The Buffet Paul Cezanne

This still life was painted between 1877 and 1879. The Buffet in the Budapest collection serves as a perfect illustration of the diagnosis of Cezanne’s works ascertained by the art critic Ernő Kállai: “The ideal that Cezanne held in his mind’s eye was the solid, plastic forming of the ancients. His desire was to turn the ethereal colours of the impressionists into a substantive painterly creation, but … without sacrificing a single one of their myriad hues. Not only did he maintain the impressionist colouration, he gave it added layers and nuances. Cezanne called the process “modulation”, and in his still lifes he applied pigment to canvas in small patches, gradually building up the forms and masses of the painted objects. Two adjacent patches of colour always had to achieve tonal equilibrium.“ Since the painting underwent restoration in spring 2012, the artist’s original ideas and solutions can now be seen in perfect clarity. Besides its palette, the picture stands out for its composition. The carved side panel on the buffet has a flowing form, while the punctiliously placed tableware, fruits and sponge biscuits are depicted using basic geometric shapes; yet it is the system of relationships between these forms that makes this painting a key work. This masterpiece forms a bridge between the early, “baroque-like” period of Cezanne’s œuvre and the true “Cezannesque” painting that gained increasing distinction from the 1880s onwards. Even the handling of the brush in this work reflects a transitional stage. Restoration revealed once more the striking contrast between the gentle application of light blue pigment on the background wall and the thick impasto of the white cloth in the foreground, with its diagonal lines and its boldly structured solutions.

Illyés, Mária, Verő, Mária (ed.), XIX. századi francia művek, A Szépművészeti Múzeum gyűjteményei/The Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest 4, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 2001, p. 96-97.

Ruttkay, Helga (ed.), Múzeumi Kalauz: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai, Szépművészeti Múzeum – Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest, 2018, p. 238.

Radványi, Orsolya (ed.), Remekművek: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2020/5, Szépművészeti Múzeum – Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest, 2020, p. 37.

Bätschmann, Oskar – Causey, Faya – van Faassen, Sjoerd – Forgács, Éva – Janssen, Hans – Lebensztejn, Jean-Claude – Tompkins Lewis, Mary – Ozerkov, Dmitrij – Ruppen, Fabienne – Shiff, Richard – Smith, Paul – Bodor, Kata – Fehér, Dávid – Gergely, Mariann – Geskó, Judit – Gonda, Zsuzsa – Kovács, Anna Zsófia – Orosz, Márton – Somodi, Anett – Szeredi, Merse Pál – Tóth, Ferenc – Warman, Jayne, Geskó, Judit (ed.), Cezanne-tól Malevicsig: Árkádiától az absztrakcióig, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 2021, p. 392-393., no. 97.