27 – Fathers of Modern Art: Manet and Cézanne
Course 27
Dr Charlotte de Mille
Summer School – Online
Monday 19 – Friday 23 July 2021
£395
Course description
For the French art historian and critic Louis Gonse, “Manet [was] a point of departure, the symptomatic precursor of a revolution”. For Picasso, “Cézanne was like the father of us all”. But Manet himself stated that he had “no intention of overthrowing old methods of painting, or creating new ones”, and Cézanne’s later period as a recluse in Provence removed him from direct engagement with the younger generation. This course explores the almost mythic quality with which artists and critics viewed Manet and Cézanne. It teases out points of continuity and innovation, addressing central topics of landscape, still life, materiality, and representation, as well as less obvious connections, for example the musical soirées of the society Le Petit Bayreuth. The course ends with an examination of the legacies of both Manet and Cézanne, paying critical attention to Clement Greenberg’s famous description of Cézanne as “the gateway to contemporary painting”.
Lecturer’s biography
Dr Charlotte de Mille is a specialist in modern French and British art, with a particular interest in the intersections between art and music. Following her PhD at The Courtauld (2009), she has taught at The Courtauld, and at the Universities of Sussex, Bristol and St Andrews. Charlotte is currently a mid-career Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art. She has published widely in her field and was the editor of Music and Modernism, c. 1849–1950 (2011), and the co-editor of Bergson and the Art of Immanence (2013). Charlotte curates The Courtauld Gallery’s music programme, and has been collaborating closely with the Public Programmes department for many years.)
