Lucky for me I was in Philadelphia the other day, and finished my task there early enough to
stop in at “Cezanne & Beyond” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There’s no need for me to repeat all the accolades it has received. I wholeheartedly agree with them. But I do want to differ with a recurring subtheme in some reviews of the show: that the connection drawn between Cezanne and post-1945 artists is, shall we say, stretched.
For some artists, maybe, but for one — and this was a true surprise to me — no. I think the link with Ellsworth Kelly is indeed there. The doubters have focused on Kelly’s monochrome
wedge of a painting, Lake II, 2002 (above right), which mimics the shape of the sea in a Cezanne painting of
Marseilles harbor. If that were the only evidence, I’d agree.
But Kelly’s delicate pencil drawings of trees and of Mont Sainte Victoire make a better case. There are four in the show. And there’s a pencil-and-watercolor rendering of apples (left), two pencil drawings of geraniums, and several other works that also bolster the case. Importantly, the tree and apple drawings date to 1949 and 1950 — when Kelly was still in his 20s. Another stunning work, Meschers, owned by the Museum of Modern Art, was also painted in his early years, and draws on Cezanne’s flat spaces and forms. The geraniums, Mont Sainte Victoire and Lake II are more recent.
Unfortunately for me, the museum does not have permission
to reproduce the tree drawings — so you’ll have to go to the show or the catalogue to see exactly what I’m talking about. The Mont Saint Victoire drawing, from 2000, is at right.
One other point about the show: Some sections, particularly the portraits surrounding Madame Cezanne, made an exhibition in themselves. I watched as visitors stopped and really looked at these pictures for far longer than most museum-goers do (which is 3 seconds per work, by some surveys). It was great.
The exhibition, originally set to close this coming Sunday, has been extended until May 31.
Photo Credits: © Ellsworth Kelly.