The Japanese Society for Aesthetics

Aesthetics No.21 (2018): 111-125

What Copying Meant to Cézanne

NAGAЇ Takanori

Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto

Introduction
Did copying hold particular meaning for Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)?
Determined to become a painter, Cézanne set off for Paris in 1861. There he made drawingsof the human form at the private Académie Suisse, and began to make copies of the artworks ofthe past at such museums as the Louvre. He took the entrance exam for the national art academy
but failed. Though he gave up on that exam, he entered a succession of paintings in thegovernment-sponsored Salons of 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, 1872, 1878, 1879 and 1881,
each rejected because they did not fit the Neoclassicist trend then controlling the Salon. [1] Afterthe Salon was privatized in 1881, he finally had a work accepted in 1882 as the student of his
friend Antoine Guillemet (1843-1918), but then lost interest in the Salon and did not enter any
other works. But this did not mean that Cézanne ignored classic paintings.[2] In a process that
continued into his later years, Cézanne creatednumerous copy drawings of works at the Musée duLuxembourg, the contemporary art museum of theperiod, and of the works of the past assembled at the
Louvre and the Comparative Sculpture Museum in the
Trocadéro, thus indicating that he maintained a strong
interest in the great artists of his own period and of thepast. Cézanne received official permission to makecopies in the Louvre on November 20, 1863, and on
April 19, 1864 he made a copy of Et in Arcadia Ego (fig.
Fig.1 Nicolas Poussin, Et in Arcadiaego （ Les Bergers d’Arcadie), late1) by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). Records indicate
1630s, oil on canvas, 85 x 121 cm,
that he re-registered for permission to copy February
Louvre Museum
23, 1868.[3]In his later years Cézanne wrote the following encouragement to a young painter with whom
he was in touch, Émile Bernard (1868-1941).
“The Louvre is a good book to consult, but it should be only a means. The real, prodigious
study to undertake is the diversity of the scene offered by nature.”(To Émile Bernard, Aix, May 12, 1904)[4]
And,

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NAGAЇ Takanori“The Louvre is the book from which we learn to read. However, we should not be content
with holding onto the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors. Let us go out tostudy beautiful nature, let us try to capture its spirits, let us seek to express ourselves
according to our individual temperaments.”(To Émile Bernard, Aix, 1905)[5]“So, the thesis to be expounded--whatever our temperament or strength in the presence of
nature--is to give the image of what we see, forgetting everything that has appeared before
us. This, I think, should allow the artist to give his whole personality, big or small.”(To Émile Bernard, Aix, October 23, 1905)[6].
These comments not only emphasize the importance of studying at the Louvre, but also thatof nature; not imitating the manner of one’s predecessors, but rather completely forgetting
them as one understands nature anew through one’s own powers and reconstructs it on the
picture plane. He emphasized, in other words, visual phenomenology, or in Cézanne’s own
words, the “realization of the senses.”[7]Then we might ask, what was the organic connection between copying at the Louvre and“the realization” when confronting nature?

1. Oil Painting Copy WorksThe Oil Painting section[8] of the Cézanne catalogue raisonné by John Rewald (1912-1994)
indicates that of Cézanne’s total 954 oil paintings, the following 22 works were copy works.
Copy after Frillié, The Kiss of the Muse (R. 9, ca. 1960, 82 x 66 cm, oil on canvas) (copy afterwork in the Musée Granet (fig. 2))
 Copy after Dubufe, The Prisoner of Chillon (R. 13, ca.
1860, measurements unknown, oil on canvas, whereabouts unknown) (copy after work in the Musée Granet
collection)
 Copy after Prud’hon, Two Children (R. 15, ca. 1860, 55
x 46 cm, oil on canvas, whereabouts unknown) (copyafter a monochrome print)
 Either partial copy after a work attributed to Laurent
Fauchier or after Albert Cuyp, Peaches on a Plate (R.
22, 1862-64, 18 x 24 cm, oil on canvas, private collection) (copy after work in the Musée Granet collection)
 Copy after Lancret, Hide and Seek (R. 23, 1862-64, oilon canvas, 165 x 218 cm, Nakata Museum) (copy afterFig.2 Paul Cézanne, After Frillié: Le
monochrome print)
Baiser de la muse, c. 1860, Oil on Copy of a portrait photograph, Self-Portrait (R. 72,
canvas, 82 x 66 cm, Musée
1862-64, oil on canvas, 44 x 38 cm, private collection,
Granet, Aix-en-ProvenceWhat Copying Meant to Cézanne

