Paul Cezanne at the Tate Modern
Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) is one of the most highly regarded and enigmatic artists of the late 19th century. By approaching painting as a process and investigation, where uncertainty plays an integral role, he gave this medium a new lease of life.
Cezanne linked the formal process of art-making he called ‘realisation’ to his personal experiences, or ‘sensations’. His work has always strongly resonated with other artists, and this legacy continues into the present day.
The Gallery Visits group visited the Paul Cezanne Exhibition at Tate Modern following a request from a group member, which is the way I wanted the group to run when I set it up. I also, of course, knew that there were exhibitions that I would want to visit.
What I have found is that u3a members like anything to do with the Impressionists, and the English artist, David Hockney. Apart from these, the audience has been myself and the other Group Leader, Chris Henderson.
This is not a criticism but I thought there would be a more diverse choice coming from such a large audience. Chris H., and myself have seen exhibitions of American artists’ work including Robert Rauschenberg. Apart from the Tate Britain, Tate Modern, National Gallery and the Royal Academy, it would be good to explore the Courtauld Gallery, The October Gallery, The Saatchi Gallery, The Whitechapel, The Hayward Gallery and The White Cube Gallery, as well as others, some of which are free to enter. There are also collections which cover a wide variety of themes. I will do a bit more research and offer various possibilities which might spark an interest.
We had a pleasurable visit to the Cezanne exhibition even though I did have to make a couple of apologies to people as I mixed up the dates. I must say those involved were very gracious in the acceptance of my mistakes. Anyway, I will either put bookings into someone else’s hands or I will try very hard not to mess things up again. It was fortunate that we had pre-booked our tickets as several times were sold out. Don’t assume that there are bound to be some tickets left.
The exhibition was divided up into Cezanne’s various areas of interest, such as: still life, portraits, bathers and different areas that he had visited. We all decided that ‘bathers’ was not an area that we much liked or that Cezanne was very good at. His figures were generally fat, muscular or lumpy and sometimes indistinguishable as male or female. His portraiture was far better.
The exhibition has a while to run yet so you could make your own minds up, but pre-book your time. Although I do like some areas of Cezanne’s work, it was not one of my favourite exhibitions. Please look at our pictures.