Still Life in Watercolors

Detail 6 >
layered surface, whose many strata are available
to the eye. l Rather than a sketch for
Still Life with Blue Pot Still Life with Milk
Pot, Melon, and Sugar Bowl (fig. 3), which is
so like it, was probably executed during
the same still-life campaign, either directly
before or after the Getty watercolor and thus
is a companion piece and/or alternative to
the latter, just as much a tableau as it is. 2
In its status as a picture, then, in its process,
and even in its genre—watercolors were
also more commonly devoted to the study of
landscape, as in the English tradition that
was so important for the Impressionist group
with which Cézanne was associated — Still
Life with Blue Pot is an unusual watercolor.
How can we tell that it is a "finished"
picture, a tableau? Those are two questions,
not one, and the second is easier to answer
than the first. The size of the watercolor
alone suggests its pictorial status: this is no
mere note taking. The complexly worked-out
composition is another key factor: Cézanne
had to carefully arrange his tapestry, linen,
milk pitcher, and blue and white pots beforehand—every
still life is a composition twice
over, first on the tabletop (or whatever surface
Cézanne chose) and then in the picture
of it—he had to heap the tapestry, and place
and balance everything else so that it would
stay put, and then leave it there until he was
done. He had to do the same thing for Still
Life with Milk Pot, Melon, and Sugar Bowl,
which means that since he was using many of
the same objects, he couldn't have worked on
it simultaneously with the Getty watercolor,
but only just prior or subsequent to it. He had
to choose a point of view that included the
wall and bit of floor, and stick with it. And
the point of view that he chose is another
indication of the picture's tableau status; its
enlarged purview, which adds to the spatial
complexity of the composition, is never
found in Cezanne's more informal sketches,
though it is sometimes hinted at.
Finally, the very layeredness of the picture
suggests its standing as a complete
thought and a fully realized image; it is also
one of Cezanne's prime divergences from
normal watercolor technique and tradition.
His characteristic procedure of working touch
by touch, allowing each touch to dry rather
than pool and mix, and then laying on more
touches in other colors, allowing them to dry,
and so on, until he achieved the effect of
translucent patches, is a particularly laborious
way of working with watercolor; indeed
it goes against the grain of watercolor's
quickness, evoking the more painstaking
campaigns of oil painting, not to mention
Cezanne's particular way of working—touch
by touch, color by color—in oil. 3 That slow,
against-the-grain method of working was
never more evident in a watercolor than in
this one, particularly in the area of the tapestry,
where reds, greens, yellows, and blues
hover kaleidoscopically over and under one
another rather than blending (detail 6). We
will come back to the question of Cezanne's
method later on; for the moment, suffice
it to say that it is the complexity of the
visible layers that leads us to designate this
tableau and a "finished"picture as well, in
spite of the visible pencil marks and changes
of mind and the areas of paper left blank
(though Still Life with Blue Pot is in fact
covered all over with watercolor, except in
the area of the linen, which is another index
of its completion as a picture). Thus perhaps
what we ought to say is that Still Life with
Blue Pot is a finished tableau built up out of
layers of sketch.
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CÉZANNE IN THE STUDIO