113

Paris) (copy after monochrome photograph taken in 1861 by an unknown photographer) Copy after François Marius Granet, View of the Roman Coliseum (R. 27, 1863-65,
measurements unknown, whereabouts unknown) (copy after monochrome print)
 Copy after Titian, Pietà (R. 143, ca. 1869, 19.8 x 29.8 cm, oil on paper, Rhode Island Schoolof Design Museum) (source work unknown)
 Copy after Delacroix, The Barque of Dante (R. 172, ca. 1870, 25 x 33 cm, private collection,
Cambridge) (copy after a work displayed in the Musée du Luxembourg or a monochrome
print of same work) Copy after Rembrandt, Bathsheba (R. 173, ca. 1870, private collection, Aix-en-Provence)(copy after a monochrome print of Rembrandt painting) Copy after Camille Pissarro, Louveciennes (R. 184, ca. 1872, private collection) (copy after
the original borrowed from Pissarro) Copy after Delacroix, Hamlet and Horatio (R. 232, 1873-74, oil on paper and canvas, 21.9
x 19.4 cm, private collection, Philadelphia) (copy after a monochrome lithograph) Copy after Armand Guillaumin, Banks of the Seine at Bercy (R. 293, 1876-78, oil on canvas,
59 x 72 cm, Kunsthalle Hamburg) (copy after Guillaumin’s original work) Copy after Barye, Tiger (R. 298, 1876-77, oil on canvas, 29 x 37 cm, private collection) (copyafter monochrome lithograph) Copy after landscape photograph, Melting Snow, Fontainebleau (R. 413, 1879-80, oil oncanvas, 73.6 x 100.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York) (copy after ca. 1880
photograph by unknown photographer) Copy after Renoir, Portrait of Cézanne (R. 446, 1881-82, oil on canvas, 57 x 47 cm,
Hermitage Museum) (copy after a pastel) Copy of a photograph of unknown date and photographer, Portrait of Victor Chocquet (R.
460, 1880-85, oil on canvas, 45 x 36.7 cm, Foundation Socindec)
 Copy after El Greco, Lady in Ermine (R. 568, 1885-86, oil on canvas, 55 x 49 cm, private
collection, Switzerland) (copy after print reproduction of El Greco’s Lady in Ermine
published in Charles Blanc’s École Espagnole)
 Copy after a photograph, Portrait of the Artist (R. 587, ca. 1885, oil on canvas, 55 x 46.3 cm,
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh) (copy after monochrome photograph taken by
unknown photographer ca. 1872)
 Copy after Adriaen van Ostade, Peasant Family (R. 589, 1885-90, oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm,
private collection, The Netherlands) (copy after a monochrome etching dated 1647)
 Copy after Delacroix, Agar in the Desert (R. 745, 1890-94, oil on canvas, 50 x 56.5 cm,
private collection) (source image unknown)
 Copy after Delacroix, Bouquet of Flowers (R. 894, 1902-04, oil on canvas, 77 x 64 cm,
Pushkin Museum) (copy after watercolor)
We can infer two things from the above list. First, while Cézanne copied works from a wide
range of artists, schools and periods – from the Neoclassicist Félix Nicolas Frillié (1821-1863),
to the Rococo artist Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743), the 17th century Dutch Baroque artists
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) and Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685), the Spanish Mannerist

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NAGAЇ Takanori

El Greco (1541-1614), the Romantic Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), and the Impressionist
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) -- he particularly highly regarded such colorists as Titian (Tiziano
Veccellio, ca. 1488-1576), Rembrandt and Delacroix, and of those he was most interested in
Delacroix until the end of his life. Victor Chocquet (1821-1891), a collector of Cézanne’s works
from his Impressionist period onwards, was a passionate collector of Delacroix, and he andCézanne shared their adoration of Delacroix. Cézanne also created his Apotheosis of Delacroix
in 1890-94.[9] The first Cézanne exhibition was organized by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard(1866-1939) in 1895, and Vollard exchanged a watercolor by Delacroix, Bouquet of Flowers, fora Cézanne work. Cézanne quickly made a copy of the watercolor after the exchange. Judging fromthe fact that Cézanne chose to copy works by colorists such as Delacroix, we can surmise that his
aim was to study their color techniques.
However, there is one unusual fact. The majority of the source works for Cézanne’s copies
were not the original oil paintings themselves, but rather reproduction prints or monochrome
photographs. In other words, he copied a monochrome image that had none of the pigments’colors or textures, and hence there were many instances where the form of the source image wasbefore his eyes, but those source images were not models for either color or matière. The factthat he went ahead and copied the work in full color pigments under those constraints can beconsidered an opportunity for his active creativity regarding the colors that would not have beenpossible if freed from those constraints. While following the visual information provided by themodel in terms of form and composition, his aim was not the re-creation of his subject, but rather
he was able to spread the wings of his artistic sensibilities and freely create through pigments
and brushwork. In the copy works he produced at the end of the 1860s -- prior to his study of
Impressionist aesthetics and techniques and namely his copies of Titian’s Pietà, Delacroix’s
Barque of Dante, and Rembrandt’s Bathsheba -- he used large brushstrokes and square brushstrokes as planar elements and grouped them to create a sense of mass. If the couillarde
technique[10] of the 1860s is seen as a method in which a palette knife is used to juxtapose large
patches of pigment on the canvas surface and thereby create a relief surface, then after he learned
brushstroke separation in his Impressionist period, he began to re-create nature throughaccumulations of smaller brushstrokes. The three copy works mentioned above wereexperiments during this transitional period. Conversely, his faithful copying of the two works by
the Impressionists Pissarro and Guillaumin that he borrowed and directly copied (namely Copy
after Pissarro, Louveciennes, and Copy after Armand Guillaumin, The Banks of the Seine atBercy) clearly indicate that his aim was to study Impressionism. However, in a copy of asculpture he made some years later, Copy after Barye, Tiger, once again he returned to large,
square brush strokes as planar elements, combining them, and thus creating forms.
In the end Cézanne would go on to develop autonomous, rhythmic arrays of parallelgroupings of diagonal brushstrokes, what have been called “constructive strokes.”[11] And his
copying from monochrome images that provided a freely creative space in terms of color andmatière can be seen as providing a great opportunity to discover these brushstrokes liberated
from reproductive quality. Further, in his 1885-90 copy of a monochrome etching, Copy after
Adriaen van Ostade, Peasant Family, the source image provided absolutely none of the original
painting’s complex and rich depiction of details, mutual interactions of form, divergence of linesWhat Copying Meant to Cézanne

