Review

Expansive exhibit paints new portrait of
relationship

Painters Paul Cezanne and Camille Pissarro have individually had
their works exhibited in museums around the country. But the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art’s new exhibit, “Pioneering
Modern Painting: Cezanne and Pissarro 1865-1885,” marks the
first time these close friends have had more than 60 of their
paintings displayed side by side in an exhibit chronicling each
artist’s influence on the other.

It took a close relative of Pissarro ““ his grandson,
curator Joachim Pissarro ““ to get an exhibit of this size and
scope together. After seeing the exhibit in its entirety,
it’s a wonder why no one thought of it before.

Art is so often individualized and analyzed by its relation to
the popular movement or history of the day. But LACMA’s
exhibit, which will be on display through Jan. 23, achieves the
singular feeling of showing two artists of the past engaging in a
contemporary dialogue.

Pissarro served as a mentor to a young Cezanne very early on in
his career. They shared a resentment for the established parameters
of art and exhibited their works together later on in an
avant-garde show.

More than that, they shared ideas, at times painting the same
scenes side by side, or even sharing props for still lifes. Yet one
could never confuse Cezanne’s work for Pissarro’s, nor
vice versa. And perhaps that is what is so remarkable about the
exhibit.

Viewers will think they know these artists’ styles, but
new insights arise when recognizing their unique approaches to
similar scenes.

While Pissarro tried to capture the atmosphere and mood of a
painting, utilizing many silvery grays and impressionistic
influences, Cezanne instead portrayed the physical volume,
solidity, and structural, geometric order of an image or
landscape.

Pissarro depicted an environment in its entirety, including
people, and rarely altered the way a scene appeared. Cezanne chose
to skew a scene’s appearance to match his physical or mental
state and to conform to his impressions of physical space.

But both ventured out of their comfort zones to adopt new styles
and concepts.

Cezanne took Pissarro’s old canvases and recreated them,
staying true to the main concept while infusing it with a slight
geometric sensibility, as evident in
“Louveciennes.”

At times, Pissarro’s detailed, meticulous approach evolved
into one of structure, with thicker outlines and patches of thick,
contrastive color.

Joachim Pissarro included a personal angle in the exhibit,
displaying a few enlarged pictures of his grandfather and Cezanne
throughout the halls. After seeing their warm demeanor, as well as
the fond portraits they painted of each other, it becomes clear
that Cezanne and Pissarro never felt as though they were competing
with each other.

If anything, the artists’ individual achievements inspired
each other to reach a new level in their painting.

Together, they strove to advance art’s modernity and show
the world that academia could not dictate what is and is not
art.

At the end of the exhibit’s audio tour, LACMA’s
chief curator of the Center for European Art, Patrice Mandel,
comments that Cezanne would not be Cezanne without Pissarro. This
insightful exhibit proves the reverse as well ““ that Pissarro
would not be the Pissarro we know without the influence of
Cezanne.

““ Natalie Tate