Since Cézanne

Since Cezanne

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Since Cézanne, by Clive Bell This
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Title: Since Cézanne
Author: Clive Bell
Release Date: September 7, 2004 [EBook #13395]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: (_Photo: E. Druet_) CÉZANNE]
SINCE CÉZANNE
BY
CLIVE BELL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Most of these Essays appeared in THE NEW REPUBLIC and THE
ATHENAEUM: some, however, are reprinted from THE
BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, THE NEW STATESMAN, and ART
AND DECORATION. I take this opportunity of thanking the editors of

all.
C.B.

CONTENTS
I. Since Cézanne II. The Artistic Problem III. The Douanier Rousseau
IV. Cézanne V. Renoir VI. Tradition and Movements VII. Matisse and
Picasso VIII. The Place of Art in Art Criticism IX. Bonnard X. Duncan
Grant XI. Negro Sculpture XII. Order and Authority (1 and 2) XIII.
Marquet XIV. Standards XV. Criticism: 1. First thoughts 2. Second
thoughts 3. Last thoughts XVI. Othon Friesz XVII. Wilcoxism XVIII.
Art and Politics
XIX. The Authority of M. Derain XX. "Plus de Jazz"
ILLUSTRATIONS
_CÉZANNE_ SEURAT MATISSE PICASSO BONNARD DUNCAN
GRANT OTHON FRIESZ DERAIN
[Illustration: (_Photo: E. Druet_) SEURAT]
SINCE CÉZANNE
With anyone who concludes that this preliminary essay is merely to
justify the rather appetizing title of my book I shall be at no pains to
quarrel. If privately I think it does more, publicly I shall not avow it.
Historically and critically, I admit, the thing is as slight as a sketch
contained in five-and-thirty pages must be, and certainly it adds
nothing to what I have said, in the essays to which it stands preface, on
æsthetic theory. The function it is meant to perform--no very
considerable one perhaps--is to justify not so much the title as the shape
of my book, giving, in the process, a rough sketch of the period with
certain aspects of which I am to deal. That the shape needs justification
is attributable to the fact that though all, or nearly all, the component
articles were written with a view to making one volume, I was
conscious, while I wrote them, of dealing with two subjects. Sometimes
I was discussing current ideas, and questions arising out of a theory of
art; at others I was trying to give some account of the leading painters
of the contemporary movement. Sometimes I was writing of Theory,
sometimes of Practice. By means of this preface I hope to show why, at
the moment, these two, far from being distinct, are inseparable.
To understand thoroughly the contemporary movement--that movement
in every turn and twist of which the influence of Cézanne is

traceable--the movement which may be said to have come into
existence contemporaneously almost with the century, and still holds
the field--it is necessary to know something of the æsthetic theories
which agitated it. One of the many unpremeditated effects of Cézanne's
life and work was to set artists thinking, and even arguing. His practice
challenged so sharply all current notions of what painting should be
that a new generation, taking him for master, found itself often, much
to its dismay, obliged to ask and answer such questions as "What am I
doing?" "Why am I doing it?" Now such questions lead inevitably to an
immense query--"What is Art?" The painters began talking, and from
words sprang deeds. Thus it comes about that in the sixteen or
seventeen years which have elapsed since the influence of Cézanne
became paramount theory has played a part which no critic or historian
can overlook. It is because to-day that part appears to be dwindling,
because the influence of theory is growing less, that the moment is
perhaps not inopportune for a little book such as this is meant to be. It
comes, if I am right, just when the movement is passing out of its first
into the second phase.
During this first phase theory has been much to the fore. But it has been
theory, you must remember, working on a generation of direct and
intensely personal artists. In so curious an alliance you will expect to
find as much stress as harmony; also, you must remember, its
headquarters were at Paris where flourishes the strongest and most vital
tradition of painting extant. In this great tradition some of the more
personal artists, struggling against the intolerable exactions of doctrine,
have found powerful support; indeed, only with its aid have they
succeeded at last in securing their positions as masters who,