115

or spatially complicated relationships. But he was able to freely express these elements throughhis color palette, in spite of the fact he had no information on the original work’s colors. Suchinstances allowed him to activiate his own imagination and artistic sensibilities.
Copying was not just related to technical issues. Cézanne’s elaborate copy of Frillié’s work
(fig. 2) had a goal above and beyond learning Frillié’s techniques and views.
Prior to moving to Paris, Cézanne first studied painting under Joseph Gibert (1806-1884),
a painter in the neoclassical lineage of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). These studies took
place in the drawing classroom operated by the Musée Granet in Aix. Cézanne’s drawing of thehuman figure (fig. 3) from this period shows a realistic depiction
created through a proper grasp of form and use of shading. This
indicates that for the beginner Cézanne the study of painting
meant learning the techniques which would allow him to create an
accurate reproduction of nature as seen by the human eye. At thattime he also copied three paintings on display at the Musée Granet,creating accurate reproductions of the source works. These threeworks are his copy after Frillié’s Kiss of the Muse, Prisoner ofChillon and Peaches in a Plate. Of those, the Frillié work,
illustrated here as fig. 2, depicts a young poet resting his arm on
his desk, tired after his work at poetry composition in his writer’s
garret. The Muse of poetry appears, kissing him lightly on theFig.3 Paul Cézanne, Male
forehead and inspiring him. John Rewald has interpreted thisNude, 1862, Pencil on
selection of source imagery as a way that Cézanne sought to please
paper, 61 x 47cm, Granet
his mother,[12] but there was another reason. Influenced by his
Museum, Aix-en-Provence
friend from middle school, Émile Zola (1840-1902), the young
Cézanne was a passionate reader of Romantic literature, including works by Alfred de Musset(1810-1857) and Victor Hugo (1802-1885). Like Zola he was absorbed in poetry compositionand had first dreamed of an artistic life as a poet. Even after Zola left Aix in 1858 to move toParis, he exchanged letters with Cézanne in which they both presented their poetry. These poems
were primarily paeans to women and youth. The imaginary goddess who appears to save the poetfrom the suffering of the creative process could also mean his future companions who would atsome point save Cézanne then suffering from the oppression of his banker father who was trying
to force him into the family business.[13] Thus this work can be seen to reflect Cézanne’s
emotional state at the time, not just a calm composed technical study.
Cézanne’s concern for his father can be seen in his Copy after Lancret: Hide and Seek (fig.
4). This copy after a painter of Rococo gala scenes was meant to adorn the living room of the Jasde Bouffan, the country home that his father had bought. The house was done in an 18th century
Rococo architectural style, and thus he chose a style that would suit. Previously, in 1860-1861,
he had painted a Four Seasons series (fig. 5) on the curved walls of the living room.
With Spring and Summer on the left, the Portrait of the Artist’s Father Louis-Auguste
Cézanne, Reading “L’Événement” in the center, and Autumn and Winter on the left, these works
reveal the respect and gratitude he felt for his father who had allowed him to become a painter.
A Rococo style desk, chair and ceramic figurines were placed beneath these works (fig. 6).

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NAGAЇ TakanoriFig.4 Paul Cézanne, After Lancret: Le Jeu decache-cache, 1862–64, 165 x 218 cm,
Nakata Museum, Onomichi City, Japan
Fig.5 Paul Cézanne, Les Quatre Saisons: Le
Printemps, 1860–61, Wall painting, detachedand mounted on canvas, 314 x 97 cm, Muséede la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais/ Les Quatre
Saisons: L'Été, 1860–61, Wall painting,detached and mounted on canvas, 314 x 109
cm, Musée de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais/ Les
Quatre Saisons: L'Hiver, 1860–61, Wallpainting, detached and mounted on canvas,
314 x 104 cm, Musée de la Ville de Paris, Petit
Palai/Les Quatre Saisons: L'Automne, 1860–
61, Wall painting, detached and mounted on
canvas, 314 x 104 cm
Fig.6 Big salon at the Jas de Bouffa, n.d,
photographer unknown

