Socially Conscious Artists: Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso and Chaim Soutine

Paul Cezanne was a master in the art world and greatly influenced and inspired other artists such as Pablo Picasso. One of Cezanne's first great paintings was a portrait of his friend Achille Emperaire. Achille Emperaire was born with restricted growth and spinal deformity and Cezanne did not attempt to hide this in the piece, in fact, he did the very opposite and exaggerated his frail frame. He depicts Achille Emperaire in a high back armchair, clothed in ill-fitting garments and his head seemingly far too big for his thin legs and skeletal hands. Isolation and vulnerability of Emperaire is shown by Cezanne within the piece by manipulating the light and increasing contrast. Cezanne has paired an extremely dark blue, almost black, background with a pale colour pallet for the figure itself and the armchair.

The highly contrasting background and foreground, along with the white cast the pale colour pallet creates, produces an illusion of a spotlight glaring down onto him. This reiterates how frail Achille Emperaire is as it accentuates every bone and indent on his body, adding an unsettling feeling to the piece as a whole and makes the viewer sympathise for him and his condition. This spotlight effect also makes you empathise with the subject as it symbolises the isolation and loneliness that Achille Emperaire’s disability could have caused him which may have been why he wasn't so successful with his art career. Despite the lack of success, you can see Cezanne personally idolised him as the majestic high back chair acts like a thrown and the striking white spotlight effect can be symbolic of an angel. Cezanne uses thick layers of paint and pairs this with constructive brush strokes to build up the form of the image. This influenced the cubist artists massively, such as Pablo Picasso who saw Cubism as a continuation of Cezanne’s work, and you can see this impasto technique throughout the movement. There are several points that Picasso seemed to have learnt from Cezanne. The main was to use his art to discuss issues within society and to communicate with others around the world through art by showing them what is happening in the country they (the artists) are currently living in, without fear of being prosecuted by governments.

In the 1890s Cezanne created a series of oil paintings of a “Boy in a Red Waistcoat”, one was famously stolen in February 2008 and was not found until 4 years later in 2012. The portraits reflect how Cezanne appreciated the traditional art masters, whose work he would often view in the Louvre such as Caravaggio, but also how he wanted to move forward and modernise his artwork. The boy’s poses are that of a traditional, academic life study however, his use of the other formal elements, such as colour and composition, is far more symbolic and expressive. The piece that is a side profile where the boy is hunched over with his hands in his lap has a triangular composition. The other three pieces have a rectangular composition. These constructive geometric shapes that appear are cubist in style, although in its early basic stage since the movement didn’t actually begin until after Cezanne died, but you can see where these cubist artists got their inspiration from in his work. Cezanne embeds vibrant blues, reds, yellows and greens within the dark, bleak colours. This dramatic tonal contrast may symbolise the conflicting thoughts Cezanne had when he was a young boy choosing his career.

Does he go for the career that is a big risk but is what he enjoys most? Or does he choose the career that his father approves of and is guaranteed to make him money but he has no interest in? The hunched figure, hanging limbs and sloping drapes perhaps shows that Cezanne remembers feeling overwhelmed during this time and so became emotionally drained and perhaps coming to a state of depression. Many children and teenagers can relate to this feeling, more so now than ever before, making this series timeless in terms of relevance to the youth of society who continue to be criticised by older generations.

Picasso addresses the plight of the poor, the ill and the outcasts in the Blue Period. One of his most well known is “The Old Guitarist” from 1903. In this piece, like in most of his work from the Blue Period, it has a restricted colour palette of monochromatic blues, except for the guitar that is painted in a warm brown. This is where I think Picasso’s message from this piece lies most obviously. The warmth from the guitar makes it a focal point especially whilst it is surrounded by the cold and lifeless aura that the blue tones give off. It highlights how the guitar was a source of hope and joy. Music and art were important for many people, including Picasso, to remain emotionally stable and mentally sane when dealing with hardships. It is over 100 years later and this remains true, the arts will always be a way of temporarily escaping everyday life.

This idea of art being an escape relates to everyone in some sort of way and this is where most will have a greater understanding of the subject and his suffering, therefore making it easier for the viewers to empathise. Picasso realised that when people understand and can relate to a subject is when most want to contribute to making a change and this was the ultimate goal, to make a difference and improve the lives of those who are suffering. Picasso suffered for a long time when he lived in poverty and so he understood well what it was like and he needed to make others do the same. This desperate need and desire to make the public understand can be seen in this piece, and others from the Blue Period, through the application of the paint. The paint is applied impasto like Cezanne and has many marks made with the brush, this lack of polishing and refinement shows how frantically he worked like he was getting all his frustration out onto the piece. Like Cezanne’s “Achille Emperaire” piece, the figure is thin and skeletal suggesting malnutrition and illness, however, The Old Guitarist is much more uncomfortable to view as the man's elongated limbs look cramped because they’re positioned at an impossible angle. The angular and flat features of the piece show the early stages of Picasso’s Cubist work and can be seen in artists work who were influenced by Picasso such as Soutine.

