Cezanne (Phoenix Art Museum)

This was interesting and fun - the Phoenix Art Museum had a show with a number of works by Cezanne, exhibited alongside works by a group of North American artists who admired Cezanne and used elements of his style in their own work.

So PJ and I went.

Art history is pretty confusing to me. This may have helped a bit. We learned that Cezanne did exhibit some works with the Impressionists in his early days. But he was moving in a different direction - as the exhibit put it, his work is sometimes labeled "post-Impressionism", or even "Modernism" (certainly a gateway to Modernism, even I can see how his stuff might lead to Cubism). He lived in the countryside (mostly Provence), avoided Paris, gained some favorable attention, but was dead before being widely recognized.

Still life works (preferring fruit over flowers because the fruit lasted longer); landscapes (especially Monte Sainte-Victoire), portraits (impassive subjects), water colors. It was interesting to stick your face right up to the still life items in particular to see the layering.

The items from the North American influencees were also interesting, in part because so many of them were southwest (read: Santa Fe) based.

This was followed by a delightful early dinner at Postino's in Arcadia. I even liked the Dogfish Punkin Ale.

Photos top-to-bottom: 1) Cezanne late-in-life self-portrait; 2) "Five Apples;" 3) Willard Nash landscape - Santa Fe area - emulating Cezanne landscape touches, we're told.

I thought it was a new problem

I really enjoy Montaigne's Essays. And Montaigne really enjoyed Plutarch's Lives.

We were talking the other day about the manner in which folks tend to respond to cell phone calls, text messages, etc. on the spot, without much regard to what I would still consider to be good manners. This struck me as a very modern problem.

Then I read Montaigne (writing around 1580) describing something he read in Plutarch (maybe written around 100 AD). It sounded all too familiar:

"I was just now on that passage where Plutarch tells us on his own that Rusticus, while attending one of his lectures at Rome, received a packet from the Emperor, and delayed opening it until the lecture was all over, for which, says Plutarch, all the audience highly praised his composure. In truth, since Plutarch was on the subject of curiosity - and specifically that greedy and gluttonous passion for news that makes us so indiscreetly and impatiently abandon everything to talk with a newcomer, or tear open immediately the letters that are brought to us, no matter where we are and without regard to respect and decorum - he was right to praise the composure of Rusticus . . ."