The Four Seasons is a classic theme in Western art, taken up by such painters as Poussin,
and in Cézanne’s work more so than a Rococo style he demonstrates the elegant outlines, paletteand smooth glossy matière of the school of Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). He included an
Ingres signature in the composition, with the date 1811 written on the Winter image. The Musée
Granet collection includes a work, Jupiter and Thetis (fig. 7), in Aix that is signed “Ingres” and“1811.” Thus Cézanne imitated the great neoclassical painter Ingres and sought to appeal to hisfather by demonstrating that he had the talents of an orthodox painter. Prior to creating his Four
Seasons, Cezanne’s drawing from 1858-60 is a copy of Ingres’ Jupiter and Thetis (fig. 8). But
this was a caricature, not a faithful copy, given the changes he made in the figures’ poses andactions. The subject is taken from the Iliad, and shows the scene where the goddess of water
Thetis made a heartfelt plea to Zeus, the king of the gods, so that her son Achilles then at war,
would be victorious. Cézanne changed the pose of the two figures, reading into Ingres’ image thelatent concept of “woman sexually tempting man.” In the drawing Zeus, clasped at the neck by
Thetis, looks down, uniting the two figures. Through his own personal interpretation of the
Ingres painting Cézanne sought to surpass Ingres.

What Copying Meant to CézanneFig.7 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,Jupiter and Thetis, 1811, Oil oncanvas, 327 x 260cm, Musée Granet,
Aix-en-Provence

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Fig.8 Paul Cézanne, After Ingres: Jupiterand Thetis, 1858-60, Pencil on paper, 23
x 15cm, Museum Louvre

2. Copy works in Watercolor
According to the catalogue of Cézanne’s watercolors as edited by Rewald,[14] Cezanne left
645 watercolors, and of those the following six were copy works.
Copy of a Memorial Stele (RW.64, 1878-80, 21.6 x 12.3 cm, ink, watercolor and pencil on
paper, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam), (source work unknown)
 Copy after Giorgione, Pastoral Concert (RW.65, ca. 1878, watercolor and pencil on paper,
12.6 x 18.2 cm, Louvre) (Copy after either the original in the Louvre or its image publishedin L’Ecole vénitienne (1868) by Charles Blanc) Copy after Murillo, Begging Youth (RW.67, 1878-80, watercolor, gouache and pencil on
paper, private collection, Paris) (Copy after original in the Louvre or illustrations in Charles
Blanc’s École Espagnole (1869) or in the magazine L’Artiste) Copy after Delacroix, Medea (RW.145, 1880-85, watercolor and pencil on paper, 39.5 x 26.1
cm, Kunsthaus Zürich) (Copy after either the original in the Victor Chocquet collection or
the illustration in the magazine L’Artiste) Copy after Donatello, St. George (RW.297, ca. 1890, watercolor and pencil on paper, 33.7 x
21.2 cm, Albertina, Vienna) (Copy after the plaster cast in the Comparative SculptureMuseum in the Trocadéro) Copy after Caravaggio, The Entombment (RW. 492, ca. 1900, watercolor and pencil on
paper, 24.5 x 18 cm, private collection, Switzerland) (Copy after Pauquet’s print based on
Bourdon’s drawing)118

NAGAЇ Takanori

Cézanne’s watercolor copies of works reveal his interest in such colorist styles as the
Venetian school, and Baroque and Romantic painters. Here too were instances where Cézanne
did not copy from the full color original work but rather from monochrome prints, and thus thecolors he used in his copies were entirely based on his imagination and memory of the source
work. As is typically seen in his copy of a plaster cast of Donatello’s sculpture, he freely created acolor palette for the work that originally had no color usage. He did not first outline an area andthen apply color afterwards; rather he created a simple sense of mass and light and shadow
through the juxtapositioning of contrasting color planes, while also suggesting form. Thus his
methods were completely unrelated to the act of faithfully outlining a source image’s outline,
rather, in his watercolor copies he experimented with translating the forms, mass, and spaces ofthe source work suggested by outlines and shading into the relationships between color planes.

