If These Apples Should Fall

For many artists and writers, the art of Paul C?ezanne represents the key to modernity. His paintings were a touchstone for writers such as Samuel Beckett as much as for artists such as Henri Matisse. Rainer Maria Rilke revered him deeply, as did Pablo Picasso. They thought if they lost touch with his sense of life, they lost an essential element of their own self-understanding. At the heart of C?ezanne's work lies a sense of disquiet: a hopelessness haunting the vividness, an anxiety beneath the splendid colors. Clark addresses this strangeness head-on, examining the art of Camille Pissarro, Matisse, and others in relation to C?ezanne's. Above all, he speaks to the uncanniness and beauty of C?ezanne's achievement--