CÉZANNE S INFLUENCE IN THE EARLY WORK OF KENNETH LOCHHEAD AND JOHN CLARK

Transcription

1 CÉZANNE S INFLUENCE IN THE EARLY WORK OF KENNETH LOCHHEAD AND JOHN CLARK Katherine Meredith Paul Cézanne ( ) is considered to be one of the most influential artists in the history of 19th century painting as well as a great forerunner of modern painting. He is credited with bridging the gap between late nineteenth century Impressionism and early twentieth century Cubism. 1 Generations of modern artists have affirmed their admiration of the artist. Matisse once proclaimed: Cézanne, you see, is a sort of God of painting. 2 His influence has persisted into art practices of the twentieth century, including that of contemporary artists in Canada. Roger Fry, an English painter and art critic, credits Cézanne with his singular status in modernism, both for the way he does not represent exactly what he sees in nature, and for a new optical phenomena that he achieved through a unique treatment of space, mass, and colour. 3 Instead of producing an idealized or naturalistic representation of his subject, he analyzed and reconstructed it on the canvas with tilted planes, flattened perspective, and fractured, sculptural forms composed of patches of colour rather than conventional light and shade modeling. 4 He did not always paint his subject from a singular perspective; rather he often showed an image seen from several vantage points in an individual work. The eye is continuously pushed around, forcing the viewer to re-assess the nature of spaces and volumes. 5 The influence of Cézanne is often most visible during the early and experimental periods of an artist s career, before reaching a distinct and personal style. This is true of the Ottawa-born artist Kenneth Lochhead ( ), who is well-known for the colourful abstract canvases he

2 painted while living in Regina. His early work of the 1950s are figurative paintings, with fractured forms and minimal sculptural qualities. Cézanne s influence is also present in the English-Canadian artist John Clark ( ), whose style is varied and eclectic, ranging from figure drawings to geometric abstract works to whimsical, fantasy paintings. Born in 1943 in Yorkshire, England, the artist mentioned that his first and foremost inspiration as an art student in the 1940s was Cézanne. 6 Clark had varied and fruitful career despite hispremature death at the age of 46 in This virtual exhibition presents the earlier work of John Clark and Kenneth Lochhead, exploring their pictorial and stylistic references to Paul Cézanne.

3 Kenneth Lochhead Model, Emma Lake x 14 in. (45.7 x 35.6 cm.) Oil on panel C+Emma+Lake&artist=Lochhead%2C+Kenneth&link_id=23

4 Paul Cézanne Madame Cézanne (Hortense Fiquet, ) in a Red Dress Oil on canvas 45 7/8 x 35 1/4 in. (116.5 x 89.5 cm) The Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ittleson Jr. Purchase Fund, 1962 Accession Number:

5 Kenneth Lochhead studied Cézanne s works extensively throughout his studies in visual art. While enrolled at the Barnes Foundation, he examined the works in the collection, in particular Cézanne's painting. He spoke of his admiration of the artist during his student years: I loved Cézanne paintings. Our lecturer and head of the education programme [...] would spend up to three hours analyzing one Cézanne of the collection. Wow, was that ever an eye opener. 7 Lochhead employs Cézanne s treatment of the picture-plane in his formative artworks, such as Model, Emma Lake (1957). In this portrait the artist assimilates what Cézanne had introduced to painting; Lochhead emphasizes structure in an analytical approach to his model, rather than an idealized or naturalistic method. Cézanne s model in Madame Cézanne (Hortense Fiquet, ) in a Red Dress ( ) is purposefully stiff and lacks heavy modeling. Lochhead pursues this cubist approach much further; the woman is more geometric and twodimensionaland in the lower section, the figure and ground are difficult to distinguish. The model s left hand, placed on her lap, composed of a rectangular beige brushstroke, is obscured in the similar beige brushstrokes forming the dress.

6 Kenneth Lochhead Piazza Michelangelo x in. (59.7 x 99.7 cm) Oil on canvas C+Emma+Lake&artist=Lochhead%2C+Kenneth&link_id=23

7 Michelangelo Buonarroti Piazza del Campidoglio 1538 to 1650 Rome, Italy

8 Paul Cézanne Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves x 81 cm Oil on canvas Private collection From 1958 to 1959, Lochhead and his family spent eight months in Rome and another four months traveling in Europe, where he saw Cézanne s work in museums and galleries. Several paintings such as Piazza Michelangelo (1959) were sketched in Rome and completed in oil upon returning to Regina, Saskatchewan. This painting, typical of Lochhead s figurative work in the 1950s, shows an Italian city, emphasizing architecture and the monuments in a flattened, cubist

9 way. The artist had a fascination for monuments, which he depicts here in simplified, geometric shapes, rather than in their original classical modeling. Just as Cézanne had done, Lochhead rejected the traditional rule of the single-point perspective. 8 Lochhead creates a fragmented surface, using angled planes and flattened volumes, resembling a mosaic. Lochhead emphasizes structure in his analytical approach to the scene, similar to Cézanne s idea of breaking down everything he saw into basic forms as in Le Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves ( ) where the landscape broken down into small squares is constructed as a flat pictorial form. In the following years, Kenneth Lochhead pursued this cubist style further, continuing to deconstruct his subject until he arrived at non-representational subject matter.