3. Copy Drawings
Adrien Chappuis’ catalogue raisonné of Cézanne’s drawings,[15] indicates that 1,223 of his
drawings remain. Of those, there are 282 drawings that are copies of artworks, whether paintings,
prints, drawings or sculpture. Further categorizing, 53 are copies of paintings, 197 are copies of
sculptures, 11 are copies of drawings and 19 are copies of reproduction prints, with a further twoof miscellaneous sources.
Among the paintings copied are works by Ingres, Raphael (1483-1520), Diego Velásquez(1599-1660), Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Delacroix, Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), Fra
Bartolomeo (1472-1517), Bartolomé Murillo (1617-1682), Théodore Géricault (1791-1824),
Francesco Bacchiacca (1494/5-1557), Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Thomas Couture (18151879), Louis Le Nain (ca. 1600/1610-1648), Horace Vernet (1789-1863), Jean-Baptiste Siméon
Chardin (1699-1779), François Boucher (1703-1770), Poussin, Titian, and Claude Lefèbvre (ca.
1632-1675). Overall the 53 drawing copies of paintings, with the exception of the nine after
Delacroix and 22 after Rubens, reveal high regard for colorist painters. Of the 18 copies after
prints, there are four after Delacroix. Of the 10 copies made after drawings, it is noteworthy thatfive are after Luca Signorelli (1445/1450-1523). More so than using line work to copy the noncolorist paintings of Ingres, Raphael, Gérôme and Couture, Cézanne aimed for subduing thecolor forms of Velásquez, Rubens, Delacroix, Veronese, Chardin, Boucher and Titian into pencil
on paper and created new aesthetic value by transforming them into a new medium. In the caseof replacing line with line it is possible to just transcribe as is, but in the case of copying colors
into lines, the artist can take flight, spurring on artistic sensibilities and resulting in individualinterpretations. When copying does not stop at the early study period stage of an artist’s careerand continues until their final period, then it is not practice for study purposes, but absolutely
must be considered as a creative act.[16]The overwhelming majority of Cézanne’s copies of artworks are images of sculptures. Of the
282 copy drawings, the 197 images of sculpture can be broken down into 50 images of ancient
sculpture, 46 drawings of works by Pierre Puget (1620-1694), 15 drawings of Ecorché (the manwith flayed skin) by an unknown artist, 11 drawings of works by Nicolas Coustou (1658-1733),
10 images of works by Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720), nine images of works by Jean-Baptiste

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119

Pigalle (1714-1785), eight works by Michelangelo (1475-1564), five works by Benedetto da
Maiano (1442-1497), four works by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), four works by Germain
Pilon (ca. 1535/7-1590), plus an additional 35 works. As in the case of his copies of paintings,
these copies of sculptures were produced throughout his life, from his early period through his
final years. Even if the source work’s materials differ, whether marble, bronze or plaster, themajority of Cézanne’s copies did not involve the tracing of the outline of the source work with alimited number of lines. Rather through numerous interrupted parallel repeated lines, and theirrelationship with the white of the paper itself, he expressed not only the forms of the subject
themselves, but also its depth, texture, light and shadows, sense of mass and sense of movement.
In the limited media of white paper and black pencil Cézanne was able to condense and convey
complex emotive information gained in the process of looking at his sculptural subject. Thus it
was not direct translation but rather meaning interpretation. The Baroque artists Puget andCoustou, the Baroque style sculptor of Ecorché (the man with flayed skin), the classicist
Coysevox, Rococoist Pigalle, Michelangelo and Maiano of the Renaissance, the neoclassicist
Houdon and Mannerist Pilon indicate that Cézanne selected a variety of styles. Most of thesesource works have complex bone structures, dynamic musculature, whether twisted, warped,
bent or clenched, and often decorative hair arrangements. Cézanne was particularly interested
in Puget, who was born in Marseilles and dubbed the “Michelangelo of Provence” (figs. 9 and
10), as well as in Michelangelo himself.[17] From their complex sculptures characterized bymusculature protrusion, light and dark, movement, and a sense of mass, he constructed new
relationships in lines on paper while reading and interpreting their internal interrelationships,
and thus these sculptures were favorable material for creative research.
Cézanne’s repeated copying of sculptures was underscored by his strong interest in three
dimensionality, light and shadow, sense of mass and sense of movement. In fact, even in his

Fig.9 Paul Cézanne, After Puget, Milo of
Crotona, 1882-85, Pencil on paper, 19.4 x
11.8cm, Private collection, Paris,Fig.10 Pierre Puget (1620-94), Milo of
Crotona, 1682, Marble, 270 x 140cm,
Museum Louvre

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NAGAЇ TakanoriFig.11 Paul Cézanne, La Maison du pendu,
Auvers-sur-Oise, c. 1873, Oil on canvas, 55 x
66cm, Museum Orsay, exhibited at the first
impressionism exhibition in 1874

Fig.12 Paul Cézanne, Les baigneurs au repos, c.
1876–77, Oil on canvas, 79 x 97cm, Barnes
Foundation, Philadelphia (formerly Merion),
exhibited at the third impressionism
exhibition in 1877

creation of paintings from his Impressionist period onwards Cézanne, unlike his colleagues,
loathed the dismembering of the subject through light and shadow and dissolving it amidst
atmosphere, turning instead to his own individual path, favoring firm forms, a sense of weight,
and clearly defined depth (fig. 11).
If that is the case, then Cézanne’s continuing to copy sculpture until his final years can beconsidered to be a place for repeated honing, gaining ideas for his unique search in paintings.
On the other hand, how are we to understand the other large group in his copies from sculpture,
namely those of ancient sculpture? Cézanne’s interest in ancient sculpture was broad, ranging in
Greek sculpture from the static works of the classical period through the dynamism of theHellenistic period and Roman sculpture. His drawings of the human form were not only selected
as material for his artistic creativity as with his drawings of other sculptures, they also allowed
Cézanne to transpose these figures into his Bathers series without employing models. Georges
Rivière (1850-1900) a critic active at the same time as Cézanne, commented on the Bathers (fig.
12) submitted to the 3rd Impressionist Exhibition in 1877 by Cézanne, noting its resemblance
to ancient sculpture.
“M. Cézanne est, dans ses æuvres, un grec de la belle époque; ses toiles ont le calme, lasérénité héroïque des peintures et des terres cuites antiques, et les ignorants qui rient devant
les Baigneurs, par exemple, me font l’effet de barbares critiquant le Panthéon.
(…) la peinture de M.Cézanne a le charme inexprimable de l’antiquité biblique et grecque,les mouvements des personnages sont simples et grands comme dans les sculptures
antiques, les paysages ont une majesté qui s’impose, …”[18]While it is highly likely that the male figure in the Bathers shown at fig. 12 was inspired by
the copy of Signorelli’s human figure (fig. 13), I would like to also suggest another source, his
copy of the Venus de Milo (fig. 14). Cézanne addressed the Venus di Milo (fig. 15) from face on,What Copying Meant to CézanneFig.13 Paul Cézanne, After Luca
Signorelli: Male Nude, 186669, Pancil on paper, 24 x
17.8cm, Th. Werner, Berlin

