The Art World: Drawing Conclusions

Cézanne at MOMA.

Peter Schjeldahl

Some of us don’t like the inarguably great artist Paul Cézanne as much as we know we are supposed to. I, for one, have struggled with him all my art-loving life. Others, as I’ve confirmed in recent conversations with Cézanne devotees, are astonished and appalled to hear anything with even a trace of negativity said about him. “Cézanne Drawing,” at the Museum of Modern Art, with some two hundred and eighty works on paper (too many? Not really, because quantity intensifies the works’ qualities), has a cumulative impact that is practically theological for both believers and skeptics, akin to a creation story, a Genesis, of modernism. It’s a return to roots for MOMA, which initiated its narrative of modern painting in 1929 with a show that included van Gogh, Seurat, and…

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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 28, 2021

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