Nicolas Poussin

1 Pages 329 Words

Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with Saint John on Patmos (1690), Paul Cézanne, Mount Saint Victoire (1904) – The painting by Cézanne was done more some 300 years after the painting by Poussin. What stylistic characteristics used by the earlier painter to create the illusion of space are also used by Cézanne. What has been changed?

In his Landscape with Saint John on Patmos (1640), Nicholas Poussin used linear perspective to demonstrate his knowledge of geometry. He created an idealized landscape adjusting natural and man-made forms according to geometric principles. In the ruins in the foreground/background, a cube, a three dimensional rectangle, and a cylinder are represented in perfect perspectival form, each illustrating a different aspect of foreshortening. The pathway recedes into the distance giving an illusion of depth.
Bibliography Similar to Poussin, Cézanne’s Mont Sainte?Victoire (29–39) illustrates the three-dimensional quality of the landscape he sought to create by using color applied in geometric shapes. He wrote that he “wanted to make of Impressionism a lasting art like that of the museums” and that he “wanted to do Poussin over again according to nature.” He was particularly concerned with resolving the conflict between nature, which is three dimensional, and the canvas, which is two-dimensional. To this end he flattened planes and eliminated atmospheric perspective, creating recession by pure color alone, working with small patches or modules of color and locking together various areas of the canvas. In Cézanne’s painting every thrust into depth is compensated by an equal return. Cézanne has created a tension between the three?dimensional forms and two?dimensional quality of the canvas, and it is this tension that gives a vitality to his art, as well as the tension between abstract forms and the forms of nature. Although Cézanne sought a geometric underpinning for his art, he never aban...