Cézanne’s The Card Players: An Analysis
General Documentation
- Title: The Card Players
- Author: Paul Cézanne
- Dated: 1890 – 1895 (five versions made, believed to be 1890-1892)
- Style: Post-Impressionism
- Technique: Oil on canvas
- Support: Canvas; 47 cm x 57 cm
- Original Location: Ambroise Vollard (first owner)
- Current Location: Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Technical and Formal Analysis
Technical Elements
This oil on canvas utilizes a limited palette, characteristic of Cézanne’s style. He believed that excessive color distracted from the volume he sought to express. The brushstrokes are broad and distinct, defining different areas with varying colors to construct the figures. The lighting attempts to create a natural ambiance. The dimensional space employs chromatic perspective, resulting in a static yet subtly expressive composition.
Formal Elements
The composition is closed and centered, focusing on the cards and the unfolding action. One character is notably detached.
Style
The artist’s style is Post-Impressionistic, a movement encompassing artists like Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec, all influenced by the Impressionists. Post-Impressionism revisits and refines the principles of Impressionism, moving beyond the exclusive focus on light. Artists began to analyze the subject beyond the incident light.
Key figures include Seurat, Signac, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Gauguin. The importance of drawing is recovered, with a concern for capturing the expressiveness of the subject (Van Gogh). Seurat and Signac focused on the technical aspects of light, leading to Pointillism. The influence of Japanese prints is evident in the treatment of the third dimension, color, and subject profiles (Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh).
Gauguin and Cézanne adopted a more intellectual creative process, contrasting with the expressive and sensory approaches of Van Gogh, Seurat, Signac, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Picasso was influenced by this movement, seeking the fundamental shapes and colors of objects.
Interpretation
Role of the Work
The work’s role is clearly research-oriented, exploring different color sets to produce an image. The context of the work is increasingly less important, as research and investigation of paint become paramount. Artists begin to group together, marking the emergence of art dealers in the late nineteenth century, who facilitated agreements with artists.
Content and Meaning
The subject matter depicts card players in a bar, serving as a pretext for the composition. The non-smoking gentleman, awaiting his turn, exudes a sense of relaxed confidence, suggesting a potential win. The painting explores themes of loneliness, reflecting a belief that nature possesses an underlying geometry (cubes, cylinders, etc.).