The Chateau de Medan 1880

Editor: Here we have Cézanne's "The Chateau de Medan," painted around 1880. It's an oil painting and gives off such a hazy, almost dreamlike feeling. It almost feels more like a memory than a landscape, which makes it so intriguing. What do you see in it? Curator: It’s interesting you say that. I see a yearning, almost, perhaps for a simpler, more authentic existence. Cézanne often returned to subjects, trying to truly *see* them. He wasn't interested in a photographic rendering. See how he builds the scene with those methodical brushstrokes? He’s asking us, ‘What does it *feel* like to *be* in this space?’ Do you feel grounded by it or slightly…off? Editor: I do feel a bit unsettled. The way the buildings seem to be both there and sort of dissolving. It feels like Cézanne isn't just painting what he sees, but what he *remembers* seeing, maybe? Curator: Exactly! Think of the Impressionists, his contemporaries, chasing light, capturing fleeting moments. Cézanne? He wanted the bones of the landscape. The enduring form. He wants you to ask "How do these buildings shape the river, shape my sense of reality and place"? He would go on to profoundly influence the Cubists because of that intense pursuit of the structure. Editor: So, it’s almost as if he is stripping away the superficial to get to some kind of underlying truth about the place. That's so much more powerful than a perfect photographic image. Curator: Indeed. And don’t underestimate the colors. That muted palette – greens, ochres, blues – conveys the dampness, the heaviness of the air, and of time. And I can imagine that same painter asking, ‘What truth lies beneath *your* surface?’ Editor: That really reframes how I see it! I’m suddenly thinking a lot about memory and truth, not just about pretty scenery. Curator: Yes, exactly! Next time, I'll make you ask that of every object! It has that power.