High Museum aims to ‘impress’ with Cézanne exhibit

By Martha Nodar

Atlantans are up for a treat this fall when masterpieces collected by Henry Pearlman, an American businessman, arrive at the High Museum as part of a traveling exhibition. Curated by the Princeton University Art Museum, “Cézanne and the Modern: Masterpieces of European Art from the Pearlman Collection” will be on display at the High from Oct. 25 through Jan. 11, 2015.

This exhibition consists of 50 masterpieces from both the Impressionist and the PostImpressionist art periods. Cézanne, a French painter, has been credited for bridging the gap between these two artistic movements and for being a leading figure in ushering 20th century art.

“Cézanne is the quintessential prophet of experimentation,” said Jeffrey Collins, Oglethorpe University’s art history professor. “It is his compositional control, the way he modulates color and brushstrokes, and his ability to unite logic and emotion that make him a doorway to modern art.”

In addition to 24 of Cézanne’s pieces, the show includes 26 paintings and sculptures by his colleagues, Courbet, Gauguin, van Gogh, and other masters from the era.

Although Post-Impressionists are known for the use of color, each reacted to the Impressionists’ subdued fluidity with a unique style. While Courbet focused on portraying the common life, van Gogh opted for bright colors and Cézanne championed a geometric structural balance.

Now retired, Lloyd Nick, the founding director of the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, said Cézanne was influenced by Leonardo da Vinci’s technique.

“Cézanne took trips to the Louvre especially to study closely Leonardo’s ‘Mona Lisa,’” he said. “He realized that the movement of the viewer’s eyes starts clockwise at the model’s hands. It is easy to detect a similar kind of movement in his ‘Provencal Manor.’ Observe the hill behind the manor and you will see an oval –a successful mimicking of the compositional structure in the ‘Mona Lisa’.”

For Leonardo as well as for Cézanne the objective was to take the viewer through a visual journey. Cézanne accomplished this by “stripping away the unimportant elements and reworking nature into a completely new representation,” Collins said.

Cézanne could not have chosen a better influence. An expert in optical illusion, Leonardo was a genius who grew up in Vinci—a small village in Florence at a time when folks were simply known by their first name and place of birth. Thus, the name Leonardo (da= from) Vinci.

Neither Leonardo nor Cézanne could have anticipated the impact they would exert on the world of art for centuries to come. Modern art didn’t just happen – masters paved the way with their innovative ideas.

Providing an ambiance conducive to learning about art is what the High aims to accomplish with the help of its docent corps, said Margaret Wilkerson, the High’s art coordinator of education volunteers.

Deby Barber and her fellow docent volunteer educator Dottie Newman said they are gearing up to help the visitors attending this exhibit. For Barber, Courbet rocks. For Newman, it is van Gogh who steals her heart.

“The docents’ ability to make the art come alive is one of our greatest resources,” Wilkerson said.

For more about the exhibition, visit high.org.