The Status of the Mechanical in the Writings and Works of Two Artists: Cézanne and Matisse - The Artist as a Dysfunctional Machine

In his “Notes of a Painter,” Henri Matisse states that “[a]ll artists bear the imprint of their time, but the great artists are those in whom this is most profoundly marked.” 1 In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the time of Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, industrial and scientific developments transformed the world into a system that could be analyzed and understood through science. 2 The development of factories and the use of industrial processes in manufacturing goods led to the mass production of everyday consumer items. It seemed as if anything could be made available via a mechanical process. In light of Matisse’s claim that “all artists bear the imprint of their time,” one would expect to find this new mechanical process and mass production in the works of Cézanne and Matisse. Indeed, an interesting parallel can be drawn between the technological developments and the works of the two artists. Both Cézanne and Matisse seem to perceive art as a process in itself – as something they “Cezanne and Matisse use the m e c h a n i c a l frameworks as means of expression, but they also reveal the inadequecy of that framwork when dealing with art.” have to work their way through just like any mechanical process. Both artists adopt a form of mass production by their insistence on depicting the same subject matter over and over again. However, at some point, the parallel between mechanical developments and the work of the two artists breaks down. Both artists face difficulties in trying to carry out their processes; in the end they seem unable to achieve a finished product. They are rarely pleased with the result, so they keep returning to the same subject matter in an attempt to complete their processes and achieve the perfect artwork. Even their mass production is an illusion given that they depict the same subject matter in slightly different ways as opposed to creating exact replicas of their work. They become like dysfunctional machines that get stuck and keep executing the same thing over and over again, slightly varied each time, in an effort to get it right. Thus, Cézanne and Matisse bear the imprint of their time in that they use the mechanical framework as means of expression but more interestingly in that they reveal the Marina Kassianidou The Status of the Mechanical in the Writings and Works of Two Artists: Cézanne and Matisse The Artist as a Dysfunctional Machine