Sensation, Intent, and Cezanne’s Practice Open Access

Abstract

Despite the diverse methodologies used to study the art of Paul Cezanne, many accounts of the artist ignore and tend to naturalize certain broadly held notions about the role that sensation plays in his practice. Specifically, they maintain that the artist worked in a way that was direct, motivated entirely by the pursuit of optical sensations, and unmediated by his culture, education, or exposure to other artists and established artistic traditions. I argue that Cezanne’s practice is deliberate in ways that these common frameworks overlook and demonstrate how the artist conceived of his work along a wholly different set of coordinates predicated on the centrality of the artist’s intent. I begin with a brief survey of literature on Cezanne as it either explicitly or tacitly accepts sensation as an unquestioned baseline for critical assessment. I then examine a group of Cezanne’s paintings—his series of landscapes of the seaside at l’Estaque—and highlight evidence of the artist’s deliberate choices, moments where it is clear he is not attempting to exactly reproduce his sensations. Finally, I consider some of the artist’s written statements from a similar point of view to illustrate Cezanne’s own understanding of the limits of his sensory experience. In so doing, I aim to restore to the artist a degree of agency that is denied when he is treated as an uncritical receptor and transcriber of sensory experience.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Sensation, Intent, and Cezanne’s Practice 2

Figures 36

Bibliography 43

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Art History
Degree	MA
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Art History
Keyword	intention intent Cezanne historiography sensation
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Todd Cronan, Emory University
Committee Members	Jean Campbell, Emory University

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