Still Life in Watercolors

Saint Marcel les Annonay paper (detail j), 2
where beneath the eyes the artist's process
reverses itself and we see white linen turn
back into the unpigmented white of the paper
itself", laid bare here, as in a little bit of the
upper left-hand corner of the sheet, and
glimpsed here and there elsewhere, but
whiter in effect in the center (detail 8). 3
It is here that the discrepancy between
subjective optical effect and objective observation
and comparison shows itself: the
white at the center is no whiter in reality than
the white of other untouched areas of paper,
yet its effect is that of the clean, bright
white of table linen in contrast to the dimmer
beige effect of the "background" whites.
That enhanced sense of whiteness is due to
several factors at once: first, our reading
the center white as white cloth and as foreground
rather than as background white and,
second, our seeing it in relation to the bright
rather than faded colors that enframe and
punch up its whiteness. There is a third factor
as well, and that is the sheer central breadth
and weight of its whiteness—as Cezanne is
reputed to have said about green, a kilogram
of white is whiter than half a kilo, or a gram,
of the same color. 4 And, one might add, a
large patch of white at the center is worth a
good deal more than a small patch of white
in a corner or at an edge; its placement
matters as much as its amount and its context
Thus, paradoxically, it is where the paper
has least upon it that it carries most optical
weight and illusionistic charge. And it is to
where the paper is flattest and barest, and
facture and color all but nonexistent, that
our eye is drawn first, to look at what lies
"under": to discover the hints of the very first
lineaments of the pencil drawing that laid in
the composition, in tandem with tiny, accidental
splatters of pigment and possibly
the last dashes of graphite, finishing touches
here and there, leading me, at least, to
imagine a painter holding a brush loaded
with blue in one hand and a pencil stub in the
other, working ambidextrously between one
and the other in a manner never seen before
and still all but inconceivable to the eye and
mind trained in centuries of drawing practice.
Here as well as elsewhere it is difficult to
ascertain what was last; even the microscope
fails to settle the bet once and for all. We are
relatively secure about what came first—a
tangle of lines laying out the central composition
above the white linen (which shows up
in an infrared scan [fig. 41] and is hinted at in
certain places upon close inspection)—and
Detail 9
what came last—the drawing in blue that
reinforces most of the outlines—but in
between we lose our certainty in a kaleidoscopic
mix of paint and pencil marks that
dares us to sort it out while cheating us of our
conclusions. The maze starts here, at the
center, where there is least to see through,
where the work and material buildup is least
dense, where the trap is set and the game
of hide-and-seek begun. From there we hunt
in vain for the exit, as the painter himself
must have done, getting himself in and out of
the woods and in again, trying not to paint
himself into a corner, endeavoring not to
paint too much or too little, attempting to
find a balance easier to achieve in a lessworked
etude, looking to know when and
where to stop but never knowing in advance.
If we scan around the edges of the cloth
at the center, we begin to see beginning and
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CEZANNE IN THE STUDIO