The Stories about Art Films: 51. Cézanne and I (2016), ACJ Movie Academy

 

Basic Info

Title: Cézanne and I

Genre: Biography, Drama

Country: France

Language: French

Running time: 116 minutes

Release date: 21 September 2016

Staff

Director: Danièle Thompson

Produced by: Albert Koski

Screenplay: Danièle Thompson

Music: Éric Neveux

Cinematography: Jean-Marie Dreujou

Edited by: Sylvie Landra

Cast

Guillaume Canet as Émile Zola

Guillaume Gallienne as Paul Cézanne

Alice Pol as Alexandrine Zola

Déborah François as Hortense Cézanne

Sabine Azéma as Elisabeth Cézanne

Summary

“Cézanne and I” is a 2016 French biographical drama film about the friendship between 19th-century novelist Émile Zola and painter Paul Cézanne. The film was written and directed by Danièle Thompson and starred Guillaume Canet, Guillaume Gallienne, Alice Pol, Déborah François and Sabine Azéma. The film was named as one of four films for the French submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards.

Portrait of Emile Zola, Paul Cézanne (c. 1862
-1864)

Self Portrait, Paul Cezanne (1879)

Movie Review

“Cezanne's emotional strife rather than art is the focus”

“Breathtaking cinematography, stereotypical characters”

“Bit of a bore”

“A cinematic masterpiece”

“Superb film for artist and authors”

Interesting stories about the film

1. Director Danièle Thompson originally wanted to write a play about the relationship between Cézanne and Zola, but fellow director Mike Nichols convinced her that a film would make this theme more relevant.

Danièle Thompson

2. Père Tanguy, who appears in the film selling paint to Cézanne in his shop, also provided paint to other Impressionist painters and Vincent Van Gogh, who painted his portrait now at the Rodin Museum in Paris.

Portrait of Père Tanguy, Vincent van Gogh,
Musée Rodin, Paris (1887)

3. At the end of the film, the man who appears buying Cézanne's paintings is Ambroise Vollard, an art dealer who promoted several Impressionist painters and made a fortune with their works. Cézanne appears painting his portrait, which can now be seen at the Petit Palais in Paris.

Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, Paul Cézanne,
Petit Palais, Paris (1899)

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Interesting Art Stories: 62. The Boy in the Red Vest, Paul Cézanne, ACJ Art Academy

 

 

How are you?

Currently, I am introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the title “Interesting Art Stories”.

The 62nd story is “The Boy in the Red Vest” by Paul Cézanne.

"The Boy in the Red Vest" is a painting by Paul Cézanne, painted in 1889 (or 1890), and it is one of the paintings showing Cézanne's mature feeling after 1880.

Self-portrait, Paul Cézanne (1875)

Cézanne rarely used professional models when painting figures, but this painting is one of the exceptions. The model for this painting was Michelangelo di Rosa, an Italian boy, and Cézanne painted four oil paintings and two watercolors of this boy in a red vest.

He painted this boy in all different poses, and through this process, he studied the relationship between the figure and space.

The most famous and commonly mentioned of the four oil paintings of the same title, this painting depicts a melancholic boy sitting with his elbow on a table and his head cradled in his hand, looking at the white paper on the table. 

The Foundation E.G. Bührle, which now owns the painting, described it as "There is a perfect balance here of high compositional intelligence and spontaneous painterly intuition." 

Foundation E. G. Bührle Collection

In 1895, art critic Gustave Geffroy also said the painting could stand comparison with the finest figure paintings of the Old Masters. 

Portrait of Gustave Geffroy, Paul Cézanne
(1895)

This painting of rich colors is organized with three main diagonals: the angle of the boy's tilted back and head, the angle of the dark green curtain behind the boy, and the long angle of the seat and table.

In 1895, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard acquired the painting from Cézanne, followed by art collectors Marcell Nemes in 1909 and Gottlieb Reber in 1913. The painting was then taken over by art collector and patron Emil Georg Bührle in 1948, and after Bührle’s death in 1956, his heirs donated it to the Foundation E.G. Bührle in 1960.

Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, Paul Cézanne
(1899)

Emil Georg Bührle

In February 2008, the painting, the most valuable painting of the foundation at the time, was stolen from the Foundation and recovered in Serbia in April 2012.

The following are three other paintings of the boy by Cézanne with the same title during the same period.

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The Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 94. The Little Peasant (1918)

 

How are you?

Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani.

The 94th work to introduce for this week is “The Little Peasant” in 1918.

This work is an expressionist style portrait and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 100 x 65 cm and possessed by the Tate Gallery in London, England.

The original Tate Gallery, now renamed Tate Britain

It was painted in the room where Modigliani painted Jeanne Hébuterne during his stay with Jeanne in Nice, the southern France.

Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne, Amedeo
Modigliani (1918)

The identity of the model in this painting is not exactly known, and Modigliani would have been able to express the model in a more free form through the anonymity of the model.

The simplified form of the model shown in this painting once again reminds us of the influence that Modigliani received from Paul Cézanne.

Woman in a Green Hat (Madame Cezanne),
Paul Cézanne (1894-1895)

This painting is also one of Modigliani's first paintings to be purchased by the Hugh Blaker Collection in London, England in 1919 through Léopold Zborowski, the friend and art dealer of Modigliani.

Hugh Blaker

Portrait of Léopold Zborowski, Amedeo
Modigliani (1918)

The young country peasant in this painting gives a glimpse of Modigliani's same respect for the modest people, which Cézanne showed to the modest people of Provence. Despite their bourgeois background, Modigliani and Cézanne loved common people.

Modigliani said to Soutine: "Like the beautiful statues of antiquity, Cézanne's figures don't watch him. But my figures are watching me with an interest even if I draw their pupils. But like Cézanne's figures, they don't want to express anything other than they silently accept their lives."

The young country peasant, expressed without ornament or any embellishment, would have posed for his model, not even imagining that his portrait would become the collection of one of the most famous museums in the world in the future.

Another painting that Modigliani painted the same figure as this painting is shown below.

The young apprentice, Amedeo Modigliani
(1918)

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