Fig.14 Paul Cézanne, After Venus
de Milo, 1872-73, Pencil on
paper, 21.8 x 12.4cm, Private
Collection, Paris

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Fig.15 Venus de Milo,
BC.100, H.204cm, Marble,
Museum Louvre

correcting the figure’s inclined pose and making it vertical, and thus emphasizing its sense ofpresence. Cézanne’s abbreviated depiction of her breasts erases the form’s female nature, while
he has also changed her head to a downward looking pose. Thus the copy drawing is not a faithful
re-creation of the image but rather a changed form product. This drawing is reminiscent of themale figure in the middle of the Bathers (fig. 12). The male figure is dignified in form, with face
inclined, left foot stepping forward and solid chest, and yet, the swelling to right and left of his
chest retain traces of the fleshiness drawn in the copy drawing. In
the Bathers series, it has been indicated[19] that many of the
figures in the Bathers series are hermaphroditic in form, difficult todetermine if they are male or female. And through this erasing of
the male/female differentiation, it wouldn't be at all strange for
Cézanne, with his interest in the universal figural form, to havetransposed the image of Venus into that of a bather.
Finally, we must note Cézanne’s affection for the classics. Fromchildhood Cézanne read such ancient Roman poets as Titus
Lucretius Carus (99-55 BC) and Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BC),
memorizing them in Greek and Latin and then working diligently at
his own poems in their style and thus building an educational
background based in the classical world.[20]For Cézanne, born and raised in Aix-en-Provence in
Fig.16 Paul Cézanne, After
Poussin: Et in Arcadia ego
southern France, classical literature was the cultural background(Les Bergers d’Arcadie),of his own Mediterranean world. His copies of classical sculpture
1887, Pencil on paper, 20.9
x 12.2cm, Basel Museumthat spanned his entire career, from youth to old age, were both a122NAGAЇ Takanoriconfirmation of his own roots, and a means of experimenting with his own creative leaps. The
actual traces of his copying, in which he honed his emotions as he came into contact day by day
with the elegant, still classical realm, undoubtedly nourished his classic spirit and was a source
for ideas. In fact, Cézanne copied[21] (fig. 16), the ancient Greek Utopia painted by Poussin as
Et in Arcadia Ego (fig. 1), and for Cézanne whose artistic slogan was “Poussin refait entièrement
sur nature,”[22] he did just that. In the 1880s apex of the classical period, he surpassed time andspace and established an eternal image that maintains rules and proportions,[23] and he createda utopian realm modeled after classical Arcadia in his late years Bathers cycle.

Conclusion
Cézanne’s copy works meant more than simply learning how to look at objects and how to
depict them. First, he took a liberal interpretative stance towards the forms in his copy subject,
like the forms of nature, and used them as materials for his own distinctive creation. They werenothing other than the phenomenological subject for his “realization of the senses.”[24] Second,the change from printed line to color paint pigment, from oil pigment to pencil lines on paper,from marble or bronze to pencil lines on paper, from a glossy flat paper print photograph to therough texture of paint pigments, he sought to create new aesthetic values from these changes inmedia.
Third, the difference between a copy model and a natural model. The copy model has
different rules than those of nature in that the original artist’s artistic sensibility forms its basis.
His aim was to come into contact with and be stimulated by the artistic sensibility of the great
artists of the past, to maneuver his own artistic sensibility, and allow the “creation of creation.”
It was a competition with the great artists of the past. While according to Cézanne the artistic
sensibility honed in that process must be completely forgotten when turned towards a subject innature, contrary to his words, when he creates “une harmonie parallèlle à la nature”[25] throughhis phenomenological interpretation of nature, this vividly reborn artistic sensibility, “like theplank for the bather”[26], must have controlled his sensations.
Cézanne’s copies absolutely cannot be understood through the “realism” of the ancient
Greeks and onwards, or the neoclassicist theory of copying. As eloquently indicated by the works
he chose to copy, Cézanne considered the colorists and Romanticism as his starting point. There
was a drastic shift of the meaning of copying from study to creation in Cézanne, who shared thevalues of originality, individuality, temperment and sensation that had permeated avant-garde
artists since the Romanticism that sprang forth from the Enlightenment period. And in this sense
also, Cézanne was a great prophet of the arts of the 20th century.

