Paul Cezanne Pines and Rocks

Renee Magritte the false mirror

What came after Impressionism was the aptly named Post-Impressionism. Post-Impressionists, namely Van Gogh, Gaugin, and Cezanne, reacted against the naturalism of the impressionists to explore color, line, and form, and the emotional response of the artist, which then led to expressionism.

I chose Pines and Rocks by Cezanne and the False Mirror by Magritte. What’s interesting about Pines and Rocks is that there is no blackness, just different shades of green. The colors are almost unbearably vivid, and the pinks and greens and reds contrast each other sharply and it seems to glow. Because of its glow, there is no real darkness, in contrast with The False Mirror.

Now, the False Mirror fascinated me not just because the world is inside it but because it  is dark and it is an eye devoid of eyelashes. None of the colors are sharp and vivid like Pines and Rocks. The skin around the eye, and the shadows from the  eye socket and the nose are painted beautifully. But there are no eyelashes. I’m fixated on that because the eyelashes are meant to act as a filter for all the junk blown in the general eye direction. I find it interesting that the False Mirror would be filterless and muted.