Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)
A painting can be analogous to reality itself as Cezanne intuited with his painting entitled Mountains in Provence (1886). All of Creation is a tapestry with each thread being interrelated and interdependent, and so it is with each of the elements of his painting being essential to the whole.
“He once likened the workings of a picture to the intertwined fingers of two human hands, each locked securely into its neighbor and allowing no gaps or weaknesses to interrupt the pattern. In Mountains in Provence all the features of the composition can be seen in this way, every bush and every building taking its place in the overall harmony in such a way that their removal would destroy the equilibrium.”[i]
Cezanne made the distinction between emotions and the deeper intuitional “feelings” when he approached his work. He knew he had to be in the NOW when he painted. “‘Painting from Nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations [feelings].’ To realize a sensation meant to give it a syntax, and as the hatched, angled planes in late Cezanne become less legible as illusion, so does the force of their pictorial image become more ordered. His goal was presence [P-A].”[ii]
A worldview of Oneness underlies P-A and our ability to shift to that more profound narrative is essential to mitigate human suffering. Appreciating the beauty and harmony of all of Creation as Cezanne did each of the elements of his paintings, will herald the awakening of humanity.
[i] Quantum Publishing Ltd., The Great Masters., London. 2003, page 476.
[ii] Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1981, page 125.
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