“El Greco in New York” is a pretty sensational name for the show that ended today at 5:30 at the the Metropolitan Museum of Art considering the city did not even exist in his time. And the show is just as sensational but not the showstopper that the “Madame Cezanne” show at the same institution is.
Twenty four of the twenty nine known paintings that Cezanne did of his wife have been rounded up for this show. Every painter that matters cites Cezanne as the man and this is what they’re talking about. The “father of modern art” depicted form in two dimensions better than anyone and he did it primarily with color but followed it up with radical form depiction in his drawing. He is also the godfather of cubism.
He pulls out all the stops with this “Madame Cezanne in Red” (above). The bottom of her dress is being thrown at you. She is very present but only part of this huge environment. We are drawn in on the left side and come out on the right along with that curtain. Madame Cezanne’s face, which can be pretty even as she pouts in the other paintings is sacrificed here and close to distorted in a masterful show of form.
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