Excursion: Cézanne at the Met

Paul Cézanne was the bridge between impressionism and the bold, new way of seeing that began with cubism. Working in isolation and exhibiting little after his early years in Paris, he probed the structure of his subjects: Fruit and trees and even tables pulse on the edge of becoming essential spheres, cylinders, rectangles. When other painters depicted glowing still lifes and figures in the midst of life, Cézanne ignored narrative, likeness and detail in order to give a glimpse, a feeling of the fundamental sensation of seeing. His paintings seem to tremble because he recognized the binocular way we see — each eye perceiving an image from a slightly different perspective — and transferred it to canvas. To some, these miraculous pictures can seem cold, devoid of humanity and emotion, mere objects in isolation. To others emotion is merely presented in a new way. Now comes a small but enormously important show of “Cézanne’s Card Players” at the Metropolitan Museum that can support either argument. While the complete card-player series consists of five large paintings, only three are in the Met show. (One remains in Russia, and the other is in Philadelphia at the Barnes, which never loans its pictures.) But Cézanne made many sketches and small painted studies for the larger works, and most of these are in the exhibition. To those who see humanity in Cézanne’s work, these pictures continue the long tradition of European genre painting that tells stories of human activities. But the objectivists will see no emotion in these still, solid figures that seem frozen and unengaged with each other. Whichever side one takes, these are beautiful paintings that trade narrative for timelessness. The figures, tables, wine bottles, even the space itself seems carved, made of stone not paint. The angles of arms, shoulders, legs are sharp and slightly unnatural. Each man — and the players and observers are all men, probably workers on Cézanne’s estate — is captured forever in his own, separate moment. As one art historian wrote, the men are playing “collective solitaire.” Cézanne clearly thought the paintings very human and reflective of his hometown and the rural people who continued the timeworn traditions. He said, “I rediscover the past in the faces . . . and appearance of people who have grown old without breaking with old customs.” This past is best seen in the small portrait studies for the large card player paintings. Just view the picture of his gardener, Paulin Paulet, or of a slope-shouldered younger man who looks downward with stoical acceptance of his lot, to see both the objective and emotional sides of Cézanne. “Cézanne’s Card Players” continues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 8. Hours are Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Call 212 535-7710 or go to metmuseum.org.