Following the Blue Period Picasso had the Rose Period between 1904 and 1906. This period contrasted the Blue Periods cool, melancholy tones with the use of more lively colours such as oranges, pinks and reds. The sombre subjects are now replaced with harlequins, circus performers and clowns. At this time Picasso had a new love affair with Fernande Olivier and is the primary reason for the change to a more optimistic mood in the Rose Period. His piece “Family of Acrobats with Monkey” from 1905 is interesting as it is one of his more realistic pieces that is classical in style.

Picasso uses Gouache(a water based medium similar to watercolour but much more opaque), water colours, pastels and indian ink which, when paired with the rose period colour palette, creates a very soft and gentle tone in the piece. Since the mediums he used are thin it allows picasso to then carefully place the texture where he chooses, with the manipulation of light and dark and obvious brush strokes. The aggressive marks made in the background and the loose and light brushwork in the foreground, particularly around the young couple and the baby, suggests that the everyday life of a circus performer is chaotic and restless but when a new life is born it allows the couple to slow down and create a temporary bubble of joy and tranquility. Picasso shows the viewer that despite their impoverished lifestyle, they still found peace within their child's birth, another subject that many can relate to despite social class.

Chaim Soutine arrived in Paris from Russia at the age of 20 in 1913. As a young and impoverished painter, he took inspiration and learnt from other artists that were also working in Paris at the time such as Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso. However, it is clear from the depth of colour in the background of his work and even the positioning of his subject that Soutine did still appreciate the old masters from the 17th century. Soutine found his place in the art world when he became fascinated with and started painting the neglected service staff who served in the grand restaurants and hotels in Paris. The posture of the subject in “The Little Pastry Chef” is interesting as he is positioned with his hands clasped together and makes very angular shapes with his shoulders and arms suggesting a feeling of awkwardness and anxiousness. This angular awkward positioning of the subject shows some of Picasso’s influence on him as it can be seen in a lot of Picasso’s Blue Period works like “The Old Guitarist”.

However, the figure also gives off a feeling of authority and power as he sits on the kitchen chair as if it is his thrown whilst he has his legs and elbows wide. The subject actually wouldn’t have had much authority at all in the Parisian society at this time, which explains why there is also a sense of awkwardness, this shows how for many their uniforms helped to give them a sense of purpose and meaning. I think Soutine may have seen himself within these subjects who, when dressed in their uniforms and placed in their field of expertise, felt self-assured and like they had a place within society. Especially as, like Soutine, many of the service staff, were young immigrants to the country and so would have been searching for acceptance within their new country as well as trying to make ends meet. It is clear from the solemn look on the subjects slender and contorted faces that trying to integrate into a new community was physically and mentally tough.

In 1929 Soutine painted a portrait of Madeleine Castaing a successful Parisian interior decorator and antique dealer. She was incredibly important to Cezanne since she and her husband were active patrons of modern art and a supporter of Soutine. You can see the jittery excitement Soutine felt during the six sittings it took to finish the piece through his prominent and sporadic brush marks. You can see that Mrs Castaing was feeling vulnerable and anxious during the sittings with her flushed cheeks, twisted hands and hunched shoulders, similar to the sitter in ‘The Little Pastry Chef’. Like in ‘The Little Pastry Chef’ she has a regal presence that is shown in her pinched facial expression and ocelot fur coat cascading over her shoulders. The only way to decipher that the two sitters are of different social class is through their garments. Hers are clean, well kept and rich in colour, whereas, the chef’s clothes are dirty and ill-fitting. These similarities are important as it humanises the successful and wealthy Parisian and shows that there is no difference between the two sitters. Despite their social class, they feel the same emotions and subtly communicate them to others in the same way which is why it was key for Soutine to suggest their social status. He had to show their differences to show their similarities.

What all three of these artists knew well was who their demographic was, the middle and upper class, and these were the people who had the resources and authority to improve somebody’s life. But they had to evoke an emotional response with their work to make these wealthier classes less ignorant about those around them so that they could understand the pain of those less fortunate and suffering. They were trying to make that upper class society socially conscious, just like they were. Without that understanding, changes would never be made. To do this they manipulated the formal elements such as tone, colour and composition to make the vulnerable look as fragile and frail as possible.