peare, or an AEschylus could realize as
completely all that was in his the human race would think more of itself
than it does. Cezanne's consciousness of the impossibility of realizing
completely his conceptions--his consciousness, rather, that he had
not completely realized them--made him regard all his pictures as
unfinished. Some day, he thought--or liked to believe--he would push
them a little further. His habit of destroying his own works, however,
had nothing to do with any sense of failure or incapacity. It was simply
a manifestation of rage and a means of appeasement. Some people like
cups and saucers: Cezanne preferred oil-paintings, and his own were
always to hand. A word of commendation for "les professeurs" ("qui n'ont
rien dans le ven_._._n_._._tr_._._re--les salauds--les chatres--les
j_._f_._._._s") or the least denigration of Chardin or Delacroix was
sure to cost a still-life or a water-colour at any rate.

It is surprising that M. Vollard should not have made this more clear,
for he certainly understood the genius and character of Cezanne. His
book is an amazingly vivid presentment of both; and to have made such
a book out of the life of a man whose whole life went into the art of
painting is a remarkable feat. For Cezanne poured all his prodigious
energy and genius into a funnel that ended in the point of his brush. He
was a painter if ever there was one, and he was nothing else; he had no
notion of being anything else. There is enough in Paris, one would have
supposed, to attract from himself for a moment the attention of the most
preoccupied and self-absorbed of men. When Cezanne lived in Paris he
rose early, painted as long as there was light to paint by, and went to
bed immediately after dinner. The time during which he was not painting
he seems to have spent in wondering whether the light would be
satisfactory ("gris clair") next day. Cezanne in Paris, like the peasant
in the country, spent most of his spare time thinking about the weather.

Comme il se couchait de tres bonne heure, il lui arrivait de
s'eveiller au milieu de la nuit. Hante par son idee fixe, il ouvrait
la fenetre. Une fois rassure, avant de regagner son lit il allait,
une bougie a la main, revoir l'etude qui etait en train. Si
l'impression etait bonne, il reveillait sa femme pour lui faire
partager sa satisfaction. Et pour la dedommager de ce derangement,
il l'invitait a faire une partie de dames.

All