Answer to Question #309573 in History for Hervé

Question

In an essay, discuss how both Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life) and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon can be simultaneously seen as inspired by and breaking free of Paul Cézanne’s, The Large Bathers. Refer to specific visual references in your discussion.

Answer 1

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Introduction

This written submission will review the influence of The Large Bathers by Paul Cézanne on Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre, and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. A review of how each artist evolved their creativity and unshackled themselves to produce creative work distinctive of Cézanne will be explored. The alignment of Impressionism and Cubism with the earlier movements will be examined and researched and probing why the artists revered the female form. 

Paul Cézanne had many influences throughout his career. Unlike many of his peers, he came from a wealthy family; he practiced his art in Paris by studying the old masters and reproducing their work in his drawings and paintings. Cézanne continued this practice until his death. Cézanne followed the form and structure of the old masters, which is evident in many of his paintings (VAC, n.d.-a). Cézanne created 11 images in his bathing series, presently located at venerable institutions and museums worldwide. The Large Bathers (1898-1905) painting was a formidable execution by the artist that implied the classic structure found in the masters but enveloped in a form that did not paint the bodies as they were. 

Cézanne removed the sexual appeal of naked women by juxtaposing their bodies with those of nature but allowing them to be represented in the viewer's imagination. Mary Louise Krumrine stated: 'Cezanne returned time and again to the Bathers as a way of confronting, expressing, and finally controlling his changing attitude toward women and resolving his other psychological complexities, particularly his doubts about his own sexual identity” (Garb, 1996). If Cézanne did not understand his own identity, maybe the human forms' fuzziness in his bathing series were reflections of his suppressed sexuality that he did not want to acknowledge. 

The arrangement of the figures, with the procession of multiple ordered triangles in the layout, the use of trees, grass, and water to create space and control the viewer's eyes, are evocative of Nicholas Poussin's method of composing landscape paintings (VAC, n.d.-a). In The Large Bathers, Cézanne evokes a relationship between ancient Greece and modern women bathing, relaxing, and allowing sensuality to converge with subdued but brilliant colors, obscured shapes, and the framing of the bathers in the painting by trees and water. 

Like Cézanne, “Matisse was a key exponent of Post-Impressionism, noted for his use of color as a means of expression” (VAC, n.d.-b). Matisse constructs the landscape of Bonheur de Vivre (1906) so that it functions as a stage, much like how Cézanne created The Large Bathers. With trees located on the sides and in the distance, they highlight the painting's human figures on different planes and bring foreshortening using an unbalanced perspective. The Fauvist’s use of bold colors is a retraction from Cézanne’s use of color in The Large Bathers. The painting's figures indicate the artists' fascination with the female form and are depicted clearly rather than blurred as in Cézanne’s modeling, although the faces are obfuscated. In the painting, each set of figures is detached from the others, whereas in Cézanne’s painting, they exemplify each other's love and appreciation, maybe fondness or friendship for one another. 

Pablo Picasso, the father of the Cubist movement, was also competitive and friendly with Henri Matisse. It is rumored that after attending an event at the home of the Stein’s, he was so jealous that he began work on a depiction of the prostitutes of Avignon, which was renamed by a gallery owner to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, so it did not incite vulgarity (PPO, n.d.). One reason Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was revolutionary is that Picasso eliminated any perspective from this work. There is one vanishing point, just the female figures, and their distorted faces. When Matisse first saw Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, he criticized the painting for stealing its value from Matisse’ Blue Nude and Le Bonheur de Vivre. Picasso uses geometric shapes in this painting to depart from the blurred images in Bonheur de Vivre or The Large Bathers. Here, Picasso strikes against the establishment, reducing the female form to obscurity with the relation to primitive masks on the two females to the right. Although we can see blue in the background possibly for water or a lake, and brown to the left perhaps denoting trees, this does nothing more than relating to Cézanne’s work. The use of color in this painting is also reminiscent of the applique of color that Matisse used in Bonheur de Vivre, especially when looking at the bodies' coloring. Picasso brings the figures forward, taking up most of the frame as if they were staring at him while he walked by them, in comparison a departure from the other artists. 

Conclusion

The artists, Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso, painted what they loved. All three artists had a deep affinity for women, and these paintings imbue their muses in some form. Matisse inherited the intellectual progression of Fauvism from Cézanne, while Picasso inherited it from Matisse. While Matisse and Picasso deviated in their abstract interpretations, it is still a road of discovery for each artist as they progress and innovate. 

References 

Garb, T. (1996). Visuality and Sexuality in Cézanne's Late Bathers. Oxford Art Journal, 19(2), 46-60. Retrieved October 17, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1360728 

Visual Arts Cork (VAC) (n.d.-a). Large Bathers (1894-1906) by Cézanne. Retrieved from http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/paintings-analysis/large-bathers-cezanne.htm 

Visual Arts Cork (VAC) (n.d.-b). Henri Matisse. Retrieved from http://www.visual-artscork.com/famous-artists/matisse.htm 

Pablo Picasso Organization (PPO). (n.d.). Masterpieces of Pablo Picasso. Retrieved from https://www.pablopicasso.org/avignon.jspPicasso Organization (PPO). (n.d.). Masterpieces of Pablo Picasso. Retrieved from https://www.pablopicasso.org/avignon.jsp