A Lesson from Cezanne

One of Paul Cezanne's strong points was to subordinate the picturesque in favor of the structural.

Recognizing that as well as creating a window into which the viewer could see a landscape, for instance, he was also offering up a rectangle designed and decorated to please the intellect, regardless of the subject depicted.

Part of his method was to seek out and lay stress on the horizontal and upright elements of the motif.  That has the effect of making manifest the underlying structure, the girders and stanchions which make the design solid and firm and strong.

A comparison of two paintings will illustrate the point:  This landscape by Armand Guillamin appears to have been painted directly from nature.

This canvas by Cezanne, almost the same size and shape, was probably copied from the Guillamin.

They look very much alike, but Cezanne has firmed up the structural elements and suppressed the feathery foliage.  The road in the foreground has had its curve ironed out and emphasis put on the horizontal edges of it.  The leaves at the top are cleared back to make more room for a firmer horizon.  The buildings in the distance are made less nebulous in the copy, more solid.  Similarly, some of the straight edges of the patches of crops are made clearer.

The idea of gratifying the intellect, by playing down the transitory and incidental and revealing an underlying framework to lend wholeness to the composition, has developed and evolved into many forms of modern art.