Okay, so I decided to give this Cézanne landscape thing a go. Sounded like a nice, artsy way to spend an afternoon, right? Get in touch with the old masters, all that.
Getting Started (or so I thought)
First off, I pulled out my usual stuff. Some paints, a few brushes – nothing too fancy, mind you. I figured, Cézanne, he wasn’t about fancy gear, he was about the vision. Or so I told myself. I had this image in my head, you know, Mont Sainte-Victoire, those blocky trees, the whole shebang. I thought, how hard can it be? Just some shapes, some muted colors.
Well, let me tell you, it was harder than explaining to a cat why it can't walk on the keyboard. My first few attempts looked less like Cézanne and more like a toddler had a go with some muddy paints. The colors just weren't right, and everything felt flat. Not the cool, structural flat of Cézanne, but just… sad and flat.
The Real Grind
So, I took a step back. Breathed a bit. I realized I wasn't really looking. Cézanne wasn't just slapping paint down. He was building things, like with bricks of color. I started trying to break down what I was seeing, or trying to paint, into simpler planes. Like, this bit of field is a tilted square, that tree trunk is a cylinder, but a wobbly one.
- Trying to get those distinct brushstrokes without it looking like a mess.
- Figuring out his weird perspective that somehow still works.
- Not making mud when layering colors. That was a big one.
I spent a good hour just on a small section of what was supposed to be a distant hill. An hour! For a hill! It was all about those little shifts in color, trying to make it feel solid but also part of the air. He had this way of making things look both heavy and light at the same time. My brain started to hurt a bit, trying to wrap itself around that.
I even tried holding the brush differently, more like I was drawing with it. Dabbing, short strokes, longer strokes. It felt clumsy. I remember thinking, this guy must have had incredible patience, or maybe he just saw the world in a completely different way from the get-go. Probably both.
Any Breakthroughs? Sort Of.
After a while, something clicked. Not like a huge "aha!" moment, more like a tiny "hmm, okay." I started to focus less on making it look exactly like a Cézanne and more on just trying to understand what he was doing with form and color. I squinted a lot. Squinting helps, makes things simpler.
I noticed how he’d use a cool color next to a warm one to make things pop, or how edges would sometimes disappear and then reappear. It wasn't about clean lines all the time. It was more about the feeling of the structure.
My landscape still didn't look like something you'd hang in a museum. Let's be honest, it probably wouldn't even hang in my own living room. But a few patches started to have a bit of that… solidity. That chunky, almost geometric feel. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
What I Actually Took Away
So, did I master the Cézanne landscape? Absolutely not. Not even close. But I did learn a few things. Mainly, that it's way more complicated than it looks. It’s not just about a "style"; it’s a whole way of seeing and constructing a picture. It’s about patience, and really looking, and then looking some more.
And you know what? It made me appreciate his actual paintings a lot more. Next time I see one, I won't just think "oh, pretty blocks." I'll be thinking about the sheer brainpower and effort that went into every single one of those brushstrokes. It’s funny, I went in thinking it would be a relaxing painting session, and I came out feeling like I’d done a mental workout. But a good one, I guess. Still got a long way to go, though. A very long way.
