Cezanne: Drawings and Watercolours

Description

Drawing was central to Cezanne's indefatigable search for solutions to the problems posed by the depiction of reality. Many of his watercolours are equal to his paintings, and he himself made no real distinction between painting and drawing. This book's six chapters are arranged thematically covering the whole range of Cezanne's oeuvre: works after the Old Masters such as Michelangelo and Rubens; his period as one of the Impressionists; his exploration of both portraiture and the human figure, including the magnificent bathers; his interaction with landscape, particularly in his native Provence and the dominating form of Mont Sainte-Victoire; and finally the magisterial still lifes. In the Introduction, as well as throughout the book, Lloyd sets the drawings and watercolours in the context of Cezanne's life and overall artistic development. The result is a greater understanding of the process that led to some of the most absorbing art ever produced.

Christopher Lloyd worked in the Department of Western Art of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford from 1968 to 1988, combining curatorial duties with teaching. During that time he was appointed by Harvard University to a Fellowship at Villa I Tatti in Florence and was Visiting Research Curator of Early Italian Painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was appointed Surveyor of The Queen's Pictures in the British Royal Collection in 1988 and retired from that post in 2005. He is now engaged in writing and organizing exhibitions on a wide variety of subjects. His publications include monographs on painters, catalogues of museum collections and surveys of the Royal Collection, as well as In Search of a Masterpiece: An Art Lover's Guide to Great Britain and Ireland, Edgar Degas: Drawings and Pastels and Paul Cezanne: Drawings and Watercolours.

'A beautifully produced, highly accessible volume' - Apollo 'Give[s] fresh insight into this enigmatic character. Christopher Lloyd's survey of Cezanne's drawings and watercolours allows us a sense of his preoccupations and artistic development ' - The New European