Copying, parody, and pastiche in the early work of Paul Cezanne

Abstract

This thesis takes as its central theme the possible presence of techniques of copying, pastiche, and parody in the early poetry and painted works of Paul Cezanne. A chronologically-based assessment is made of Cézanne's various literary and visual efforts that might be seen to have been produced by such procedures in the period up to the end of the 1860s and the height of his so-called 'manière couillarde', Not only are the possible formal ramifications of such approaches discussed, particularly in regards to their inherent basis in the intrinsically imagic, but also the forms of multiplying content they might be seen to convey, a multiplicity then exemplified through a discussion of the various and often contradictory interpretations subsequently given those works. A suggestion is made that Cézanne's particular use of multiple and conflating citatory acts within, and across, works might be seen as deploying a particularly fecund form of opened-ended meaning making. Analysis of certain motifs in terms of their evocation of ambivalence, over-coding, and ironic distancing is undertaken in order to explicate how such possibilities may have been made manifest. In relation to this, key purported biographical tropes such as conflict with his father, repressed sexuality, and innate emotive inner turmoil are discussed in terms of the degree to which they might be functions of the possibly inherent parodic mise-en-scène of Cézanne's poetic and visual output of these years. In addition to a possible redressing of certain of these biographical presumptions on the possibly-mistaken dating of several letters, the nexus between historiography and assumptions regarding the perceived intentional posture underpinning an artwork's execution is explored. Some attempt is also made to position Cézanne's citatory articulations, as well as his increasingly transgressive and gauchiste paint application of the mid- to late- 1860s, in terms of contemporary avant-garde contexts. Comparisons are made, particularly in regard to the engagement with print reproductions, with, for instance, the work of Édouard Manet. Finally, an attempt is made to link the general notion of parody and irony, the repetition of the structuring forms of representation rather than the articulation of presumed preconceived content, to the possible embedding within works of a reflexive meditation upon their own stasis as performances, a general thematic that might then be linked to Cézanne's own possibly deliberately contrived performance during the 1860s as authentic maverick. Works discussed include certain of his posted poetry and pictures of the years 1858-1860, almost all his canvases presumed executed before his second visit to Paris in 1862, his mural scheme in the grand salon of the Jas de Bouffan, presumed executed over the period 1860-1870, and, finally, certain of his multi-figured canvases of the late 1860s.