Cézanne and The Eternal Feminine

Cézanne’s painting The Eternal Feminine, painted in 1878, has been given considerable attention in the literature on this artist, though it has generally embarrassed scholars because it suggests aspects of the artist’s personality that many connoisseurs in the past would rather have repressed. The painting has been known by a variety of titles and, as Wayne Andersen has discovered, has also been altered. He traced these alterations to an art dealer who made them in an effort to render the painting more marketable. This volume is the first to interrogate the original state of The Eternal Feminine and to resolve its mysterious importance to Cézanne and, more broadly, the history of art. Devoting a separate chapter to each of the titles by which the picture has been known, Andersen resolves its hidden meaning while providing a fresh look at Cézanne’s artistic process.

• First book to engage in an in-depth discussion of the alteration of Cézanne’s The Eternal Feminine • Unlocks the multiple titles and hidden meanings attributed to the painting • Explores the painting’s influence on art history and the career of Cézanne

1. The eternal feminine; 2. The miracle of her restored vision; 3. Les Spectacles des Fêtes Foraines; 4. Ambroise Vollard’s show window; 5. Leda and the Swan; 6. The clothed and the naked; 7. The Death of Sardanapalus; 8. The whore of Babylon; 9. Venus, venal, venality; 10. The sacrifice of the eose; 11. Hero and Leander; 12. The apotheosis of Delacroix; 13. The vicissitudes of love; 14. Wives in crisis; 15. Why not put the eyes at the crotch; 16. From whose point of view; 17. The sand-man.