EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender
Jeanette Hoorn, The University of Melbourne
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E Cezanne’s Bather: Masculinity and Movement Notes taken on July 21, 2018 by Edward Tanguay |
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Paul Cezanne's The Bather (1885)
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one of Cezanne's most arresting paintings
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subtle tones of grey, blue and green
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one of the hundreds of paintings Cezanne made around the subject of bathers and bathing
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painted bathers throughout his career
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more than 30 years
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many have written on his remarkable obsession with the theme
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the eroticism of Cezanne's bathers
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his at times seemingly out-of-control brush work has been interpreted as conveying a sort sexual frisson
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frisson, n. a sudden strong feeling of excitement or fear, a thrill
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rendition of fleshy and nubile bodies in which men and women cavort together in a range of settings are at odds with The Bather
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a solitary figure of a young man in an open landscape
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pure, tentative, uncertain, absorbed in his experience
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as he finds his footing through a rocky coastal terrain
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sparse and uneven
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the body of the young man is positioned solidly, though very lightly
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the grey hues with green highlights create the feeling of a coastal location
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Cezanne famously spent lengthy periods of time in nature on his own
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enjoyed bathing in the outdoors from his youth in Paris
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where he studied with Émile Zola
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particular feature of this painting that separates it out
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figure in the picture is based on and present in a particular photograph
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the shape of the body
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the averted gaze of the subject
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the way the figure distributes his weight mid-step
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the placement of his hands on his hips
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the folds in the drapery
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even the over-sized nipple
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why did he use a photograph
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an experiment
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following a program
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his slavish adherence to the features of the photograph
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has something of the scientific study about it
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removed from the studies of erotic sensation and of the sensual body
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rather the body in nature
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1872 Darwin: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
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used photographs to illustrate facial expression of emotions
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Antoine Fortuné Marion
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professor and director of the Natural History Museum in Marseille
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painter and paleontologist
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became one of France's leading Darwinists
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researched the fossils of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire region
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Cezanne also used a photograph to study the human form
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the combination of the subjective emotions of the bather with the landscape
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bathers hands are exaggerated
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rhyme visually with the bather's feet
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the feet also having grown in size
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a work that is more about the body than bathing
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presents a scientific study of a stationary body
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complements movement forward but has yet to enact that process
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Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904)
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English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion
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published in 1887 at the University of Pennsylvania
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Etienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904)
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a French scientist, physiologist and chronophotographer
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lived in Paris
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in this way, The Bather stands apart from the many other works that Cezanne drew of bathers
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is more like the scientific studies of the human body in motion at the time
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the primary task Cezanne asks of the viewer
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to ask how the young man takes a step forward into a rock pool
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it is the precise study of movement
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the articulation of the placement of the weight of the human body in anticipation of stepping forward
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not the sensual pleasure that we associate with Cezanne's pictures of bathing bathers
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which has received most of attention of art historians