Pictorial Space throughout Art History: Cézanne and ... - ARAS

ARAS Connections Issue 2, 2012
Cézanne distorted the
motif to make his painted
planes relate to the overall
plane of the flat canvas. He
pushed the foreground down
and back (into relationship
with the overall plane) by
contracting it, blurring it
and fading it. He brought
the mountain forward (towards the overall plane) by enlarging it and sharpening
its contour. He brought the sky forward by means of its dense texture; the sky is
as dense as the road. He also enlarged and sharpened the houses and the dark
tree in the middle distance to bring them forward; each house would have to be
as big as a village to appear as large as it does in his painting. In the painting each
plane functions as part of a plastic unity. In the photograph, space is an illusion
due to perspective.
Cézanne's painting is not finished in the conventional sense but it is
nevertheless a complete plastic composition. I will explain later, if a painting is to
be plastic, then it must be plastic at each intermediate stage in its development.
The properties of plastic paintings
Cézanne studied plasticity by studying the masters in the Louvre. You can
do the same. Here I use reproductions to demonstrate aspects of pictorial space. I
also quote what painters have said of each aspect.
Plate 2-2 Erle Loran, American. Photograph of
Cézanne's motif. 1927.
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