Our painting teacher used to say how lucky he was to have “learned from the best.” By that he meant the artists he liked. He studied their work and claimed the artists “spoke to him.” “We had a dialog.”
As great as Matisse is, I happen to think he is the best, he learned from Cezanne. In fact, everyone who is anyone learned from Cezanne or should have. I knew that Matisse owned a Cezanne but I didn’t know which one until I came across a reference to it the other night in a book. It is the one above, “Three Bathers,” and it was painted in 1879-82. Matisse bought it in 1899. Cezanne was still alive and would live another seven years. Matisse lived with the painting for thirty-seven years and gave it to the Paris Museum of Fine Arts at the end of that time. He included a note that read as follows:
“In the thirty-seven years I have owned this canvas, I have come to know it quite well, I hope, although not entirely.; it has sustained me morally in the critical moments of my venture as an artist; I have drawn from it my faith and my perseverance.”
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Any word on when the tribute show will be?