Still Life in Watercolors

Detail 21
visibly definite contour containing a positive
content and distinguishing it from the negative
space around it, but as the place where
color stops for a moment, where there is an
interruption or gap in the color field, a kind
of invisible vibration. Meanwhile the downward
course that it follows highlights the way
the edge of the falling fabric is broken into
a series of colored marks, ocher followed by
blue followed by vermilion and so on, like
so many threads of color that make up the
woven field of tapestried marks. Line, we see
at that boundary where the action of limning
turns into liminal area, is at once made of
color, an interval within color, and a relative
absence of color, while color itself is spun
into line, and every color mark is seen to have
a linelike edge. We can see that clearly in
the strokes ofwatercolor to the right of the
fabric's fall, many of which have visible
shapes and contours through which we look
to see other contoured shapes of color. The
nimbus of the falling tapestry stands as a
macromarkerofthe micrometamorphosis of
line into color and color into line across the
length and breadth of the watercolor.
The tapestry itself is woven out of a
more intricate warp and woofofcolor-asline
and line-as-color. Again, it is important
to realize that except for the odd fold, scribble,
and bit of contour, there is hardly any
graphite to be mined from this terrain: the
colored patterning of the fabric has no pencil
underpinning. Indeed, the tapestry in its various
areas—heaped into a hill at the upper
left, falling into a cathedral-like fold at the
bottom left, and descending with a curved
interior fold at the bottom right—offers an
Detail 22
Detail 23
exceptionally intense demonstration of
Cezanne's realization of some of Baudelaire's
most abstractionist remarks about modern
art and color: the modern artist acts as a
kaleidoscope, said Baudelaire; color is relational
and plural in its effects, while working
on the eye and imagination of the viewer
like a prism or faceted jewel. 5 The vibrant
translucency of the textile's weave of color
marks calls to mind the very metaphors that
Baudelaire favored and then some: kaleidoscope,
prism, jewel, not to mention stained
glass, veil, and film (details 22, 23). That is,
Cezanne worked with the medium ofwatercolor
in such a way as to emphasize its properties
of translucency and prismatic refraction.
Moreover, instead of blending his color in
water on the palette or the paper, he chose
to work with brilliant, unblended, close-toprimary
colors—red, blue, green, ocher, and
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PENCIL LINES AND WATERCOLORS