Cezanne and the creative arts…ART FOR WRITERS
I’m not going to write about what Paul Cezanne did with paint or his enormous influence on art because I know a lot of people reading this will have much greater appreciation of the contribution he made than I have, but I thought I’d share a few of his ideas.
A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
This is pretty similar to how the American poet Robert Frost saw a writer’s relationship to his or her work
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.
I’m indebted to Wikipedia (I admit it!!) for the following:
…(Cezanne) wanted to get to the point where “sight” was also “touch”. He would take hours sometimes to put down a single stroke because each stroke needed to contain “the air, the light, the object, the composition, the character, the outline, and the style”.
And this reminded me of my all-time favourite quote about wrtiting from E.L. Doctorow, author of many fine novesl including Ragtime.
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.
I’m going off on a tangent now, but when writing this post I discoverd that Cezanne and Emile Zola were childhood friends (and a film was made about their friendship last year). Isn’t that mind-boggling? What did they talk about? What trouble did they get into? What mental world incubated such extraordinary talent?
It’s as if Turner and Charles Dickens sat next to each other in school. Or Michelangelo and Shakespeare were penpals.
If you enjoyed this, there’s a pretty good chance you’d also like my writing guide Back to Creative Writing School. 100+ reviews on Amazon…just saying.
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BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL — 120+ reviews on Amazon and over 75% gave it five stars
A Good Confession
"Unputdownable" Miriam Stoppard
BRIDGET WHELAN writer 
Reblogged this on mira prabhu and commented:
“…Cezanne wanted to get to the point where “sight” was also “touch”. He would take hours sometimes to put down a single stroke because each stroke needed to contain “the air, the light, the object, the composition, the character, the outline, and the style”. Read on…
Thanks for reblogging Mira
What marvelous and insightful thoughts Mira and Bridget. Awesome thoughts for the creative process, the abstract thinker dwell in another realm, rarefied where minds are joined in truth.
Thank you for that Antionette and thank you for coming by
Marvelous!
Thanks Jennie!
You’re welcome, Bridget!