Status Updates From Cezanne: A Life

When you fall in love w/one person above all others, that love makes special claims on you. In that mysterious way of love, Cézanne singles me out. Cézanne's last 3 great Bather pictures excite me more than any other art except Kafka's 3 novels. Both of these trios were left unfinished/finished at the death of their makers. Cézanne's lessons appear endless to me, encyclopedic like, Shakespeare or Beethoven

They r all there in one square centimeter/another. Picasso &Braque, Matisse &Modigliani, Kandinsky &Klee, Giacometti &Morandi, Johns &Kelly, De Kooning &Lichtenstein, Gorky &Kossoff, Marsden &Kitaj, Freud &Auerbach, Strand &Wall. The sublime little grimalkin is large. He contains multitudes. According to Klee, he is the teacher par excellence. According to Peter Handke, he is the teacher of mankind in the here &now

Cezanne has 3 blue pigments: cobalt blue, ultramarine, &Prussian blue. Asked why he was so fond of blue, “b/c the sky is blue, the sky is blue before it is sky.” Prussian blue is found only in his oils and indigo only in his watercolors. It’s said that he used at least 16 shades of blue. Titian is supposed to have said that a painter needed only three colors: white, black, and red. Cezanne needed blue.