Realizing the show closed today, I escaped with a girlfriend to the Cezanne in Provence exhibit at the National Gallery. My favorites were Sugar Bowl, Pears and Blue Cup, done with a palette knife (here); Peasant in a Blue Smock ; and a watercolor of his father's house, Jas de Bouffon.
In addition to collecting ridiculous warnings, I also collect stupid artspeak from audio tours of exhibits, which can be informative or preposterous, today's leaning toward the latter. For example, the curator exulted that a landscape of Bibemus Quarry put one in mind of descent into the tombs. And that must have been what Cezanne had on his mind, don't you know, because he had a close friend who was a naturalist and pulling fossils out of this same terrain. Not sure I see the connection between squirrel fossils and tombs, nor between those bright oranges, greens and blues and the netherworld.
Then there was the account of the artist's famed portrait of his father reading a paper. The curator informs us that his merchant father would certainly not have been reading the leftist paper Cezanne paints him with. So this must have been some sort of rebellion against his strict (or detached, I don't remember. Something angst-causing) father. Which is a stretch on its face, but even sillier when the curation provided on the wall explained that Cezanne originally painted his father reading the usual daily paper. But when a friend's favorable review of Cezanne's paintings appeared in the leftist paper, Cezanne switched the titles. So, it's a little joke --his dad is reading his good review. Sigh.
Still, my all-time favorite instance of artspeak was when J. Carter Brown described this work as
a riot of color within a limited palette.
