Charles A. Csuri: After Paul Cézanne
Artist(s):
Title:
- After Paul Cézanne
Exhibition:
- SIGGRAPH 2006: Charles A. Csuri: Beyond Boundaries (1963-present)
-
More artworks from SIGGRAPH 2006:
Creation Year:
- 1964
Medium:
- Ink on paper, analogue computer
Size:
- 64 x 81 cm (25 x 32 in)
Category:
Artist Statement:
After the Artist Series
“This [technology] allowed me to systematically alter the original geometry of my drawing. One end of the pantograph device traced the drawing and the other end was simultaneously making transformations. I was intrigued with the idea of using devices and strategies to create art. I questioned the notion there had to be a tactile kinesthetic process to create a drawing or painting.”
— Charles A. Csuri
Over the centuries, many artists have sought to believably translate our three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional surface. Csuri, like his early contemporaries who also worked as painters, defies a concern for strict realism and instead embraces the two-dimensional surface, challenging its limitations in his earliest endeavors with computer art. There were no mass-produced operating systems when Csuri began creating art in the early 1960s, necessitating that he create his own computer programs to challenge the limits of this new technology. Further, computers at this time were unable to assign values to account for mass, although the perception of spaces and their relatedness to mass will become a hallmark of Csuri’s art created in a three-dimensional world space.
In his After the Artist series, the first analogue computer art created by Charles Csuri from 1963 to 1964, Csuri recalls and recreates classic works by historically significant and personally compelling artists. In all, he created nine analogue drawings, referencing works by Paul Cézanne, André Derain, and Albrecht Dürer, among others. In this series, Csuri creatively distills selected masterpieces into their vital components, thus placing the works by these artists into a new role he has assigned to them.
Then, using his analogue process, Csuri masterfully repeats, stretches, skews, and inverts the elements. These works translate traditional art by harnessing a vehicle originally created for the scientific applications. The result is a new artistic paradigm, in which Csuri appropriates scientific elements and injects unpredictability, dynamism and controlled artistic chaos. By stripping the works of Cézanne, Derain and Dürer of their z-axis, Csuri removes that aspect which confers depth and volume, working instead with “relationships between objects as transformations involving position, rotation and scale.” These ‘transformations’ result from the distillation of well-known works into their simplified forms, and their subsequent manipulation results in tension between dimensions.
The intellectual climate of early twentieth century Paris generated schools of art such as Cubism and Fauvism, movements that sought to rebuke the photographic, mechanical reproduction of the tangible world. Their investigations into essential expressions of color and line drove artistic innovation. Here, Csuri reevaluates two of the artists who played significant roles in this milieu, Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) and André Derain (1880–1954).
In After Paul Cézanne, Csuri pays homage to Cézanne’s significant contributions to the art world, particularly his innovations as the forefather of Cubism, a style in which space is broken into planes outside traditional modes of representation. Csuri was well aware of Cézanne’s prominent role in art history and had a personal affinity for his work, having spent long hours in museums and galleries closely studying the works of Cézanne and other master artists. In a personal symbolism of geometric forms, Csuri uses concentric circles and progressively larger squares that emanate from the center of Cézanne’s eyes. Read from left to right, the circles and squares express Cézanne’s unique vision and the modes through which he translated physical space onto two-dimensional canvas. When asked about the symbolism, Csuri stated, simply and with a smile, “He was the father of modern art, having the vision for Cubism…I couldn’t resist playing with it.”
All Works by the Artist(s) in This Archive:
- Charles A. Csuri
-
Sine Curve Man
[SIGGRAPH 1986] -
Leonardo Man
[SIGGRAPH 1986] -
Hummingbirds
[SIGGRAPH 1986] -
Ritual Dance
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Ritual Dance
[SIGGRAPH 1996] -
Goldenmask
[SIGGRAPH 1996] -
Sinescape
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Paul Cézanne
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Paul Klee
[SIGGRAPH 1998] -
The Past Casts Shadows
[SIGGRAPH 1998] -
Hummingbird
[SIGGRAPH 1986] -
Grass
[SIGGRAPH 1986] -
Anima 2
[SIGGRAPH 1986] -
Real-time Art System
[SIGGRAPH 1986] -
Hand
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Aging Process
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Origami Swallows
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Computer Films
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
She's Watching Superman
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Contemplation
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Albrecht Dürer
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After André Derain
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Jean-Auguste Ingres
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Pablo Picasso
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Francisco Goya
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Albrecht Dürer’s Study of Genti...
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Paul Klee
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
After Piet Mondrian
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Dignified Lady
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Five Faces
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Bearded Man in a Circle
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Leonardo da Vinci Series
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
3D Path and Transformations
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Sketch Flying Around the Drawing
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Stereo Pairs
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Man Moving Through N-Space
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Sine Waves Scramble
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Sine Curve Man
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Sine Curve Man
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Hummingbird II
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Aging Process
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Birds in a Hat
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Numeric Milling
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Plotter Drawing of Numeric Milling
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Random War
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Feeding Time
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Silent Statues
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
A Child's Face
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Caroline
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
The Hungarians
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Death of My Father
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Faces
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Mask of Fear
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Brick Landscape
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Cosmic Matter
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Gossip
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Wondrous Spring
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Dance of the Sorcerers
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Surrealist Dream
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Golden Mask
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
A Happy Time
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Garden Lovers
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Horse Play
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Political Agenda
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
ribbonVASES
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Horse and Rider
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
A Frozen Moment
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Balancing Act
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Clearly Impressive
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Aurora
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Dream Gazing
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Raphael Voglass
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
doodleFourteen
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
19th Century Space Station Frame 0321, s...
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Coral Frames 0001–0050, afish series
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
texturePERHAPS
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Strawscape
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Entanglement
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Brick Figures
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Coral Frames 0501, 1050, 1401, 1601, afi...
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Venus in the Garden Frame 73, venus seri...
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Venus in the Garden Frame 127, venus ser...
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Venus in the Garden Frame 64, venus seri...
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Origami Flowers Frame 89, simpleFLRS ser...
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Emily’s Scribbles Frame 300, fishscrib...
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Festive Frame 47, leo series
[SIGGRAPH 2006] -
Glorious Grass Frame 28, bush series
[SIGGRAPH 2006]