Manet. Manet was an exceptional colorist, he does not need to give the Japanese credit for that critical aspect. What he did derive from the Japanese “consisted above all in the relationship of color to form, in the structuring of his pictorial space, and in the elaboration of a new kind of formative intention,” (Berger 33). The combination of these characteristics resulted in planar quality, his greatest contribution, to modern art (Berger 33).
Manet was frequently acquainted himself with figures from the Japonisme movement and learned a lot about printmaking from Félix Bracquemond (Weisberg, Cate and Needham 39). Prior to the popularization of Japanese prints, Manet had been accustomed to painting in dark tones. After he learned the ways of Japonisme, one of Manet’s goals “was to disperse the conventional darkness, to overthrow the tyranny of shadow and half-light,” (Wichmann 23). Manet was successful in this task when he brought “the black and white forward out of the shadows and made them equal to the local colors,” (Wichmann 23). Manet’s ability to combine his views of the world with other artistic means proved to be quite useful in his career. Other than subject matter, Manet borrowed artistic techniques from the Japanese.
For example, in his watercolor Ships at Sunset (Figure 10), Manet “illustrates very clearly his interest in the clearly focused representation of an object – the sail – cut off by the edge of the picture,” (Wichmann 25). This technique of cropping an object to represent distance was borrowed from Hiroshige (Wichmann 25). Manet also featured Far Eastern representations of animals, especially cats, in his works during the latter part of his career. With these, “he drew studies with brush and crayon that were equal to the work of any of the great Oriental draughtsman,” (Wichmann 25). In several instances, Manet turned to the structure of the Japanese fan for inspiration as
well. Using Hokusai’s Manga as inspiration, “Manet copied tiny bathers and scant foliage to decorate Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem ‘An Afternoon of a Faun’,” (Ives 31). His illustrations proved that he had studied Japanese brush drawing, “which he could have seen reproduced in the woodcuts of the Manga, in drawings belonging to Duret or Burty, or in prints such as Kyōsai’s crows,” (Ives 31). Because of his quick-thinking strategies, Manet “was one of the first Western artists to realize the power of swift, sumi-brushstrokes,” (Ives 31). He used black ink in a Japanese manner, using care-free lines and modern devices. Because Manet was the first major nineteenth-century artist to explore the art of Japan, “Manet blended oriental ways with western means so successfully that he determined a major direction for art in the twentieth century,” (Ives 33). Manet’s spontaneous nature in his treatment of subject matter marked many of his pieces with Ukiyo-e influences (Ives 33). Manet’s borderline obsession with Japanese art did not faze every member of his audience. Ives pointed out that “as early as 1880 Huysmans complained that Manet had allowed himself to become too entranced by oriental art,” (Ives 33). Despite this, Manet stayed true to himself and “simply absorbed oriental flatness and boldness into his western point of view,” (Ives 33). The way Manet fused his principles with the techniques of Japanese artists is hard to determine, but the concept is simple, Manet was at an advantage and an inspiration for the remaining artists of his time and subsequent artists that would arise. The influence that Japanese art had on the Impressionists proved to be advantageous.
Several characteristics were borrowed from this artistic form, from the use of color to the way forms were portrayed. Objects such as the wave, the folding screen, and the bridge were critical sources of inspirations to break apart from the standards. Artists such as Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, and Édouard Manet began to utilize these newfound techniques in their work once Japanese art was discovered in the West. Each of these individuals partook in studies of the culture in some way or another, leading to positive changes in their works. Without the Impressionists dabbling into great Japanese impact, the intoxicating demeanor to follow would have been
nonexistent.