Still-life painting was neglected by most Impressionists, but it occupies an important place in Cézanne?s work. The still lifes preceding his Impressionist period are painted in the same heavy impasto, emphasizing contrast, as the other works of the sixties, but differ in their emphatically static character from the movement and activity of his contemporary figure paintings. The composition and handling of the paint indicate Cézanne?s awareness of Manet and probably Francois Bonvin and Antoine Vollon.

The Black Clock has a powerful and precise structure, emphasizing vertical and horizontal lines. As in most of Cézanne?s still lifes, the objects are familiar, but their selection is very unusual, if not peculiar. Evidently it is the only example of a clock, albeit one without hands, in the whole of Cézanne?s work; the same clock appears, hardly visible, in a sketch for Alexis Reading to Zola (private collection, Zurich; see Venturi, no. 118) of 1869-70. It would be difficult to deny the clock a symbolic value, especially as it is asso ciated with another object that is unique in Cézanne?s oeuvre a mirror. During the same period he introduced skulls in other compositions (see Venturi, nos. 61 and 68); skulls appear again only in a few works painted just before the Artist’s death. The repetition, by a man well versed in classical literature, of objects symbolizing the fragility of life and the inevitable passage of time can hardly be fortuitous. It is a kind of modern vanitas.

This painting was probably done at Zola?s home since the clock and the little vase above it appear in the sketch for Alexis Reading to Zola already mentioned; it is usually dated 1869-71 but may be slightly earlier. Cézanne gave The Black Clock to Zola, his friend since childhood, whom he saw regularly in Paris between 1868-70. Cézanne always considered it an important work, and, in 1878, though it had little stylistic relation to his work at the time, he chose to represent himself with it in a planned Impressio nist exhibition that never took place. M.H.

Provenance:

March 9-13, 1903Emile Zola, Médan (in the Emile Zola sale,, no. 114); Auguste Pellerin;Baron Kohner, Budapest; Paul Rosenberg, Paris; G. Wildenstein, New York; Edward G. Robinson, Beverly Hills, California.

Exhibitions:

1932 London, Royal Academy of Arts, Exhibition of French Art, no. 441

1933 Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, no. 320

1936 Paris, l'Orangerie des Tuileries, Cézanne, no. 11