This piece of wisdom comes to us from Cèzanne. But it’s not just Cèzanne’s insight. Charles Hawthorne, for example, said, “Color first, house second.” And Monet famously advanced the notion quite simply when he stated, “Don’t see the thing before you.” In other words, just respond to the sensations of line and color. Never see a head as a head or a house as a house; otherwise, you will attempt to make something that looks like a head or a house and in your effort to get the right result or likeness of the thing over there, your ability to feel just the line of it or the color of it will be diminished. The work will be a reference to the thing over there but it will less likely be an expression of your feelings.

I was reminded of this admonition when I went to see a Manet exhibition recently. But more about that in a moment. First I wish to make the point visually by referring to the work of my late teacher, Bill Schultz.

In a class, just about 40 years ago (whew!), Schultz wanted us to learn how to “draw with a brush.” So the task was to use just one brush and one color to do a head study of the model.

So I began to do as asked and not more than a few minutes had gone by before Schultz came up to my easel and said, “Here Jerry, let me show you.” I must have looked like I needed help, big time. And so he took my brush and in about 10 minutes did the study on the left. It is simply oil on newsprint. I asked him to sign it (after all, there was no evidence of my miserable first few marks – thankfully). And he obliged. I never tire of studying this piece.

Look at the close-up below. Notice how he has treated the eyes and nose and mouth. They don’t exist as eyes, nose, and mouth. He wasn’t seeing them. He was squinting, comparing, and scumbling in dark and middle values (using the one color – burnt sienna) and leaving the lights open or just the color of the paper. And line? Was he drawing one eye, then the other, then the nose, etc? No. Absolutely not. There are no eyes. There is no nose. He placed a line where there are separations of value; in this case, where the left eyelid of the model is and slightly on that part of the left iris that separates – and even more faintly where the eyelid of the right eye separates. But just barely. He didn’t see the model before him. He got her through the line and the color by responding to, which is to say feeling, the sensations of line and color.

So at the Manet exhibition in Milan, I found this incredible drawing and I said to myself, “Oh my goodness, there it is again.” Manet’s drawing is below.

Schultz’s approach was identical to that of Manet’s. Manet has scumbled in darks and middle values using one color. He has left the lights open. And notice the line. He doesn’t outline the hat or the face because there are no eyes, no nose, or head really. Instead the line can be said to be lost and found – found in places where there are value separations; lost or no line in those places where values are the same and don’t separate. And notice the variety of line too. They are not all equal in intensity but reflect the intensity of the separation.

Okay, final question: are these works finished? Answer: the question is a category mistake. Works of art aren’t products. They don’t roll off the assembly line or pop out of ovens as cakes might do. Works of art are either dead or alive and when they are alive, they are complete in any stage – just like human beings who are born one day and die many days later, always complete at any age, in any stage.

Moral of the story? Don’t refer to the thing, express your feelings in reaction to the thing. Make art not pictures. Or as Cèzanne would say, “Paint heads as you would doorknobs.”