Paul Cézanne: Drawing as Deep De-scription

“In order to make progress in realization, there is only nature, and an eye educated by contact with it.” So wrote Paul Cézanne in a letter to Emile Bernard, dated 25 July 1904. In this talk – into which I would like to introduce a short descriptive (phenomenological) exercise to be carried out individually, and easily, by those attending – I will focus on drawings by Cézanne from the Impressionists on Paper exhibition and beyond, and extracts from selected letters, to try and understand more about the character and unfoldings of this profoundly material as well as perceptual process. As I do so, I will bring a phenomenological understanding of deep de-scription to his practices of drawing and reflect on how drawing cultivated his exquisite capacity to attend to a cherished phenomenon: the emergence and multiplication of “the motifs” that guided and continually renovated his studies.