The Awakened Eye: Paul Cézanne

He was the father of us all
Pablo Picasso

Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902-04)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, George W Elkins Collection

Let us try to free our minds ...

When I start thinking, everything's lost.

I am the primitive of the method I have invented.

Get to the heart of what is before you!

The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed,
will set off a revolution.

The truth is in nature, and I shall prove it.

It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.

I could paint for a hundred years, a thousand years without stopping
and I would still feel as though I knew nothing.

Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations.

Here, on the river's verge, I could be busy for months without changing my place,
simply leaning a little more to right or left.

Pure drawing is an abstraction.
Drawing and colour are not distinct, everything in nature is coloured.

Fruits ... like having their portrait painted.
They seem to sit there and ask your forgiveness for fading.
Their thought is given off with their perfumes.
They come with all their scents, they speak of the fields they have left,
the rain which has nourished them, the daybreaks they have seen.

I want to die painting.

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Reproduced with kind permission from
The Awakened Eye: Paul Cézanne.

The Awakened Eye is a stunning website, which is dedicated to showcasing the work of artisans and artists, writers, filmmakers, scientists, philosophers, and teachers of nonduality, founded by Miriam Louisa Simons.