Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
slightly stained bandage over his ear is neither hidden in shame nor worn as a badge of
honor—it's just another accessory. The scene is evenly lit, with no melodramatic shadows.
Vincent must have been puzzled and unnerved by his “artist's fit,” as he called it. Does
this man suspect it would be only the first of many he'd suffer over the next year and a
half before finally taking his own life?
• If you're ready for an encore, head upstairs to the top floor to Room 8, where you'll find
10 Cézanne paintings, including...
Paul Cézanne—
La Montagne Sainte
-
Victoire
(1882)
Cézanne could look out his studio window at this 3,300-foot-high mountain in Provence.
Over a 20-year span, he painted the same mountain 60 different ways, each with its own
color scheme and mood. This one—with a windblown branch framing the mountain from
above—may reflect the turmoil of the fortysomething's life (father's death, stalled Impres-
sionist career, shuttling between Paris and hometown Aix-en-Provence, the recent humili-
ation of having his childhood friend Emile Zola parody him in a novel).
The mountain is realistic, but the scene is carefully composed. The tree branch echoes
the curving ridgeline, uniting foreground and background. A patch of paint forming a
house (in the foreground) is the same size as a patch depicting a rock formation (in the
background), further flattening this “distant” scene into a wall of brushstrokes. (Céz-
anne's “cube”-shaped brushstrokes inspired the Cubists, a decade later, to build figures
using geometric shapes, to mix foreground and background, and to emphasize style over
realism.) Cézanne juggles many technical balls of modern painting—a roughed-up sur-
face texture done with thick brushwork, a self-imposed color scheme, abstract composi-
tion—and still manages to stay true to his Impressionist roots, painting the mountain he
sees.
• Move onward to see...
The Rest of the Courtauld
Rooms 9-13 contain paintings by Seurat and 20th-century artists Derain, Dufy, Kandinsky,
Jawlensky, Modigliani, Vlaminck, and more. Many have the bright, bold colors and thick
brushstrokes of the Fauvist style, from the time when Impressionism was merging into ab-
stract. The museum rotates its large collection, so you may see a different mix. Temporary
exhibits also occupy the second floor.
In Room 11a, you'll also see works by members of Britain's own Bloomsbury
Group—Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant. This group of intellectual friends
also included Virginia Woolf (Bell's sister), E. M. Forster, and the economist John
Maynard Keynes. During the 1910s and 1920s, they met for cocktails, flirting, and high-