Figure Sources
Fig. 1: Denis Coutagne and Philip Conisbee, Cézanne en Provence, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC, January 29 – May 7, 2006 and Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, p. 93.
Figs. 2, 4, 5, 11 and 12: http://www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/index.php

What Copying Meant to Cézanne

123

Figs. 3, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15 and 16: Adrian Chappuis, The Drawings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue
Raisonné, London, Thames and Hudson, 1973.
Fig. 7: “Neoclassicism and the Arts of the Revolutionary Period,” vol. 19, Sekai Bijutsu Daizenshû,Shogakukan, 1993, p. 71.
Fig. 6: Cézanne – Paris and Provence, exh. cat., National Art Center, Tokyo, March 28 – June 11, 2012,
p. 35.

Notes
[1]

[2]
[3]
[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]

The jury refused his works in 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, 1872, 1876, 1878, 1879, 1881.
Isabelle Cahn, “Face à la critique” in Cézanne et Paris, exh. cat., 2011, Musée du Luxembourg, pp.
180–183.
A recent exhibition reconsidered Cézanne in relationship to the Masters of the past. Judit Geskó,
ed., Cézanne and the Past, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 2012–2013.
Theodore Reff, “Copyists in the Louvre, 1850–1870,” Art Bulletin, no. 46, 1964, p. 555.
Edited and translated by Alex Danchev, The letters of Paul Cézanne, London, Thames &Hudson,
2013, p.337.
“Le Louvre est un bon livre à consulter, mais ce ne doit être encore qu’un intermédiaire. L’étude
réelle et prodigieuse à entreprendre, c’est la diversité du tableau de la nature.” Letter to Émile
Bernard, Aix, May 12 1904. John Rewald, ed., Paul Cézanne, Correspondance, Paris, Éditions
Grasset, (nouvelle édition révisée et augmentée), 1978, p. 302.
Alex Danchev, ibid., 2013, p.353.
“Le Louvre est le livre où nous apprenons à lire. Nous ne devons cependant pas nous contenter deretenir les belles formules de nos illustres devanciers. Sortons―en pour étudier la belle nature,tâchons d’en dégager l’esprit, cherchons à nous exprimer suivant notre tempérament personnel.
Le temps et la réflexion d’ailleurs modifient peu à peu la vision, et enfin la compréhension nous
vient.” Letter to Émile Bernard, Aix, on a Friday in 1905. Rewald, ibid., pp.313-314.
Alex Danchev, ibid., 2013, p.355 .
“La thèse à développer est―quel que soit notre tempérament ou forme de puissance en présencede la nature―de donner l’image de ce que nous voyons, en oubliant tout ce qui apparut avant nous.
Ce qui, je crois, doit permettre à l’artiste de donner toute sa personnalité grande ou petite.” Letterto Émile Bernard, Aix, October 23, 1905. Rewald, ibid., pp. 314–315.
See the following regarding the “realization of the senses”: Lawrence Gowing, “The Logic ofOrganized Sensations” in Cézanne: the Late Work, exh. cat., William Rubin, ed., Museum ofModern Art, New York, 1977, London, Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1978, pp. 55–71; Takanori Nagaï,Motto shiritai Sezannu: Shogai to sakuhin, Tokyo Bijutsu, 2012, pp. 44–45.
John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cézanne, A Catalogue Raisonné, New York, Harry N. Abrams,
Inc., 1996. An online catalogue that presents a corrected and supplemented version of the printed
catalogue was made available online on November 20, 2013. This article uses the R. numbers usedin the 1996 printed book edition. See http://www. cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/index. php.
See the following regarding the relationship between Chocquet and Cézanne. John Rewald,“Chocquet and Cézanne,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, July- August 1969, pp. 33–96.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest mention of the couillarde technique. Gustave
Coquiot, Paul Cézanne, Paris, Albin Michel Éditeur, 1919, pp. 62–63.
cf. Theodore Reff, “Cézanne’s Constructive Stroke,” Art Quarterly 25, no. 3, (Autumn, 1962), pp.
214–227.
Rewald, op. cit., 1996, Vol. I, p. 68.
See Takanori Nagaï, “Sezannu no kaita joseizô” [Images of Women by Cézanne], Eureka, April

124

[14]

[15]
[16]
[17]

[18]
[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]
[24]

[25]

[26]