10 John Clark Table-Top with a Seascape x 60 in. (106 x 152 cm) Oil on canvas University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Alberta

11 Paul Cézanne The Bibemus Quarry x 81 cm Oil on canvas Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany Inv. G TspTitleImageLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfilterDefinition&sp=0&sp=0&sp=1&sp= Slightbox_4x5&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=2

12 John Clark attended art school in England, where he learned about the writings of prominent English art critics Roger Fry ( ) and Clive Bell ( ). Both critics were formalists. Bell became known for his theory of significant form, writing in 1914 that when lines and colours [are] combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. Fry, an advocate of recent developments in French painting, and the first to raise public awareness of modern art in Britain 9 particularly admired the formal qualities of the work of Cézanne, for the tension he achieved between forms on the surface, as well as for his plastic use of colour. 10 Clark shared Fry's deep respect for Cezanne. 11 The painting Table- Top With Seascape (1976) shows a view of a tabletop from above, with a seascape painting on it. It brings to mind Cézanne s late period, with a greater articulation of volumes into facets. In Cézanne s The Bibemus Quarry, the landscape is flattened and condensed, showing a distorted perspectival space. Clark treats the tablecloth with a similar analytical technique to Cézanne s quarry; both artists emphasize the surfaces rough appearance with facets of the subject, and use shading through small planes of colour.

13 John Clark Searchers in the Rock x 87.5 in. (292 x 222 cm.) Oil on canvas Collection of Ian and Catherine Delaney, Toronto s+in+the+rock&artist=clark%2c+john&link_id=1165

14 Paul Cézanne The Bathers (Les Baigneurs), small plate /4 x 11 7/16" (23.5 x 29 cm); sheet: 11 9/16 x 14 3/16" (29.4 x 36 cm). Colour lithograph Publisher: Vollard, Paris. Printer: Atelier Clot, Paris. unpublished proof before an edition of 100. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museum of Modern Art _number=8&template_id=1&sort_order=1

15 At first glance, John Clark's Searchers in the Rock (1983) resembles a charcoal sketch, but it is in fact a deliberately painted oil on canvas. The short and separated brushstrokes that depict light or the construction of a shape evoke Cézanne s same quality of what he called la petite sensation: recording the suddenness and beauty of the outdoors. 12 A reference to Cézanne may also be present in the combination of the drawn line and the short strokes of the brush, as seen in some of his freely painted oils of his late period, such as his The Bathers (Les Baigneurs). 13 The two nudes have a rigid and somewhat awkward stance, with very little detail in the faces as well as minimal emphasis on volume nor any distinction in shading or colour between the figures and the background. The paint is heavily applied in Searchers in the Rock, with thick black outlines, and the figures are static and rigid in contrast to Cézanne s curvilinear, sketch-like and detached lines.

16 NOTES 1 Sebastian Smee, Cézanne's World of Influence, The Boston Globe, March 8, 2009, accessed December 21, Jack D. Flam, Matisse on Art (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995) Rosemary J. Preuss, John Clark: Transformation and the Void with a Catalogue Raisonné, (The University of Lethbridge, 1989) accessed December 20, Judith H. Dobrzynski, His Transatlantic Progeny, The Wall Street Journal (Montclair, N.J., October 15, 2009) accessed December 20, John Clark, Naturalism/Modernism: A Future for Figurative Painting, Studio International (November 1974) Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art, accessed December 20, Tim Nowlin, John Clark, University of Lethbridge Art Gallery (October 6, 1989) Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art, accessed December 20, Ted Fraser, Kenneth Lochhead: Garden of Light [1948 to 2002], (Regina: MacKenzie Art Gallery, 2005) Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art, accessed December 20, Fraser. 9 Preuss, Preuss, Fraser. 12 Sue Smith, Classic Cezanne: The art of Paul Cezanne, Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney (December 1998) Grafico Topico, accessed December 21, Preuss, 114.

17 BIBLIOGRAPHY Clark, John. Naturalism/Modernism: A Future for Figurative Painting. Studio International. Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art. November Accessed December 20, Dobrzynski, Judith H. His Transatlantic Progeny. The Wall Street Journal. Montclair, N.J. October 15, Accessed December 20, Flam, Jack D. Matisse on Art. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Fraser, Ted. Kenneth Lochhead; Garden of Light. The MacKenzie Art Gallery. Regina, Saskatchewan. January 29-May 23, Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art. Accessed December 20, Fry, Roger. Cézanne: A Study Of His Development. Kessinger Publishing, Google Books. Accessed December 20, GnVUUC&redir_esc=y. Nowlin, Tim. John Clark. University of Lethbridge Art Gallery. October 6, Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art. Accessed December 20, Pissaro, Joachim. Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne & Pissarro New York: Museum of Modern Art; London: Thames & Hudson [distributor], Preuss, Rosemary J. John Clark: Transformation and the Void with a Catalogue Raisonné. The University of Lethbridge Accessed October 15, Smee, Sebastian. Cézanne's World of Influence. The Boston Globe. March 8, Accessed December 20, ge=full. Smith, Sue. Classic Cezanne: The Art of Paul Cezanne. Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney. December Grafico Topico. Accessed December 21, Sweet, David. Painting and Teaching in Two Worlds: John Clark. Manchester Guardian. October 18, Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art. Accessed December 20,