Portrait of Madame Cézanne
| Portrait of Madame Cézanne | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Roy Lichtenstein |
| Year | 1962 |
| Type | Magna on canvas |
| Dimensions | 170 cm × 140 cm (68 in × 56 in) |
| Location | Private collection |
Portrait of Madame Cézanne (sometimes Portrait of Mrs. Cézanne) is a 1962 Pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein. It is a quotation of Erle Loran's diagram of a Cézanne painting of the same name. It was one of the works exhibited at Lichtenstein's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. The work became controversial in that it led to a reconsideration of what constitutes art.
Lichtenstein and Loran sparred in the press, and art critics were intrigued by the viewpoints of the two. Loran's view was that Lichtenstein had plagiarized his work, and at one point filed suit. Lichtenstein felt that he was making a statement with his painting on the ridiculous attempt by Loran to explain Cézanne by diagram. The press frequently used the word transformation when crediting Lichtenstein's work, but Lichtenstein attempted not to accept the association of his work with that word.
Portrait of Madame Cézanne was exhibited along with works such as Man with Folded Arms at Lichtentein's first Pop exhibition in Los Angeles. The linear twice-removed black-and-white (along with Man with Folded Arms) is regarded as a quotation of Erle Loran's outline diagram of Cézanne's compositional methods published in a diagram book called Cézanne's Composition. The book was popular in the academic community. Loran's representation in a "harsh black outline" depicted the axes of the composition without representing the "texture and expressiveness of Cézanne's original." In fact, Loran stated that "this diagrammatic approach may seem coldly analytical to those who like vagueness and poetry in art criticism." Loran's diagrammatic techniques were standard at the time; redrawn outlines of the figure were illustrated with alphabetized arrows to identify areas and directions. The diagram highlighted body part positioning without studying the painted surface.
According to John Coplans's Roy Lichtenstein, the artist was fascinated by the drawings: "isolating the woman out of the context of the painting seemed to Lichtenstein to be such an oversimplification of a complex issue as to be ironical in itself"; the oversimplification referred to was Loran's representing Cézanne's work with nothing more than black lines. The work marked the first of Lichtenstein's "artistic appropriations of the canonical works of Modernism" that resulted from his realization of the interrelation "between avant-garde and kitsch".
The two images garnered attention among critics by highlighting the nuances between copying and creating art, between real and fake art. As Andy Warhol challenged the status quo by "humanizing mass-produced product", Lichtenstein dehumanized masterpieces. This demonstrates "that the quotation of popular culture was not the sign of intelligence suspended but rather the shape of thought."
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