NAGAЇ Takanori

2012, No. 609, vol. 44-4, pp. 80–97.
John Rewald, Paul Cézanne: The Watercolors - A Catalogue Raisonné, Boston, New York Graphic
Society, 1984; French edition - Les Aquarelles de Cézanne, Catalogue Raisonné, Paris,
Flammarion, 1984. The RW numbers quoted in this article are those used in these volumes.
Adrien Chappuis, The Drawings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné, London, Thames andHudson, 1973. The C numbers quoted in this article are those used in this catalogue.
See the following regarding the stylistic changes in Cézanne’s copy drawings. Theodore Reff,“Studies in the Drawings of Cézanne,” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, unpublished, 1958.
“Michel-Ange est un constructeur, et Raphaël un artiste qui, si grand qu’il soit, est toujours bridé
par le modèle. Quand il veut devenir “réfléchisseur,” il tombe au-dessous de son grand rival.” Letter
to Charles Camoin, Aix, December 9, 1904. John Rewald, Correspondence, p. 307.
Georges Rivière, “L’Impressionniste,” Journal d’art, April 14 1877, p. 2.
Mary Louise Krumrine, Paul Cézanne Die Badenden, exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Basel, Eidolon/
Shchweizer Verlaghaus, Zürich, 1989; Mary Louise Krumrine, Paul Cézanne ‘The Bathers’, exh.
cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Basel/Eidolon, Distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1990.
See the following regarding the connection between Cézanne and ancient utopias and Virgil. Paul
Smith, Joachim Gasquet, Virgil and Cézanne’s landscape ‘My beloved Golden Age’, The magazineof the arts, Nr.148, 1998, pp.11-23./Nina M. Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Cézanne and Provence:
The Painter in His Culture, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 187–
233./Joseph J.Rishel, Cauguin Cézanne Matisse Visions of Arcadia (exhibiton catalogue),
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2012.
See the following regarding Cézanne’s reading history, including classical literature. Matsushima
Yasukazu, Sezannu to yomu gaka no shisôkeisei wo saguru [Cézanne and Reading: Tracing thePhilosophical Formation of a Painter], Keiso Shobo, 1994.
See the following regarding Cézanne’s reference to Poussin. Theodore Reff, “Cézanne and Poussin,”
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 23, no. 1/2, (Jan. - June 1960), pp. 150–174;
Theodore Reff, “Cézanne et Poussin,” Art de France, Vol. III, 1963, pp. 302–310; Richard Shiff,
The Poussin Legend, Cézanne and the End of Impressionism A Study of the Theory, Technique.
and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago press,
1984, pp.175-187. Cézanne and Poussin: The Classical Vision of Landscape, exh. cat., National
Galleries of Scotland, 1990; Kendall, Richard, ed., Cézanne & Poussin: A Symposium, Sheffield,
Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.
Cézanne’s copies of works by Poussin are C. 1011, C. 1012, and C. 1013.
“Classique! Un mot ajourd’hui souvent employé à tort et à travers. Je veux le définir, du moins ence cas: ‘Classique signifie ici: qui est en rapport avec la tradition’. Ainsi Cézanne disait: ‘Imaginez
Poussin refait entièrement sur nature, voilà le classique que j’entends’.” Émile Bernard, “Souvenirs
sur Paul Cézanne et lettres inédites,” Mercure de France 69, no. 247 (October 16, 1907), p. 627.
The following study particularly asserts that the 1880s marked the height of the classicist trend.
Bernard Dorival, Cézanne, Paris, Édition Pierre Tisné, 1948, pp. 51–78.
Cézanne criticized Raphael because he was a slave to his models (in other words, he copied his
models too faithfully) and conversely praised Michelangelo because of his constructive power (inother words, artistic creative power). That conviction can be seen in of his own copies. See note 17
above.
cf. “L’art est une harmonie parallèle à la nature – que penser des imbéciles qui vous disent quel’artiste est toujours inférieur à la nature?” Letter to Joachim Gasquet, Tholonet, September 26,
1897. Rewald, Correspondence, p. 262.
cf. “Undoubtedly―I am categorical-a sensation optique is produced in our visual organ that allows
us to classify as highlight, half-tone,and quarter-tone the planes represented by sensation
colorante. Ligth does not exist, therefore, for the painter. As long as you[we]pass inevitably

What Copying Meant to Cézanne

125

from black to white, the first of these abstractions being a support for the eye as much as the brain,
we cannot achieve mastery, self-possession. During this period(inevitably I repeat myself), weturn to the admirable works handed down to us through the ages, where we find and support, likethe plank for the bather.” (Alex Danchev, op.cit., 2013, pp.347-8）“Voici sans conteste possible―je suis très affirmatif―une sensation optique se produit dans notreorgane visuel, qui nous fait classer par lumière, demi-ton ou quart de ton les plans représentés pardes sensations colorantes. La lumière n’existe, donc pas pour le peintre. Tant que forcément vous
allez du noir au blanc, la première de ces abstractions étant comme un point d’appui autant pourl’oeil que pour le cerveau, nous pataugeons, nous n’arrivons pas à avoir notre maîtrise, à nous
posséder. Pendant cette période [de] temps (je me répète un peu forcément), nous allons vers lesadmirables oeuvres que nous ont transmises les âges, où nous trouvons un réconfort, un soutien,comme le fait la planche pour le baigneur.” Letter to Émile Bernard, Aix, December 23, 1904.
Rewald, Correspondence, p. 308.
準拠論文：「セザンヌに於ける＜模写＞の意味 (What Copying Meant to Cézanne)」『美術フォーラム21
特集：模写と臨書――模写と臨書――日本を基調にして東西の視覚文化の特性を考えてみる』2015 年 05 月、第 31 号、114～123 頁。