Constructive touch, perception and identity of painter · 1839 -1906

Paul Cézanne treats his own face like a mountain or an apple: colorful shots, beard, hat and eyes become an architecture of sensations.

Paul Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839 and died there in 1906. He produced several dozen painted, drawn or watercolor self-portraits, especially between the 1860s and 1890s. The mirror offered him an available and demanding model at the time when he seeks his way away from the Salon. In the first images, the dark and thick material belongs to his so-called cowardly period. Beard, hair and face are worked with a tactile violence which owes as much to the old masters as to romantic ambition. Under the influence of Camille Pissarro, the palette becomes lighter in the 1870s. Self-portrait with a straw hat then constructed the face in small parallel touches of green, ocher, blue and pink. The outline ceases to enclose the head: color and background participate together in the volume. Self-portraits with a palette affirm the profession without dramatizing it. The tool, the jacket and the posture remain subject to the same perceptual research as the facial features. Cézanne does not look for a fleeting expression or a flattering image. His often offbeat gaze, produced by observation in the mirror, reinforces a concentrated distance. As the beard turns gray, the shots become more sober and the canvas can remain visible. These works accompany the transformation which leads from impressionism to a new construction of space. Painting yourself comes back for Cézanne to check how a presence can hold up in relation to color rather than by descriptive imitation. The "Self-portraits of Paul Cézanne" selection notably compares Self-portrait with palette - Paul Cézanne and Self-portrait with hat - Paul Cézanne. His reading favors atmosphere.

Cézanne observes her face like a Provence motif: the resemblance arises less from the outline than from the weight and direction of each color.