The Gaze of the Blind: Notes on Cezanne and Cubism

Beginning: "Art historians usually distinguish between two divergent trends in modern painting: an expressionist one, which found favor above all in Germanic, Protestant countries, and another which I would call "thing-ist," whose adherents mostly came from the Latin, Catholic world (from Cézanne to the cubism of Picasso and Braque, from Léger up to Italian arte povera). But this distinction should be closely examined. While Van Gogh and Munch on the one hand and Cézanne on the other appear to open what is perceived as two alternative approaches in modern art, one may ask whether this distinction is necessary. Is it, in short, something etched deeply into the project of modern art?"